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Audio: Testing audio formats

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brianman

Burrito Founder
Nov 10, 2011
17,620
3,227
I was considering bringing a USB key with me for the Amped event. Any of the audiophiles out there care to suggest which formats to test and recommend some quick and free tools that will produce most or all of the suggested formats?
 
I was considering bringing a USB key with me for the Amped event. Any of the audiophiles out there care to suggest which formats to test and recommend some quick and free tools that will produce most or all of the suggested formats?

I use Max
Max from sbooth.org

and Audacity
Audacity: Free Audio Editor and Recorder

on my mac, both are free source.

Flac or wav files if you're an audiophile; I would be surprised if Tesla has enough space for these to properly demonstrate their potential.
 
I should have mentioned: My house is free of Apple hardware at the moment. I'll need x86, x64 or Hyper-V-compatible VM.

I'm not looking to evaluate potential/quality so much as "will it decode and play the format at all."

For example, I'm betting WMV (with any internal codec) is a no-go.
 
I expect that uncompressed/PCM formats (like .WAV) are not supported.

Also, I expect that the audio formats that lean more toward the Apple side (such as AAC) are more likely than the Microsoft side (such as WMA). In fact I think someone mentioned that AAC is or will be supported.
 
As stated on the Tesla Model S specs page:

200 watt, seven speaker stereo system with AM/FM/HD radio. Supports MP3, AAC, and MP4 music formats. System includes four speakers, two tweeters and one center channel speaker. Flash memory storage for up to 500 songs.

I would be surprised if the stereo could not handle uncompressed .wav. As the system would have to uncompress the formats internally to PCM in order to play the music anyways. Problem with .wav and PCM formats is that they lack tagging capabilties that other formats have. I'm wondering if it could handle anything higher than redbook 44.1/16bits, then again with the lossy compression, it's probably not worth it...
 
As stated on the Tesla Model S specs page:

200 watt, seven speaker stereo system with AM/FM/HD radio. Supports MP3, AAC, and MP4 music formats. System includes four speakers, two tweeters and one center channel speaker. Flash memory storage for up to 500 songs.

I think a reasonable question would be whether it will decode music downloaded from the iTunes store, which is AAC format, but with DRM. For obvious reasons, many players will be incapable of decoding these AAC files. (There are commercial ways around that.) I'm not sure how many people actually have their music encoded in AAC format that isn't from Apple.

Personally, I have mp3 and flac. Shame flac isn't supported...
 
I expect that uncompressed/PCM formats (like .WAV) are not supported.

Also, I expect that the audio formats that lean more toward the Apple side (such as AAC) are more likely than the Microsoft side (such as WMA). In fact I think someone mentioned that AAC is or will be supported.

I was told by a Tesla employee that although WAV is not listed on thier website in the Model S specs as supported that it is in fact supported. This is after the Tesla employee checked with corporate. I was also told FLAC is not supported. (BTW, I'm the TMC member Larry referenced above :) )
 
At Home With Elon Musk: The (Soon-to-Be) Bachelor Billionaire - Forbes
As he drives to work—his Montblanc aviators, retrieved from the floor of the Lotus-bodied coupe, perched on his nose—we talk about his favorite drives (he favors Highway 1, unsurprisingly), his favorite music (when not rocking to Robbie Williams, he’s more a Beatles-and–Pink Floyd classic-rock man), and his favorite cars (the 1967 Jag E-Type is “like a bad girlfriend—very dysfunctional”).
Sounds like Pink Floyd might be a good choice for source material. I'll grab one of the tracks from Dark Side of the Moon.
 
I don't know, but having an on board flash drive for mp3's seems to be so antiquated. Early 2000 VW's had an optional hard drive where the old multi-disc CD changer were located. Seems like a waste to me. I have all my music (more than 500) on my iPhone. I have no intention of uploading only some of my songs to its limited storage capacity. Just put in a 30 pin connector (like in the Roadster) or an option to connect any smart phone and leave that choice to the consumer. I know that there will be bluetooth for streaming audio but installing flash memory looks to me like an added expense that Tesla didn't need to include. It feels like if Apple kept 3.5 floppy drives in the iMac.
 
On a long drive, playing from the car's flash drive means that you don't have to have your phone plugged in to keep it charged. Because a lot of car chargers cause the "charger is incompatible" message intermittently, and also cause the phone's battery to heat up way more than the 120V charger, it seems like a reasonable plan both for convenience and cellphone battery life--both kinds of battery life. (I am so looking forward to not having to plug the phone into the cassette adapter.)