McCartney & Harrison remasters in FLAC!

I've read that "My Sweet Lord" is different on 45 than CD. Could this be the original mix of the entire album in FLAC?

You will NOT be able to tell a difference between the FLAC files and a CD. If anything, the FLACs will sound better because they are 24 bit.

Many may claim to hear a difference between CD & 320 or 256 kbps mp3; if I could, I'd challenge them to a double-blind test.

My suspicion is that they'd lose that challenge.

You may hear differences... but which one is uncompressed? The "smoother" copy may sound "dull" to someone else, the "brighter" copy sound "harsh," the "detailed" copy sound "gritty" to someone else.

In other words, with modern pop recordings you may have to know what the original was supposed to sound like to tell which is the uncompressed copy.

(Orchestras are easier if you know what an instrument is supposed to sound like; even so, you may guess BOTH are compressed, when it may simply be the positioning of the mics in the original recording.)

A 24 bit FLAC file likely exceeds the capabilities of your current sound card unless you're using a pro card. It is higher detail than a CD, and as Aaron pointed out, burned to a CD it will be indistinguishable from certainly any professionally produced CD of the tapes, and likely from the tapes even if you had them side by side to compare.

Brief technical info: CDs, and most WAV files, are 16 bit. 24 bit gives more info to the digital to analog converter (another influencer of the final sound) to determine the exact rise and fall of each sound wave.

FLAC is a lossless compression system. In other words, unlike mp3s which throw some of the sound it doesn't think you'll miss away, the FLAC decompresses to a bit-for-bit identical copy of the original WAV file.

If you're unhappy with the FLAC files, I'll buy them from you! (Offer only good if you get the version WITHOUT limiting.) ;-)

Edited by NightAire

aaronk wrote: It's definitely better sound than 16 bit CD quality, but I'm not sure you can call it "master tape quality."

What I meant to say was, isn't that the same bitrate as the digital master tape that is used for mastering CDs?

Brian W. wrote: What I meant to say was, isn't that the same bitrate as the digital master tape that is used for mastering CDs?

Yes, I think you might be right about that. I still wonder if I would be able to tell the difference, given the exact same mastering, just at different bit rates.

aaronk wrote: I agree, although I think I'm able to tell more than 1% of the time. It's not so much the difference in the audio quality that my ear picks up; it's the audible artifacts that are left behind by the encoder.

I was going to say, "Aaron can tell the difference," but I didn't want to volunteer you, LOL.

But you should hear someting encoded with Quicktime's True Variable Bitrate AAC encoder. It's pretty impressive.