What is flac lossless format. Compressed audio storage formats: MP3, AAC, OGG and others. What is CUE
Didn't you graduate from the conservatory? Then losseless You don't need it, listen to high-quality mp3.
Very often there are individuals who despise compressed formats in principle. You should not rely on their opinion. The next fashionistas, who in the study with a 90% probability won't hear the differences compressed audio from uncompressed.
What is mp3
MP3 was invented not only to cut quality. It was developed by the Fraunhhofer Society, an association of applied research institutes in Germany. They later came up with AAC, which could have become the main compressed audio format... But it didn’t work out.
Did you know that MP3 comes with variable (VBR) And constant bit rate (CBR)? A constant bitrate, due to the operation of the algorithm, is encoded every time as if it were the first time. Therefore, it may produce uneven quality, which means that not every sound in this situation will be recorded with high quality.
Since MP3 has been around for quite some time, it has a lot of limitations. Bit size - 16–24 bits. The sampling frequency is represented by the following set of options: 8; 11.025; 12; 16; 22.05; 24; 32; 44.1; 48. The maximum bitrate does not exceed 320 kbps. The maximum number of channels is 2. But we are still talking about music, multichannel I still need to look for the records. 
Now let's see how MP3 is encoded. The illustration shows the time-frequency distribution of sound. Same recording: Audio CD, OGG file, well encoded MP3. What we see is that the pieces on the right and left coincide almost completely. So the MP3 file sounds almost the same, How original recording on CD.
Human hearing and its limits - psychoacoustics
The fact is that the main task of the Fraunhhofer Society is the development of psychoacoustic models of human sound perception. And there are many subtleties here. Home - we are not dolphins.
Secondly, there are certain restrictions on the number of simultaneously perceived sounds. A person can simultaneously hear no more than 250 sounds out of 24 ranges (and the number of simultaneous sounds in the range is also quite small).
Thirdly, the audible range is from 16 Hz to 20 kHz and by the age of 60 it decreases by almost twice. Ideally, and with training (yes, it needs to be trained!).
All frequencies below 100 Hz is not perceived by auditory cells, but... skin. Then the low waves are reflected in the auditory canal - these waves are perceived as infrabass. (This is from the area of bone conduction.) 
Moreover, the number of registrants acoustic waves Each cell is different. Why, for each individual person their number in the right and left ear is different.
By the way, the perception everyone differs by ear. Swap the channels in your favorite song and get a new sound.
If we dig deeper, it turns out that each frequency of sound is perceived only at a certain volume. When it is reached, silence is replaced by a sharp and quite distinct sound. Afterwards a person can hear more quiet sound this frequency. 
Another interesting property of hearing is how less volume level, the lower its resolution, the lower the number of perceived sounds. When the volume is lowered, they are perceived better high frequencies, when increasing - low. And they do not complement, but replace each other.
Human doesn't perceive some sounds, focusing attention on others. Please note - usually one instrument, or vocals, is clearly and consciously heard. Everything else turns into a background or a single consonance. And no matter what we concentrate on in the composition, we cannot increase the number of perceived basic sounds.
How mp3 is created
All this data obtained from experimental studies, brought together and presented in the form of an ideal model of human hearing. This is what the MP3 standard is aimed at.
Everything that a person clearly does not hear is cut off immediately. Further processing worsens the sound according to the understanding of this model.
Thanks to the extensive work carried out, modern psychoacoustic The models estimate human hearing quite accurately and do not stand still.
In fact, despite the assurances of music lovers, musicians and audiophiles, MP3 in maximum quality has practically limiting parameters.
There are exceptions, they cannot but exist. But they are not always easily noticeable during blind listening. And they no longer follow from the mechanisms of hearing, but from algorithms for processing sound information by the brain.
And here only personal factors play a role. All this explains why we love different models of headphones and why numerical audio characteristics cannot unambiguously determine sound quality.
MP3 fits everything: the quality of analog recordings
The insistence of audiophiles demanding FLAC needs to be sifted through another serious sieve. Most analog recordings does not contain sufficient amount of information for losseless formats.
All CDs are recorded at a sampling rate of 44.1 kHz and 16-bit quantization. Where do the 192 kHz and 24/32 bits that are used when encoding in FLAC come from? They don’t exist, they’re a dummy!
You will object that for analog sound these parameters are higher... But for audio cassette and magnetic tape (unless, of course, it is a Japanese master tape) AudioCD characteristics UNAVAILABLE. For mass studio equipment, the ability to record analog audio corresponding to AudioCD has appeared relatively recently.
Therefore, there is no point in digitizing recordings from the pre-digital era with crazy quality, especially those made on magnetic media. They do not contain the spectra and the amount of information that containers can store without compression.
MP3 fits everything: digital
Strictly speaking, with the majority digital recordings- the same picture. In the 90s and later, cheap plastic boomboxes appeared. Sound engineers had to take care of a uniform sound on all devices - the dynamic range of the recordings was cut to 10-12 bits.
One more thing. Until recently, no one recorded in a studio in too high a quality. Because you can simultaneously work with several dozen audio tracks with high quality recording is difficult, and sometimes there are simply not enough human and technical resources.
If all this seems unconvincing, look at the results of any blind test. You can recognize the system, you can recognize the headphones. But only the most sophisticated gourmets can distinguish high-quality MP3 (CBR 320 kbps, Lame 3.93) from FLAC.
If you translate this word into Russian, you get “without losses.” This format good because its sound quality is better than, for example, Lossy codecs. The files also don't take up much space. Most programs can play the Lossless format, and those that can’t have special plugins for them that allow them to play this format. Let's now take a closer look at the lossless format.
Music of the highest quality
People who understand music and connoisseurs of good sound are unlikely to agree to listen to audio in mp3 format with compression, or the like. Of course, if you play such formats on ordinary equipment, such as a cheap smartphone, then you will not catch all the sound shortcomings, but if you have a sophisticated player for 40 thousand, then all the sound shortcomings will be revealed. So that there is sound highest quality, the Lossless format is just right. Even when using compression on this format, the sound will remain the same and will not become worse. Moreover, today there is equipment with reasonable price, which is capable of playing music of this format. I want to show several formats with no compression and with compression, but without loss of quality:
Uncompressed:
- CDDA
- IFF-8SVX
- IFF-16SV
- AIFF
Compressed:
- M4A – Apple Lossless
- FLAC
- WV-WavPack
- WMA Windows Media Audio 9
- LA – Lossless Audio
- TTA – True Audio
Now I want to talk about several formats for this list. Go.
FLAC format
This format is very common and when using it, the sound does not lose anything, unlike audio codecs. This format can be used with high quality Hi-Fi and Hi-End equipment. Since the format is quite popular, almost all media players support it.
APE format
For this format, there are only plugins and codecs for Windows OS, and for other operating systems and players there are more expensive solutions. When compressing a file, you can achieve minimal losses by several times.
Apple Lossless Format
Losless music files can be listened to on Apple equipment. For this purpose it was developed Apple format Lossless, which is available on both iPhone and iPod. According to tests, this format is not even bad, since compression occurs from 40% to 60% of original file and without loss of quality. The only drawback of this format is that the extension matches the AAC format, although AAC format does not have high quality properties. In this case, the manufacturers decided that the information would be stored in the MP4 container, the file extension accordingly would be .mp4a., as a result, the format works on Apple products, and on Windows products.
What software should I use to listen to Lossless?
I want to say that many players did not immediately start working with this format.
Winamp
The well-known WinAmp player plays almost all formats without loss of quality; it processes tracks in the Lossless format well.
AIMP
I use this player. It can play most formats too.
Which players support the Lossless format?
Here are a few players that users respond well to: SpiderPlayer, jetAudio, Foobar 2000.
They all support this format, and it’s up to you to decide which one to choose. See reviews on the Internet, price. There are very expensive Hi-Fi options for 40 thousand, you need to listen to only high quality music on them, otherwise an mp3 format will reveal all the shortcomings of the sound, and you will hear it perfectly.
What is the lossless format for?
This is music encoding (Lossless data compression) - compression without loss of quality, an information compression method that allows you to restore the compressed information of the original with bit accuracy.Lossless- this is a so-called “archive” (compressed wav, lossless codec), with source audio material, from an audio disc, CDDA, SACD, DVD-A or vinyl record, which is supplemented with information. In this form it can be stored and listened to.
When you unpack (decompress) such an archive, you receive the original audio material (from which the rip was taken) accurate to the bit.
For compression, lossless codecs such as - APE, Flac, WV, ALAC, TAK, TTA, the main purpose of which is to transform (convert) an audio file to reduce its size from any source of uncompressed audio (original), using lossless information compression, i.e. lossless.
When compressing (converting) into any of the above codecs, the difference is only in the bitrate (bitrate - data flow rate in kilobits per second during playback), how much the audio material is compressed, the parameter of which has nothing to do with the safety of the sound, i.e. You can use any codec convenient for you, there is no difference in sound quality between them.
Why do we need lossless?
1. First of all, the ability to make a copy of an audio disc.2. Convenient storage and exchange via the Internet, having smaller size, compared to the original.
Translated from English, the word Lossless means “without loss.” If the sound is compressed using special lossless audio codecs, then, if desired, it can always be restored with absolute accuracy. For example, if you take an ordinary AudioCD with sound in analog format, then you will record it in WAV format for uncompressed audio, then compress WAV using lossless, and then decompress the resulting audio file into WAV and, as a result, you can record the resulting result on regular blank CD. This way you will get two completely identical AudioCDs. The advantage of the lossless format for storing audio is that the quality of the recordings is much higher than that of lossy codecs. However, they take up much less space than uncompressed audio. However, lossy files are much smaller in size than other lossless music files. Most modern software players can play lossless format. Programs that cannot play this format can easily learn to do so using the lossless plugin. What are losseless audio formats?
Sound without loss of quality
It is unlikely that a true music connoisseur will be satisfied with the sound of music recorded in MP3 or OggVorbis compression formats. Of course, if you listen to audio recordings on household equipment, then the sound defects will simply be impossible to detect by ear. But if you try to play each compressed file on a high-quality hi-fi device, you will immediately notice all the audio flaws. Of course, create a collection quality music on vinyl records or CD discs is not easy. However, there is a reasonable alternative to this for fans high-quality sound. This is music in lossless format. Such music can be stored on a personal computer in a form that allows the original parameters of the music to remain unchanged, even if compression has been used. This path At the same time, it also allows you to solve the problems of high quality music and its compact storage. Today, audio equipment for listening to music is quite affordable.
Uncompressed audio formats without loss of quality:
- CDDA – CD audio standard;
- WAV – Microsoft Wave;
- IFF-8SVX;
- AIFF;
- IFF-16SV;
Compressed formats:
- APE - Monkey's Audio;
- M4A - Apple Lossless - high-quality music for Apple devices;
- WV - WavPack;
— LA – Lossless Audio;
- WMA - Windows Media Audio 9;
- TTA - True Audio;
FLAC format
One of the most common formats today is the FLAC format. What distinguishes it from lossy audio codecs is that when used, no data is removed from the audio stream at all. This allows you to successfully use it to play music on Hi-End and Hi-Fi equipment, and also use it to create an archive of audio collections. Big advantage This format lies in its free distribution. For musicians who record their own music, this is important. IN Lately This format has gained great popularity. Therefore, its support is included in most media players.
APE format
For the APE format, unlike FLAC, there are only plugins and codecs that are designed for the Windows platform. Other platforms have their own expensive solutions from third party manufacturers software. This algorithm can achieve compression without loss of audio information by approximately 1.5-2 times. The compression process consists of three main encoding steps. Only one of them is based on the use of properties inherent in sound for compression. All others are practically no different from conventional archivers. Despite the fact that the compression algorithm is distributed free of charge, the license restrictions are such that it is practically inaccessible to amateur musicians.
Apple Lossless Format
Music lossless quality may well be listened to when using an audio compression codec without compromising quality on devices Apple. This format was developed by Apple for use in its own devices. This format is compatible with iPod players that have special docking and latest firmware. This format does not use specific management tools DRM rights, however, the container format contains such capabilities. It is also supported by the QuickTime application. In addition, this format is included in libraries that are in free access. This makes it possible to organize listening to files in applications of the Windows operating system. Apple released in 2011 source codes format. This opens up broad prospects for this codec. In the near future, it may well be able to compete with other formats. In tests, this format shows pretty good results. Compressed files have a compression of 40 to 60% of the size of the originals. The decoding speed is also impressive. This justifies the use of this format for mobile devices that are characterized by low system performance. The main disadvantage of this codec is that the extension of the audio files matches the AAC audio codec. This leads to some confusion, because in essence the AAC format is not a high-quality music format. Therefore, it was decided to store information in an MP4 container with the .m4a extension. Among other formats, it is worth mentioning Windows Media Audio 9 Lossless, which is included in Windows applications Media. It works with MacOSX and Windows. However, users do not speak very favorably of it. The fact is that quite often certain problems arise with codec compatibility, and the number of supported channels is limited to only six.
Another freely distributed audio codec is the WavPack format. It allows you to compress audio information without loss of quality. WavPack integrates a special, exclusive combined mode that allows you to create two files. In this mode, one of the files is created in a relatively small size with loss of quality.wv, which you can easily play yourself. The second .wvc file can correct .wv. In combination with it, it allows you to fully restore the original. This approach may seem promising to some users, because then they do not have to choose between two types of compression. Both will always be realized. The Lagarith lossless codec video codec with high-quality audio also deserves attention. This video codec works quite efficiently and quickly.
Software for listening to lossless audio
Software players did not immediately begin to work with specific lossless codecs, which can reproduce sound without loss.
This player can handle almost all music playback formats without loss of quality. What's happened good player for the lossless format, can be explained using its example. This software player is quite capable of correctly processing individual tracks in lossless format. For APE or FLAC codecs this is quite typical problem. It lies in the fact that the entire sound disc. It is recorded as one file without division into tracks.
The problem of dividing into tracks can be solved by an additional file that has the .cue extension. It contains a description of the access parameters for each album track. A regular player will play the entire lossless file.
Player for lossless files
The AIMP player is great for playing most audio formats and recognizes tracks in lossless format.
Players supporting lossless formats
Users respond well to digital players Foobar 2000, jetAudio, SpiderPlayer. There are no fundamental differences between them. The choice of device will be based on the user’s subjective opinion about the convenience of the interface for playing the lossless format. You can find out what the lossless format is by testing all these players. AppleLossless format can be played when using iTunes. This codec is also supported by the popular video player VLC. Owners of Apple-compatible PCs can easily use two interesting programs– Cog and Vox. These programs support following formats lossless: FLAC, AppleLossless, MonkeyAudio and Wavpack. There is also a lot useful features. For example, Last.fm services are supported. Owners of computers with operating system Windows can easily use any application that is compatible with music codecs without loss of quality: WinAmp and Foobar 2000. The Winamp application requires special plugins. Lossless music can be played back perfectly using KMPlayer players and iTunes. Advantage iTunes apps is the ability to support tags.
Compatible with lossless devices
It is unlikely that the owner of a music library will want to waste time converting FLAC files to MP3 in order to be able to listen to these recordings on his gadget. On a tablet or smartphone limited opportunities, which cannot be compared with a personal computer, but many mobile devices Today they allow you to play lossless formats. For example, owners of devices running the Android operating system can use the andLess player. It can play files in APE and FLAC formats, as well as uncompressed Wav and other formats supported by the operating system. Android system. The situation is somewhat worse for owners of devices based on the Blackberry platform. Only owners of the Bold 8900 and 9000 models can listen to the lossless format. Owners of Apple devices can use the ALAC codec without any problems. This format is supported iPod player, iPad tablet And iPhone. To play the FLAC format, you can download the FLACPlayer program from the AppStore. SamsungGALAXY devices and some SonyEricsson smartphones, as well as iriver players also support the FLAC codec. FLAC support is also supported by desktop devices from many manufacturers. Media centers and media players make it easy to do without using a PC when listening to songs in lossless format. Full support for absolutely all formats is still a long way off, but this is quite enough for the media player to accept the FLAC codec, which is the most common codec for high-quality lossless music. What is lossless playback equipment?
Equipment for listening to lossless format
To get from high-quality sound a real pleasure, you need to use special equipment: amplifiers, speakers and headphones. Things are easiest, of course, with headphones. If you intend to enjoy music while sitting at your computer, then these are best for you. Users speak well of Sennheiser and Koss products. Special attention It is necessary to pay attention to the size of the membrane. The larger its size, the better the sound quality. IN in this case It’s important not to be deceived; many manufacturers put a small membrane in large ear pads. These headphones look pretty solid, but the sound is only suitable for listening to MP3 files. It is difficult for lovers of high-quality sound to recommend something specific. The choice in this area will be limited only by tastes and budget. Owners personal computers who choose high-quality acoustics for themselves, it would be best to choose budget columns for a computer from any popular brand. Users respond well to speaker systems produced by Microlab SOLO series.
If suddenly ordinary person“brings it” to a forum where those who consider themselves experts in high-quality sound gather, he will find that 80 percent of the audiophiles there are talking about the problem of bitrate. “Can a true music lover distinguish a recording from good bitrate from a “lossi” file or not” - debates on this topic with arguments for and against have not subsided for quite some time. This proves that it is difficult or almost impossible to force people to abandon their beliefs, to step over their “ego,” even if the facts testify against their delusions. In our article, we will give you some information about bitrate and how it relates to practical music listening experience.
What is bitrate?
If you love listening to music, you've probably heard the term "bitrate" before, so you probably have a general idea of what it means, but we'll try to refresh your memory and give you the "official" definition here. So, bitrate (from the English bit rate) is, in fact, a stream - the speed at which bits of information pass through, i.e. the amount of data processed during a certain period of time. In audio it is usually measured in kilobits per second. For example, the music you listen to on iTunes has a stream of 256 kilobits per second.
The higher the bitrate of a track, the more space it will require on your computer. Therefore, it has become common practice to compress audio CDs so that more music can be placed on your hard drive (or on a cloud drive, such as Dropbox, or any other). This is where the long-term debate about the quality of music from lossy and lossless files grows.
What's the difference betweenlossy andlossless?
When we say “lossless,” we mean that we didn’t change anything during the rewrite. original file, and it sounds like the original CD track. More often than not, however, we save music “lossy.” A typical lossy album (MP3 or AAC) is probably 100MB or so. The same album in a lossless format such as FLAC or ALAC (also known as Apple Lossless) would take up about 300MB. For this reason, “lossy” notation is common for fast download and save more disk space.
The problem is that when you compress a file to save space, you remove blocks of data. For example, when you take a PNG image of your computer screen and save it as a JPEG, you get a “flaw” in certain parts of the image, making it look essentially the same, but with some loss of clarity and quality. Consider the image below as an example: on the right it has been compressed into JPG format, and its quality suffered as a result (if you look closely at the color of the car, the details and the background). The same thing happens with music files, which are “compressed” into MP3, if such a comparison is correct. Quality losses that are noticeable to the human ear or eye are called compression artifacts.
It is clear that lossy files are a compromise, but a very significant one when we talk about the hard drive space that can be lost. great importance for 32 GB iPhone. But there are also different levels lossless: 128 kilobits per second, for example, takes up very little space, but will be of lower quality than a 320 kilobit file, which, in turn, has more low quality than a 1411 kbps file (which is considered truly lossless). However, there are many arguments that most people may not even hear the difference between the two bitrates.
Is bitrate really that important?
As storing files becomes easier and cheaper, high bitrate music is becoming more popular. But is it always worth your time, effort and disk space?
The answer to this question is not simple, and audiophiles are still fighting in battles, trying to solve an equation with two unknowns. The first part of the equation depends on technical implementation. If you are using expensive headphones or speakers good quality, you can listen to music in a wide range of sound. This is where the low bitrate becomes noticeable and you can tell that low-quality MP3 files are missing a certain level of detail, subtle background tracks may not be audible, highs and lows won't be as dynamic, or you may simply hear other significant audio distortions. In these cases, the lossless format is justified.
But if you're listening to your favorite music through a pair of cheap and generally crappy headphones on your iPod, you won't notice the difference between a 128-kbit file and a 320-kbit file, let alone a comparison between a 320-kbit file and a lossless one. file 1411 kbit. Remember that picture with the car? The music coming through your headphones looks like a smaller image, and you won't hear compression artifacts because the headphones don't have enough range.
The other part of the equation is your own ears. Most people simply don't pay enough attention or have the listening skills to tell the difference between two different bitrates. This skill can be developed to some extent over time, but sometimes not. In this case, it doesn't really matter what bitrate to use, does it? The fact of the matter is that it is very difficult to hear the difference between a lossless file and a 320-kilobit MP3 unless you are a sound engineer or musician with perfect pitch. For the vast majority of people, 320 kbps is more than enough for listening.
It would also be a big misconception that the higher the bitrate, the better quality track, since simpler audio signals will be compressed better and have a lower bitrate, and more complex ones will be worse. This is why classical music in lossless files has a lower bitrate than, for example, rock music. The ideal is to record with a variable bitrate, but with high quality. Therefore, the bitrate value is by no means the main indicator of the quality of the audio material.
Let's summarize. Lossless files are more promising in the sense that you can always "compress" the music, but you will never be able to get its quality back, so you will have to re-record it from a CD. This is the problem with online music stores and music libraries: if you've built up a huge library of iTunes music and then decide you want the same thing but at a higher bitrate, you'll have to start all over again. But MP3 has been great for exactly 20 years now. sound standard, and that's not likely to change anytime soon, so unless you're planning on becoming a militant audiophile fanatic, there's no need to worry about the recording quality of your favorite songs.
