MP3s VS CDs

[Jet Set Willy]

MP3s are never CD quality. Just look at them in a spectrum analyser and you'll see.

[Codeine]

Originally posted by Waz@Nov 23 2003, 06:07 PM
I don't really know why everybody is using Kid A as a reference point. I remember most of the songs being quite lo-fi.

"Treefingers" is an ambient piece. "Kid A" (the song) sounds like crap on mp3.....and I don't have Motion Picture Soundtrack on mp3, but I imagine that a lot of them butcher the ending.

[Jet Set Willy]

...what makes you think that ambient music automatically needs to be encoded at a high quality? Often that's not the case, as there are no sharp sounds.

[Codeine]

Why does it need to have sharp sounds? I hate listening to ambient on mp3s. HATE IT. Thats why.

[Jet Set Willy]

No, I'm just saying, there's no technical reason that Kid A should be a special case regarding MP3s. It's all mostly lo-fi stuff and will do just fine at a decent bitrate.

[<><>]

I guess it really depends what you are listening to your music from.

If you have a high end HiFi System, you will see a considerable difference between MP3&#39;s encoded at any bitrate and CD&#39;s.

Ironically the major quality difference will come from the actual circuitry of the MP3 playback device rather than the raw data stream itself. There is a clear audible difference between a high end CD player and one you can get for a few bucks, so there is a clear difference between MP3 playback devices (the actual hardware and filtering) and a High quality CD player. Unofrtunately, HiFi producers will not touch high quality MP3 players with a ten foot pole. They think that high quality MP3 is an oxymoron.

As far as encoding goes, you could spak up a HUGE discussion on what bitrate, ABR, VBR, CBR what command line switches for LAME, what encoder version, what encoder compile, etc etc etc. HA forums is a clear sign of how everyone has a different taste and belief when it comes to encoding their music.

For me VBR is a no-brainer. I can hear the difference on my external sound card&#39;s output and on my portable mp3 player. I can clearly see the differnece in filesize too. I would like to see the iPod use OGG... he&#39;ll I&#39;ll even settle for the iPod using mp3cue so I can stop having that second long gap between songs or split the continiously mixed cd&#39;s I rip into segmented tracks... but that&#39;s not going to happen for a while.

If you&#39;re truly a lossless enthusiast you can FLAC&#39;it but I hope you are willing to spend some moolah on a RAID then (and cut down on your portable music library size in your pocket players).

[Jet Set Willy]

Hardware is certainly important. But really, with a normal sound card, a fairly decent pair of headphones and a headphone amp, MP3s really bite the skank&#39;s kneepads.

Unfortunately even if I could afford CDs, I wouldn&#39;t be able to find half of the releases I wanted, and I&#39;d never discover new artists and songs, so MP3s clearly have the advantage there - but that&#39;s not an explicit MP3 advantage, it&#39;s a file sharing advantage. If only more people would wise up to lossless formats. They&#39;re not THAT big...

[M.H.A.Q.S.]

Hardware is certainly important. But really, with a normal sound card, a fairly decent pair of headphones and a headphone amp, MP3s really bite the skank&#39;s kneepads.

I think my old Yamaha sound card gives me a fair advantage, with a pair of nice headphones and using DFX with Winamp.

[DanielW]

Originally posted by Waz@Nov 24 2003, 04:20 PM
If only more people would wise up to lossless formats. They&#39;re not THAT big...

Especially since broadband is becoming the norm nowadays.

[Zidane]

I would have to choose MP3"s for i get the song that i want without having to buy all the other songs that I didn&#39;t need.