sound quality, mp3 vs cd's

[Geno]

I have a 300-disc Pioneer Jukebox. It works well, but if I were starting out today, I'd definitely spring for a server.

 

[jfalk]

My 400 CD changer has sat in storage for a couple of years now... of course you can create playlists and such, but it's a mechanical system... it might take 30 seconds to change between tracks. And the interface to actually program a playlist are horrible. Use a computer, store lossless if you really care, or pick some quality of lossless (I use Ogg Q7, but if I had it to do over again I'd have gone lossless) and get yourself a squeezebox. You're set forever.

 

[davidtwotrees]

http://www.stereophile.com/features/308mp3cd/index.html

Stereophile is an excellent, unbiased source. The first two thirds of the article the author uses 128kbps as his test reference............when he ramped it up to 320kbps he really started splitting hairs.
"Given the bigger bit budget at 320kbps, the AAC codec produces a result that may well be indistinguishable from CD for some listeners some of the time with some music........."
TLS guy makes some excellent points about cheap memory doing away with this lossy codec. And sure, a 320 mp3 in many cases may be glaringly obvious on a reference system costing tens of thousands of dollars to some people with some music. I could agree with that.
Hell, why would you play an mp3 on a reference system, right?

 

[Joe Schmoe]

I had never heard mp3s until a friend brought her ipod over a few weeks ago. I was prepared for the sound to suck, so I was quite surprised when it didn't. If the songs I heard then were any indication, I could be quite satisfied with mp3 as my source.

 

[Brick Top]

As an earlier poster has pointed out....since storage has become so affordable...why should we use lossy music. If we continue down the road of lossy music via download or whatever....we will get further and further away from pure sonics. CD's are bad enough for the most part when compared to vinyl. One day only a small niche of the population will be using lossless formats if continue this way.

I really hate the thought that future generations may only ever experience lossy music unless they go see a live show. Staying as close to the original recording to hear it as it was meant to be heard, should be a goal...not an inconvenience.

Cheers,
BT

 

[Joe Schmoe]

CD's are bad enough for the most part when compared to vinyl.

Please stop perpetuating lies. CDs are not "bad compared to vinyl". In fact, they sound very significantly better than vinyl when well mastered. On those rare occasions when vinyl does sound better, it is entirely due to mastering, not the medium.

 

[gus6464]

Stereophile is an excellent, unbiased source. The first two thirds of the article the author uses 128kbps as his test reference............when he ramped it up to 320kbps he really started splitting hairs.
"Given the bigger bit budget at 320kbps, the AAC codec produces a result that may well be indistinguishable from CD for some listeners some of the time with some music........."
TLS guy makes some excellent points about cheap memory doing away with this lossy codec. And sure, a 320 mp3 in many cases may be glaringly obvious on a reference system costing tens of thousands of dollars to some people with some music. I could agree with that.
Hell, why would you play an mp3 on a reference system, right?

I found nothing wrong with that article. He chose 128k as his reference because that's what most people have for their MP3's and that's what you download from the itunes store unless you get a plus track. The point is that FLAC will give you a copy that is exactly like the CD whereas with MP3, no matter the bitrate there will still be something missing. Now if a person listens to highly complex music like classical, even high bitrate MP3 is still a bad choice. It also shows how AAC even when using the using the itunes encoder which most people say is crap, is actually superior to the highest bitrate MP3.

 

[highfigh]

As an earlier poster has pointed out....since storage has become so affordable...why should we use lossy music. If we continue down the road of lossy music via download or whatever....we will get further and further away from pure sonics. CD's are bad enough for the most part when compared to vinyl. One day only a small niche of the population will be using lossless formats if continue this way.

I really hate the thought that future generations may only ever experience lossy music unless they go see a live show. Staying as close to the original recording to hear it as it was meant to be heard, should be a goal...not an inconvenience.

Cheers,
BT

Downloads use a lot of bandwidth, that's why. I saw a comment on a builder's forum- "Your options are fast, good and cheap. Pick two, because you can't get all three.".

Personally, mastering should be much higher in priority than anything else. If someone wants an incomplete version, they can deal with that before streaming, downloading or compressing for portability. I want clean, full and quiet, with as much dynamic range as possible.

 

[WmAx]

And sure, a 320 mp3 in many cases may be glaringly obvious on a reference system costing tens of thousands of dollars to some people with some music. I could agree with that.
Hell, why would you play an mp3 on a reference system, right?

I have available extremely high performance 'reference' systems, and a properly produced mp3, on almost all music, in almost all cases, sounds the same as the source file when blind tested(ABXed).

-Chris

 

[Brick Top]

Please stop perpetuating lies. CDs are not "bad compared to vinyl". In fact, they sound very significantly better than vinyl when well mastered. On those rare occasions when vinyl does sound better, it is entirely due to mastering, not the medium.

Perpetuating lies????

According to who?

You????

I didn't realize you have the best ears and listening ability on the planet. I bow to you oh mighty authority of sound.

If you actually knew anything about recording...you might not be so high and mighty in your response. The fact is....analogue does sound better vs digital in most cases....at least to a great many. But they must all be wrong. And the industry is spreading lies.

Vinyl sales and analogue equipment sales are at there highest in decades and in some cases outselling cd's...even with new high resolution formats introduced in the last few years.

Ya ever heard the phrase " think before you speak"?

Cheers,
BT

 

[Alex2507]

As an earlier poster has pointed out....since storage has become so affordable...why should we use lossy music. If we continue down the road of lossy music via download or whatever....we will get further and further away from pure sonics. CD's are bad enough for the most part when compared to vinyl. One day only a small niche of the population will be using lossless formats if continue this way.

I really hate the thought that future generations may only ever experience lossy music unless they go see a live show. Staying as close to the original recording to hear it as it was meant to be heard, should be a goal...not an inconvenience.

Cheers,
BT

Please stop perpetuating lies. CDs are not "bad compared to vinyl". In fact, they sound very significantly better than vinyl when well mastered. On those rare occasions when vinyl does sound better, it is entirely due to mastering, not the medium.

This post by WmAx has something to say about the quality of CD -vs- vinyl:

http://forums.audioholics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=47017&page=4

PS: You're welcome.

 

[ChunkyDark]

WmAx,
Is there any particular software that uses LAME that you would recommend?
I'll be converting a good chunk of the families CD's (~150) soon for the htpc so if there was a particular app you found easier to use it I appreciate your feedback.
Thanks,
ChunkyDark

/One advantage of having ADD is being able to do double blind testing with yourself...hey is that a squirr

 

[WmAx]

WmAx,
Is there any particular software that uses LAME that you would recommend?
I'll be converting a good chunk of the families CD's (~150) soon for the htpc so if there was a particular app you found easier to use it I appreciate your feedback.
Thanks,
ChunkyDark

/One advantage of having ADD is being able to do double blind testing with yourself...hey is that a squirr

Lame is simply an executable that encodes. It has no Windows GUI itself. You can search/Google for various GUIs that use/control the exe as you wish. Exact Audio, the CD ripping freeware, will control the Lame exe and encode as you rip if you wish. This is what I use.

-Chris

 

[Joe Schmoe]

Perpetuating lies????

According to who?

You????

I didn't realize you have the best ears and listening ability on the planet. I bow to you oh mighty authority of sound.

If you actually knew anything about recording...you might not be so high and mighty in your response. The fact is....analogue does sound better vs digital in most cases....at least to a great many. But they must all be wrong. And the industry is spreading lies.

Vinyl sales and analogue equipment sales are at there highest in decades and in some cases outselling cd's...even with new high resolution formats introduced in the last few years.

Ya ever heard the phrase " think before you speak"?

Cheers,
BT

If you seriously think that vinyl sounds better then yes, my ears are better than yours.

Switching from vinyl to CD was by far the biggest upgrade I have made to any stereo system, ever. The improvement was dramatic, not subtle.

Vinyl is selling because it is a fad, and because the lie about it sounding better is perpetuated by Hollywood (Nicholas Cage in The Rock comes most immediately to mind, but there are many scenes in which a "cool" character expresses a preference for vinyl.)

A great many people think that Bose sounds good, but they are also wrong. Popularity does not imply superiority.

As for "knowing about recording", both of the greatest living producer/engineers (Alan Parsons and Brian Eno) were early adopters of digital, and they obviously know much more than you ever will.

The new remastered Beatles CDs are going to be so much better than any previous version in any format that people are going to burn their old vinyl Beatles albums!

 

[WmAx]

If you seriously think that vinyl sounds better then yes, my ears are better than yours.

Switching from vinyl to CD was by far the biggest upgrade I have made to any stereo system, ever. The improvement was dramatic, not subtle.

Vinyl is selling because it is a fad, and because the lie about it sounding better is perpetuated by Hollywood (Nicholas Cage in The Rock comes most immediately to mind, but there are many scenes in which a "cool" character expresses a preference for vinyl.)

A great many people think that Bose sounds good, but they are also wrong. Popularity does not imply superiority.

As for "knowing about recording", both of the greatest living producer/engineers (Alan Parsons and Brian Eno) were early adopters of digital, and they obviously know much more than you ever will.

The new remastered Beatles CDs are going to be so much better than any previous version in any format that people are going to burn their old vinyl Beatles albums!

While CD is superior to vinyl in every way, it is still a problem in that it appears that many vinyl versions seem to get a better master used to make them. And a very good condition vinyl disc played back on a very high quality TT can sound virtually like a CD - very low noise, stable pitch and sufficient frequency response for the most part - though the cartridge on the player is likely going to alter the response enough to become audibly different from absolute flat and add another variable to the mix.

-Chris

 

[Brick Top]

Vinyl is selling because it is a fad, and because the lie about it sounding better is perpetuated by Hollywood (Nicholas Cage in The Rock comes most immediately to mind, but there are many scenes in which a "cool" character expresses a preference for vinyl.)

You think that is why vinyl is so popular? Fad??? Are you old enough to be on these boards? Time for you to stop watching the E channel!

Seriously....who gives a rat's *** if there is a cool reference to vinyl in a movie or whatever. Maybe you get swayed by such a shallow example...but I believe most vinyl lovers do for the sound, touch, experience, emotion.

Cheers,
BT

 

[Cpt.America]

Geesh... what a rediculous thread this is.

To the original poster, here is my two cents

1) MP3 isn't a "quality", its a lossy audio format. It's quality can vary from absolutly horrible, to pretty dang good. The fact that it's ending quality is dependant upon the quality of the source, is irrelivant. That's not what we are comparring. We should assume the source is properly recorded and properly mastered. To bring that into the discussion is stupid.

2) Some people, including myself, CAN distinguish the difference between a source WAV or TDA file, and the most properly ripped 320 mp3 file. MOST people, (not audiophiles, etc.) cannot hear a difference. Being a musician of over two decades with an overly critical ear (sometimes I drive mySELF crazy), I can always tell the difference, especally in any track containing an accoustic drum kit. The sound quality of the kit's Cymbals are the first thing to go to my ears. And regardless of what some have said here, I would certainly be able to tell the difference in a blind test.

3) Lets say you ARE an audiophile with a very critical ear. That still doesn't mean that a 320 MP3 is useless. They take up very little space on a hard drive, sound pretty good, and are easy to copy/move/replace/backup, etc. Heck, depending on the MP3's use, a 128 MP3 might even work for you. It depends on its application!

Critical Listening in a nice quiet audio room, NO mp3 will be worth it. Jogging with your iPod with headphones... 128 would be just fine. See?

4) I myself, rip everythign to a losslesss WMA file. They're easily twice the size of a 320 MP3, but are just as easy to store and manipulate, and are indistuingishable from the source WAV or TDA track. That way I get the best of both worlds. A digital file I can copy and paste from player to player, or onto a DVD... AND it sounds as good as the source file. The disadvantage, is you will need a bit more disk space as the files are a bit larger.

5) Take everything you've read in this thread with a grain of salt, including this post.

Good luck!

 

[ChunkyDark]

Lame is simply an executable that encodes. It has no Windows GUI itself. You can search/Google for various GUIs that use/control the exe as you wish. Exact Audio, the CD ripping freeware, will control the Lame exe and encode as you rip if you wish. This is what I use.

-Chris

I ended up downloading several from sourceforge and played around with them. The GUI for Exact Audio seemed more intuitive for me. Thanks for the info.

 

[rnatalli]

I honestly can't tell the difference between a 320 MP3 and CD, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist and some can hear it.

 

[fmw]

2) Some people, including myself, CAN distinguish the difference between a source WAV or TDA file, and the most properly ripped 320 mp3 file. MOST people, (not audiophiles, etc.) cannot hear a difference. Being a musician of over two decades with an overly critical ear (sometimes I drive mySELF crazy), I can always tell the difference, especally in any track containing an accoustic drum kit. The sound quality of the kit's Cymbals are the first thing to go to my ears. And regardless of what some have said here, I would certainly be able to tell the difference in a blind test.

And obviously, you have never engaged in such a test. That makes your comment just noise with no substance.