What do I use to convert M4A to MP3?

[Fant0men]

So you basically don't care if things are well produced or not? You don't care about good things? Music doesn't need to sound good?

You can listen to whatever you want and however you want.  

I like what I like and you like what you like.  Why is this a problem for you?

The problem is that you feel so threatened by other points of view than your own that you're not even willing to entertain the idea that I'm right. These things are scientifically measurable. Maybe you like distorted sound that's been compressed to hell. In that case, just tell it like it is: "I like when music sounds like shit".

If you grew up listening to vinyl then that's probably why you like it. The sad thing is that you can't just admit it's about nostalgia and nothing else.

[RobertX]

No disrespect, Fan0men, but human beings are creatures of habit. soulcity is not technically-challenged, or she wouldn't be in this board today.

However, we like to make do with what we have even if the alternative is free of charge (for the most part). You can't just force anyone shitbin their old equipment in the name of technological progress.

If you watch Star Trek, you would have learned that more is not necessarily a good thing. What did Kahless say? "Destroying an empire to win a war is no victory, and ending a battle to saving an empire is no defeat."

This brings significance to this thread because, like I said, using more than what you need does not necessarily make the problem go away. What would be the point if soulcity buys more technology just to hear her favourite music, merely because you said so? She's happy to what she has, and we should just leave it to that, and that is the point.

We don't have to agree with soulcity's plans; I don't, but we have to respect it.

[Fant0men]

No disrespect, Fan0men, but human beings are creatures of habit. soulcity is not technically-challenged, or she wouldn't be in this board today.

However, we like to make do with what we have even if the alternative is free of charge (for the most part). You can't just force anyone shitbin their old equipment in the name of technological progress.

If you watch Star Trek, you would have learned that more is not necessarily a good thing. What did Kahless say? "Destroying an empire to win a war is no victory, and ending a battle to saving an empire is no defeat."

This brings significance to this thread because, like I said, using more than what you need does not necessarily make the problem go away. What would be the point if soulcity buys more technology just to hear her favourite music, merely because you said so? She's happy to what she has, and we should just leave it to that, and that is the point.

We don't have to agree with soulcity's plans; I don't, but we have to respect it.

She is of course free to do whatever she wants. What I don't like is when people can't admit their real motivations for doing things. If it's about nostalgia and habit, she could've just said so, instead of pretending that vinyl is the technologically superior format based on the price of vinyl records. It's expensive because vinyl records in general are collector's items, even the newly released ones, because they don't make very many for each release. I just think it's a ridiculous hipster thing, especially when they put out electronic music on vinyl, which is one of the dumbest things I know of in this world.

I don't understand why electronic music producers do that. Perhaps they don't understand the difference between the formats, and don't realize how silly it is to listen to a technologically inferior medium when you can just listen to the lossless audio file instead (which sounds much better). Perhaps it has something to do with many people not having a good sound system hooked up to their PC, or perhaps they're used to MP3s, and hence judge digital audio as inferior based on that. By comparison, I'm sure vinyl is better than MP3, but that's a shitty format that should just die already (just like vinyl), in my humble opinion. Ogg Vorbis is superior (quality-wise) to both MP3 and AAC.

[RodneyYouPlonker]

I just think it's a ridiculous hipster thing, especially when they put out electronic music on vinyl, which is one of the dumbest things I know of in this world.

So what are you saying exactly?  Are you now dissing Kraftwerk?

I would say that they are probably one of the most respected electronic bands among collectors world wide.

[Fant0men]

I just think it's a ridiculous hipster thing, especially when they put out electronic music on vinyl, which is one of the dumbest things I know of in this world.

So what are you saying exactly?  Are you now dissing Kraftwerk?

I would say that they are probably one of the most respected electronic bands among collectors world wide.

Do you even read before posting? I have nothing against Kraftwerk. They're just not for me, but what I was criticizing was putting electronic music on vinyl instead of Audio CD, which is clearly the superior format of the two.

[RobertX]

How is Ogg better than MP3 in quality?

As an aside: do people need to pay royalties when using MP3s for commercial purposes?

[Fant0men]

How is Ogg better than MP3 in quality?

As an aside: do people need to pay royalties when using MP3s for commercial purposes?

It has higher quality per bitrate, so you can have a Vorbis file that's lower bitrate than MP3 but still sounds as good or better than the higher bitrate MP3. Meaning; less audio compression artifacts, less noise / distortions. Consequently, if you encode a really high bitrate Vorbis file, it sounds very good. Vorbis is just a newer format. MP3 was finalized and released in 1993. Ogg Vorbis was finalized and released in 2000.

---

MP3 support used to not be included in Linux distros because of the patents. However, some distros ignored that and still bundled MP3 support. Now the patents have lapsed, so this is not an issue anymore.

"The basic MP3 decoding and encoding technology is patent-free in the European Union, all patents having expired there by 2012 at the latest. In the United States, the technology became substantially patent-free on 16 April 2017 (see below). MP3 patents expired in the US between 2007 and 2017."
~Wikipedia

[RodneyYouPlonker]

How is Ogg better than MP3 in quality?

As an aside: do people need to pay royalties when using MP3s for commercial purposes?

It has higher quality per bitrate, so you can have a Vorbis file that's lower bitrate than MP3 but still sounds as good or better than the higher bitrate MP3. Meaning; less audio compression artifacts, less noise / distortions. Consequently, if you encode a really high bitrate Vorbis file, it sounds very good. Vorbis is just a newer format. MP3 was finalized and released in 1993. Ogg Vorbis was finalized and released in 2000.

I think one major point that Fant0men is missing really is that it all depends on whether you use a really good DAC because if not you won't really get a good sound no matter how great the file is.

[Fant0men]

I think one major point that Fant0men is missing really is that it all depends on whether you use a really good DAC because if not you won't really get a good sound no matter how great the file is.

I hear the difference between MP3, Vorbis and FLAC even though I don't have a fancy DAC. I use Intel's built-in Audio circuitry:

*-multimedia
            description: Audio device
            product: Cannon Lake PCH cAVS
            vendor: Intel Corporation
            physical id: 1f.3
            bus info: pci@0000:00:1f.3
            version: 10
            width: 64 bits
            clock: 33MHz
            capabilities: pm msi bus_master cap_list
            configuration: driver=snd_hda_intel latency=32
            resources: irq:134 memory:a1230000-a1233fff memory:a1000000-a10fffff

I even use an old analog Sony receiver, though I have two great speakers that are fairly large. You just need good listening ears to hear the difference between the formats.

[RodneyYouPlonker]

I think one major point that Fant0men is missing really is that it all depends on whether you use a really good DAC because if not you won't really get a good sound no matter how great the file is.

I hear the difference between MP3, Vorbis and FLAC even though I don't have a fancy DAC. I use Intel's built-in Audio circuitry:

*-multimedia
            description: Audio device
            product: Cannon Lake PCH cAVS
            vendor: Intel Corporation
            physical id: 1f.3
            bus info: pci@0000:00:1f.3
            version: 10
            width: 64 bits
            clock: 33MHz
            capabilities: pm msi bus_master cap_list
            configuration: driver=snd_hda_intel latency=32
            resources: irq:134 memory:a1230000-a1233fff memory:a1000000-a10fffff

I even use an old analog Sony receiver, though I have two great speakers that are fairly large. You just need good listening ears to hear the difference between the formats.

Well I use a player that I've had for years and it's got a Burr Brown DAC and it's very good and has good quality.  To be honest, when it comes to the human ear, you only really notice the difference typically when listening to a drum kit and you can hear the cymbals they sound more realistic with FLAC audio.  Due to the MP3 sounding pretty good on a Burr Brown you won't really hear the difference with Vocals or Guitars or Keyboards or Bass it's just simply Drums that make the difference.  FLAC does sound a bit better but really the human ear can't hear that much and if you disagree then you've obviously convinced yourself it sounds better.  What really matters is how good the audio is when it was originally mixed in the studio and how it was mastered properly on a mixing desk and the quality of the equipment used.  Not really whether you're listening to FLAC or MP3, I have some MP3s that sound really good and especially when listening in headphones the sound is very nice and of a very high standard.