.PSF file formats

Have you heard of .psf and .psf2 files?
As i understand they’re some kind of a rip from Playstation games disks in raw format. I can’t get a good idea as to what their actual quality is. Foobar is not giving any info but they sound almost losless, maybe a tad volumed down…
I have about a hundred of VGM in this format, so i’m wondering is it worth getting .flac (or lossy) albums instead?

They’re the music direct from the game, so yes, lossless. They’re so small because they’re not the digitized sound waves of a whole song. They contain the instrument samples and then the data on how to use them. So when you play it, the music gets assembled instead of being stored prior to that as a whole. Hope that makes sense.

As for seeking out albums, lots of games also used streamed music, so the PSF sets aren’t totally complete. Look in the info files of the sets you download to see if it says there’s anything missing. Some PSF sets sound better than their album counterparts (Final Fantasy Tactics and Vagrant Story in particular. The CDs have reverb that sounds completely awful next to the PSFs, in my opinion) and some don’t. And then sometimes just individual tracks sound better or worse, usually ones with vocals (compare the "Song of Prayer" tracks from Final Fantasy X). Typically the CDs have boosted treble or bass and yes, more volume, so they might sound better when you compare back to back.

Can I use a term like dynamic range compression and you still be able to follow me?

If i understood right, they’re something like .midi, but better? 🙂 I understand how sometimes a .psf will be better then a reverb-sounding song from a CD, while a vocal based song will be superior to it.
Sure, just fire it away! You want to say that the compression has been used on these files in order to keep up with the audio limitations of PSX/PS2? So perhaps their gain has been compromised?

Yeah they’re like MIDI but instead of using some other collection of sounds for playback, they have the original sounds from the game.

You want to say that the compression has been used on these files in order to keep up with the audio limitations of PSX/PS2? So perhaps their gain has been compromised?

Actually, I mean the opposite. They’ll add dynamic range compression to the soundtrack CD which makes it sound louder. Game soundtracks can also fall prey to the "loudness war" sometimes too. The only drawback that some of those "Song of Prayer" tracks from Final Fantasy X compared to the PSFs is that they’re way too freaking loud and some even distort. Of course, that also applies to other stuff on the soundtrack and other soundtracks too. And like I said, they often boost the treble and bass. Doing that or adding compression can definitely make things sound better, the problem is just when they do it too much. But another advantage PSFs have is that Winamp has an equalizer and you can download a compressor plugin and adjust the settings to your own tastes and needs and, if you know what you’re doing, not destroy the music in the process.

I gave you two examples of games whose PSF sets sound better than the CDs. An example of a soundtrack whose CD is better than the PSF is Dark Cloud 2. You should probably check with all PS2 soundtracks to see which sounds better. They’re more likely to have streamed tracks and more of them anyway.

Anything else I can try to answer for you?

I think it’s pretty much cleared up now, thanks for your time and wisdom 🙂 As i thought there’s no easy way to settle this. Only getting both versions and comparing will decide which i will keep. Or i’ll end up storing both of them because i’m like that (a scavenging rat ^^)