Griffinator Posted February 19, 2004 Share Posted February 19, 2004 Last night I was sitting with a couple of friends down in my office, shooting the breeze, and the subject of MP3s came up. I started to get up on a soapbox about how terrible they were, when I realized - hey - why don't I just show them? I happened to have a couple of my own compositions already sitting on my hard drive in both 16/44.1 and 128k mp3 format. Fired 'em up. The look on the guy's face was priceless. He said "damn, Scott, I never noticed it - but you point it out and it's as plain as day!" He scratched the mp3 player off his list of add-ons for his home system rather quickly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mondial Posted February 19, 2004 Share Posted February 19, 2004 I would venture to guess you would get very different results by making the comparison with a 192kb or 320kb bit rate MP3. Adam Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skonopa Posted February 19, 2004 Share Posted February 19, 2004 ---------------- On 2/19/2004 10:34:04 AM Mondial wrote: I would venture to guess you would get very different results by making the comparison with a 192kb or 320kb bit rate MP3. Adam ---------------- I agree - you will get very different results by comparing 192kb or 320kb MP3's. I did some comparisons on my system (I'll have to do it again, since it was a little while ago), but once you get above 192kbps in MP3's, the quality does start to really approach that of the uncompressed CD audio. All the MP3's I ripped from my CD collection, I use at least 192kbps. Granted, I agree that given the choice, I'd rather listen to the actual, uncompressed CD audio, but it sure is convienent to load up 10 CD's worth of music on one CD-R disc and listen to that, which I often do at work. For critical listening, yes - give me the actual CD anytime, but for listening to music while working, the MP3's work good enough. Same with with driving. Nice to load up 10 hours worth of music on the MP3 player, jack it into the car stereo, and press play - enough music for that long road trip - no commercials, no fidgting with trying to change CD's (especially at night in the dark), no losing radio stations and trying to find something else decent, and so on. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Johnny TN Posted February 19, 2004 Share Posted February 19, 2004 I agree... I usually download MP3's and if I end up liking the album ..I'll go by the CD. Mainly because of the better quality for home listening.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Griffinator Posted February 19, 2004 Author Share Posted February 19, 2004 That's the whole point, though. MP3 is a format that is ideal for portable listening situations. It's NOT, however, "almost as good as CD", until you hit 256K (to these ears, anyway) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mondial Posted February 19, 2004 Share Posted February 19, 2004 The advantages of MP3 (or whatever the compressed format of choice may be where the ability to obtain "almost" or "CD quality" exists) are far greater reaching than portability. Access to content. At 320kb MP3, I can store almost 4.5 times as much music,and have it instantly accessible throughout the home (and even on the road (IPOD), or remotely over the internet to multiple locations(Audio Request)) searching by track, artist, album, genre, cover art, etc... With the ease of access and flexibility that MP3 provides, it's gotten a bum rap from the audiophile community. Adam Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Griffinator Posted February 19, 2004 Author Share Posted February 19, 2004 There are plenty of systems out there that can deliver full-bandwidth uncompressed audio throughout your whole house (via 10/100 Ethernet cable) instantly and on-demand. Granted, 320K gets you a lot more storage, but why sacrifice quality when you're going to make that kind of investment? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mondial Posted February 20, 2004 Share Posted February 20, 2004 What type of systems are you referring to? Adam Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Griffinator Posted February 20, 2004 Author Share Posted February 20, 2004 Well, iMerge SoundServer would be one. The S2000 server can hold up to 240 hours of full-bandwidth CD audio. Add on up to 6 of their NP200 network boxes and you've got instant access to that library from any room. I'm planning to install this system in my house along with som in-wall speakers so my wife doesn't have to run down to the basement to change CD's every time she wants to listen to something in the living room. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mondial Posted February 20, 2004 Share Posted February 20, 2004 That same 240 hours on the Imerge at 320 kb MP3 is over 1000 hours! Currently the S2000 can't stream from an external storage device, so you're limited to the interal storage capacity. Don't get me wrong...if everything could be CD quality that would be great, but MP3 has it's advanatges. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frzninvt Posted February 20, 2004 Share Posted February 20, 2004 Use them with a dynamic range controller to uncompress them and restore the impact and transients and they will sound much better. I have a crappy dial up connection at home so I have never bothered with MP3's myself. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Olorin Posted February 20, 2004 Share Posted February 20, 2004 I'm surprised nobody's touched on variable-bit-rate (VBR) encoding. With a good encoder like LAME, you can set a max rate of 320, a min rate of (say) 128, and tell it that silence=zero bps. You'll get darn near the quality of 320 kbps, but your average bit rate will usually fall between 160 and 192. You get about the same sound for about half the storage. There's a nice GUI front end for LAME on Windows -- RazorLAME. It doesn't get much easier. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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