Okay, after spending the last half hour doing A/B tests of 160kbps, 192kpbs, 256kpbs, and 350kbps .ogg files, I don’t think my ears are good enough to hear that much of a difference. I think I’m going to go with 256kbps, but I’ll give everything a listen at home through speakers and headphones and then decide. Maybe my ears suck, or maybe it’s the noisy sound card in this machine. We’ll see.
Leave a CommentMonth: July 2002
Okay, Monkey’s Audio:
27 File(s) 458,098,103 bytes
Ogg Vorbis 256kBps:
27 File(s) 144,111,480 bytes
Defiantely an advantage on file size. I think there’s an advantage on sound, too. The .ape files (Monkey’s Audio lossless) sounded brighter. Hard to tell. Time to get a spectrum analyzer…
1 CommentWhile I was at lunch I decided to use Exact Audio Copy to rip beefcake’s drei down to some .ogg files using Ogg Vorbis 1.0. So far I’m pretty impressed. I went with the standard 256kBps VBR for a first try. At first listen on my notebook here at work it sounds like a 320kBps MP3 but with better high frequency sounds. It also pulled the whole disc down into ~150MB. Not bad…
Lately I’ve been desiring to rip a number of my most listened to CDs into some sort of compressed format. That way it’ll be easier to listen to around the house. I’ve now got a notebook and some Aiwa USB speakers in the kitchen. My I-Opener and a USB->TOSLINK adapter would work well down by the television. Obviously the PCs could act as their own players.
Sounds good so far, eh? Now comes the hard part… Deciding on a format. Monkey’s Audio is a nice lossless codec, but it’s Winamp support is a bit dodgy. Works, but not well. MP3 is just sounding tired. You can always tell an MP3, at almost any bitrate. Ogg is sounding good, has great support from software players, but I can’t find some good recommendations as far as settings go. I think that 256kBps VBR is going to work good. Going to 350kBps VBR will add an estimated 25%, and I’m not sure if it’s worth it. Perhaps I need to do some listening tests, then some decoding (to wave) and run the files through a spectrum analyzer vs. the original wave.
Anyone have enough experience with Ogg or various other codecs that they can make a recommendation? Hopefully I can find a codec that will be good for a few years to come. I know that lossless would be best, but it will also be about 300MB per disc then.
1 CommentI’d like to take a vacation to Alaska later this year. Not your normal cruise or touristy thing, though. I want to fly from somewhere near here to Prince Rupert, BC (YPR) and then take the Alaska Marine Highway Transit System’s Ferry to Ketchikan, AK (KTN). Spend maybe three or four days wandering around Ketchikan, then return the way I came. The ferry is only $43 per person plus $48 each way for a two person outside cabin. The cabin wouldn’t be necessary, just nice for the view. It looks like airfare will run about $400 round trip from DTW to YPR. Not bad… For a rather nice hotel (Cape Fox) the rates are $139 – $149/night or, The Gilmore Hotel, a more standard place is $90/night for two twin beds. No one was answering the phone at the Super8. That all comes out to about $666 for travel and accomodations if you figure four nights. A little more for the cabin on the ferry if needed. Add food and random other expenses and it sounds like a rather cheap vacation for such a far off place.
There’s the flights, the view of the inside passage on a six hour ferry ride. A couple days to wander around the town, hike, hit up the parks, giggle at the tourists, etc.
Sounds like my kind of vacation… Would anyone else be interested in going? I might do it alone, I’m not sure, though…
11 CommentsHrm. It seems I may have broken part of the web space at my new host. Well, not broken per say, but close. I tried installing Gallery with safe_mode turned on. It allowed me to create a gallery, but it promptly broke itself and left a directory that I don’t have access to hanging out there. That might not be so bad, but safe mode keeps even a PHP-based file manager from deleting it. I uploaded one and tried. I figured if it was running as the same user as created it (whatever Apache user) it’ll be able to delete the file. Wrong. If the host is willing to turn off safe_mode everything will go fine, otherwise I’ll be looking for another host that offers a bit more flexability as far as server configuration goes. This place is great so far, but some things seem limiting. I’d also like to direct gallery.nuxx.net to nuxx.net/gallery, but I think that will take some work as well. If it’s possible here…
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