We backed up Spotify (metadata and music files). It’s distributed in bulk torrents (~300TB). It’s the world’s first “preservation archive” for music which is fully open (meaning it can easily be mirrored by anyone with enough disk space), with 86 million music files, representing around 99.6% of listens.
160kbps ogg is not exactly low quality. Most people can’t tell the difference between 160kbps ogg and lossless, nor do they have the equipment when listen to. And with huge amount of data like this, it might be impossible or too expensive or too time consuming for them to archive in lossless quality.
I agree, archiving audio files should be lossless when possible, but that is not a requirement. 160kbps ogg is “good enough”.
I consider anything under 256kbps to be not worth getting unless it’s the only ever rip of something that doesn’t exist anymore. If its lossy it should be 320kbps mp3 ideally.
You just say it should not, but why? As said 160kbp ogg is for most people not distinguishable from uncompressed. I think it is worth archiving this, especially if it is in mass like this. Why do you stay away from VBR?
Archival should be as close to source quality as possible. VBR just adds more noise to the audio whether you can hear it or not. That means copying it to different mediums will eventually start to notice the quality reduction over time.
160kbps ogg is not exactly low quality. Most people can’t tell the difference between 160kbps ogg and lossless, nor do they have the equipment when listen to. And with huge amount of data like this, it might be impossible or too expensive or too time consuming for them to archive in lossless quality.
I agree, archiving audio files should be lossless when possible, but that is not a requirement. 160kbps ogg is “good enough”.
I consider anything under 256kbps to be not worth getting unless it’s the only ever rip of something that doesn’t exist anymore. If its lossy it should be 320kbps mp3 ideally.
I also try to stay away from VBR rips
You just say it should not, but why? As said 160kbp ogg is for most people not distinguishable from uncompressed. I think it is worth archiving this, especially if it is in mass like this. Why do you stay away from VBR?
Archival should be as close to source quality as possible. VBR just adds more noise to the audio whether you can hear it or not. That means copying it to different mediums will eventually start to notice the quality reduction over time.