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Old 2005-02-28, 10:43 AM
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Five Five is offline
 
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Canada
Lightbulb Spotting Lossy Sources--links inside **2020 UPDATES**

Updated 2020-03-16

Hey all now we've got a forum dedicated to "questionable" sources (i.e. lossy/lossless). I moved all the previous threads on the topic in here.

I'm gonna stick this old thread at the top because it has the links to software. I'll come up with something a little cleaner in the next while.

-Five

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1st off, EAC is not always reliable for spotting lossy sources, based on discussion in this thread:
http://www.thetradersden.org/forums/...ead.php?t=1331

best free SA soft:
http://spek.cc/

best free FA soft:
http://www.thetradersden.org/forums/...d.php?t=157853

The freeware program AnalFreq works well, but is difficult to find these days. [some supporting evidence but overall not very useful for spotting mp3. audacity also works well. still runs on win10 in 2020, link updated -Five 2020]
Code:
856aaf2edbf4b558c98d9f0e4a0e3c8f *afreq18.zip

4ba7897a89c00c77fb5bf343ce644bb0 *AnalFreq.exe
0128eb119dc595a393460fbceba71540 *FFT.DLL
e13fca2618fe5a1fa5268b4a2aae576c *readme.txt
9de840be66582ad2293fd48f19a7b20f *UserManual.rtf

afreq18.zip 	28-Aug-2000 09:24 	59K
http://info.elf.stuba.sk/packages/pub/pc/sound/

original AnalFreq homepage, no archive available! too bad
http://www.simtel.net/product.downlo...s.php?id=17151

tell all your spouse that you are an AnalFreq 1.8 user! most unfortunately named software of all time!

The best tool is Adobe Audition/Cool Edit Pro. If you just want the SA functionality, download the old Cool Edit Pro 2.1, the Frequency Analysis and Spectral Analysis will still work even after the demo version expires (thanks to dorrcoq for this tip):

It is useful to add a "Black & White" preset for spectral analysis, to do this:

Quote:
Originally Posted by range_hood
Cool Edit pro 2.00
options > settings >

"colors" tab > "spectral" tab
Spectral High energy: black (highlight > change color)
Spectral Low Energy: white

Gamma: 0.4
thanks to range_hood for showing me this useful setting.

Cool Edit Pro 2.0:
http://www.softpedia.com/progDownloa...load-2076.html

Audacity is excellent for FA and pretty good for SA:
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

to use Audacity for FA, decompress to WAV, open the file with Audacity, select up to 23 seconds and go to view > plot spectrum. They say spectrum, but it's a Frequency Analysis you get. update: Audacity 1.3.10 (Beta) supports FLAC files with no need to decompress to wav first.

to use Audacity for SA, first go to Edit>Preferences>Spectograms and change the Maximum Frequency to 22050 (it only needs to be set once). close preferences, then drag and drop your FLAC (or WAV etc) file into the audacity window. in the top left corner of the new window that appears you will see a triangle, left-click it and select 'spectrum'. zoom in by selecting about 2 seconds (left-click and drag to highlight a selection, then click the 2nd-last magnifying glass icon on the upper-right).

Here's the classic guide to spotting lossy sources:
http://www.audiohub.org/get/fa/fa.htm
http://www.audiohub.org/get/fa/sa.htm

Check the stickys and some of the old discussions in the Lossy or Lossless? forum to learn more. Don't hesitate to start your own thread if there's any doubt in your mind about the "purity" of any audio you're considering seeding. Please include screenshots and/or rapidshare.de / yousendit.com / megaupload.com etc link to 10 or 20 second FLAC sample.
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shntool tlh eac foobar2000 spek audacity cdwave vlc

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