Has anyone purchased from fsoldigital?

Feel free to talk about anything and everything FSOL related in this board.
madcap
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Has anyone purchased from fsoldigital?

Post by madcap »

It seems the website is broken, I can't get to the paypal stage of checkout. tested with chrome/ie/ff. I wish websites like this would use html instead of flash >.<
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dell1972
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Re: Has anyone purchased from fsoldigital?

Post by dell1972 »

Worked for me on Friday using firefox. There is a slightly confusing image that says pay with paypal. Nothing happens if you click on it. I think you can only pay using paypal so just click the default buttons at the bottom to proceed. I thought that wheel of album covers on the main page was the only flash object on the new site.
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Ross
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Re: Has anyone purchased from fsoldigital?

Post by Ross »

I've just got through to the 'confirm your order' button and didn't want to accidentally order something, but it works fine.
As Dell says, the only Flash on the site is the album ring on the front page. If you click on one of the artist names at the top, select the album title from there and click 'Add to cart' it should work - all simple HTML. If you can't get past that stage though, I'm baffled - might be worth sending them a message on their slightly hidden Contact Page.
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Tito Lozano
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Re: Has anyone purchased from fsoldigital?

Post by Tito Lozano »

I tried yesterday and passed the same;Then try with Opera and work ok... then i saw that i dont have money on my count :_(
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tryptych
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Re: Has anyone purchased from fsoldigital?

Post by tryptych »

Alright, I've recently stopped collecting mp3's and moved on to FLACs since I woke up to the realization that mp3 cuts above ~19k! Completely unacceptable.

So is there any way of knowing what formats are available @ fsoldigital before the purchase? I was thinking of buying the new Seafar EP.
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Ross
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Re: Has anyone purchased from fsoldigital?

Post by Ross »

I think FSOLDigital only does MP3.
I also think the average human hearing range stops around 19-20k.
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mcbpete
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Re: Has anyone purchased from fsoldigital?

Post by mcbpete »

I'm definitely not gonna open up the whole FLAC vs mp3 can of worms (especially as I personally can't tell the difference between a well encoded v0 mp3 and a FLAC) but there definitely are other losses to mp3 other than a low pass filter ~19Khz. One of the other ways that mp3 manages to reduce file size is by losing quieter frequencies when louder ones are considered to be masking them, thus reducing the detail of a mix. As I say I personally can't hear this effect but I know some people that can .... the freaks !

The FSOLDigital shop really does need some details about what kind of file you'll be downloading before you buy it. Now that more and more people are turning to lossless as filesizes really aren't the issue that they once were, having a mixture of 192kbps, 320kbps, v0 etc. and no lossless option directly from an artist is a little archaic. (especially for those with as high a profile as FSOL)
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seedy
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Re: Has anyone purchased from fsoldigital?

Post by seedy »

i personally avoid mp3 as much as possible but i also have never owned an ipod ;)
i'm still living in the CD age and everything i have gets burnt to disc
i think the quality of your home theater/headphones etc. surely plays a factor and god knows i've heard my share of poor sounding mp3

one thing you can say in this debate.....nobody ever complains about flac unless you consider the file size to be too too big ;)
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Re: Has anyone purchased from fsoldigital?

Post by Pandemonium »

ROSS: I also think the average human hearing range stops around 19-20k.
- not the average, EVERY HUMAN, its a scientific fact, not debatable :)

PETE: Its not just you, since 2005, NOBODY can tell the difference between LAME 320/V0 and FLAC in 99.9% of the cases - there are, minor cases (less than .1%) where some sounds are not being properly represented - mostly in classical music, and some cases where the frequencies are so low you don't hear them with you ears, but with your guts trembling (Plastikman anyone?) - but in this case you need very expensive / very new tech speakers to achieve that.
- About the masking - FLAC masks too :) and yes - I can tell the difference between 24 bit 96Khz HD sound and FLAC, but its so minor its really really not important - I think we hear music for mood / intelligence production / emotions / sex - not for nitpicking for some .01% of frequencies :)
- Anyway, FSOL should define what quality they sell, out of professionalism :)

SEEDY: you're right about the FLAC, only the problem is - its bigger for nothing, and when you have 18000 releases size still does matter (even with 10TB space) - because, FLAC is the illusion of having the original sound/release - you DON'T, you don't have the warm feeling of physical release in your hands, the artwork, the ritual of playing - you only have bigger files on you hard drive - well fuck that - I say you either have the original in your hand OR MP3-320/V0 on your hard drive (downloaded from a secure freak-place like What.CD) :)
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mcbpete
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Re: Has anyone purchased from fsoldigital?

Post by mcbpete »

Pandemonium wrote: I can tell the difference between 24 bit 96Khz HD sound and FLAC, but its so minor its really really not important
Erm, you do know that the L in FLAC stands for 'lossless' yeah :D If you bung a 24 bit 96khz audio file in one end, then you'll end up with a 24 bit 96khz FLAC out the other end. Once decoded they'll be bit for bit identical - it's just like a ZIP file but tailored more towards the bit patterns found in audio files so you get better compression ratios.
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Re: Has anyone purchased from fsoldigital?

Post by Pandemonium »

No, its not like ZIP, L stands for lossless yes, sound seems to be compressed/decompressed to some level, but still things are cut-off, from 1411kbps to a variable of 700kbps (on a regular 16bit CD) - so are you telling me that about half the information on the CD is there for nothing?? :) ZIP works on compressing documents in a way that is stores letter A once and then makes a matrix on how many times is repeated through the document and where, and that way saves space, an so on for all the characters - sound and FLAC don't work that way - it just cuts off silent parts, compresses some def-frequencies like above 20.5Khz and masks here and there.

- anyway - I was thinking of HD sound, PCM, that kind of stuff, 24bit/96KHz transcoded into 16bit/44Khz FLAC - there is a difference, notable on hi-tech speakers and amps, but its still barely notable.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hearing_range" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

tell me - is this picture below worth 3-4 times larger space?
http://whatimg.com/i/54854744949039584031.gif" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
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mcbpete
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Re: Has anyone purchased from fsoldigital?

Post by mcbpete »

Pandemonium wrote:No, its not like ZIP, L stands for lossless yes, sound seems to be compressed/decompressed to some level, but still things are cut-off, from 1411kbps to a variable of 700kbps (on a regular 16bit CD) .... ZIP works on compressing documents in a way that is stores letter A once and then makes a matrix on how many times is repeated through the document and where, and that way saves space, an so on for all the characters - sound and FLAC don't work that way
I hate to say that you're wrong - But I'm afraid you're completely wrong ! :lol:

Taken from the people that actually wrote the codec - http://flac.sourceforge.net/features.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
FLAC stands for Free Lossless Audio Codec, an audio format similar to MP3, but lossless, meaning that audio is compressed in FLAC without any loss in quality. This is similar to how Zip works, except with FLAC you will get much better compression because it is designed specifically for audio, and you can play back compressed FLAC files in your favorite player (or your car or home stereo, see supported devices) just like you would an MP3 file.
Pandemonium wrote:so are you telling me that about half the information on the CD is there for nothing?? :)
Yep ! (well, only as the PCM codec is almost 30 years old now - give them a break !)

EDIT (since your post update):
Pandemonium wrote:24bit/96KHz transcoded into 16bit/44Khz FLAC - there is a difference, notable on hi-tech speakers and amps
Well yes there would be as you're downsampling a 24bit/96khz file into a 16bit/44khz one. But if you convert it to a 24bit/96KHz FLAC it would be identical.
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Pandemonium
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Re: Has anyone purchased from fsoldigital?

Post by Pandemonium »

They can write whatever they want, FLAC is nothing like ZIP, and I just described why - those linux geeks can do hell-of-a-code but they know little about sound.

https://forum.suprbay.org/showthread.php?tid=661" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

cut-off?

PETE: Well yes there would be as you're downsampling a 24bit/96khz file into a 16bit/44khz one. But if you convert it to a 24bit/96KHz FLAC it would be identical.

- it would not be - how can you restore the 8 bits that you just cut-off? They are just refilled with pure silence :) - you can downsample - but you can not upsample :)
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mcbpete
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Re: Has anyone purchased from fsoldigital?

Post by mcbpete »

Pandemonium wrote:They can write whatever they want, FLAC is nothing like ZIP, and I just described why - those linux geeks can do hell-of-a-code but they know little about sound.

https://forum.suprbay.org/showthread.php?tid=661" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

cut-off?
Dude, your counter argument is from a closed topic by a person who has recorded a flac using clearly wonky settings resulting a much quieter file than the original wav version (how he did that I have no idea :shock: ). See post #13, #15,#20 & #43 (the only ones that actually address the topic about his conversion), who in a polite fashion tell the OP that he's being a fucking idiot !

And you're not cutting anything off with FLAC either dynamically, or by frequency, or by volume, nothing is lost. FLACs aren't limited to a 44.1/16bit restriction - I've got FLACs that are 44Khz/24bit (Autechre - Oversteps), I've got FLACs that are 96Khz/24bit (SND - Atavism), files aren't downsampled just because they've been converted to FLAC.
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Pandemonium
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Re: Has anyone purchased from fsoldigital?

Post by Pandemonium »

OK, not a shining example, I'll read further on the matter and speak to a studio sound engineer before I get back to you, again :)
After this I will not continue this debate and agree to anything, because I'm a lazy typer and I use MP3 anyway :)

but I'm 100% sure that PCM/WAV is downsampled to FLAC and FLAC can be downsampled to MP3 or other lossy sound, but the other way does not work - you just get bigger files filled with silence. And with every downsampling you are losing volume in dB, and in the FLAC case you are losing very little frequency too.
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