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Tech MP3 Question

Tech MP3 Question

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Originally posted by sonhouse
There was a head to head battle of the formats like Wma vs Mp3
at various compression ratios in a recent copy of PC world where they
had dudes and dudettes who were professional music reviewers
using thousand dollar earphones and then taking cuts that
challange any sound system like George Cromarty's
"Wind in the Heather" an early 80's great acoustic ...[text shortened]... ist of it is, at 320, its very hard to
tell the differance between compressed and original.
Thanks for that info.
Obviously, if you compress, you lose data = sound quality.
But if the ear cannot tell...(and how many of us are trained music reviewers?).

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Originally posted by Varg
Thanks for that info.
Obviously, if you compress, you lose data = sound quality.
But if the ear cannot tell...(and how many of us are trained music reviewers?).
I can tell 256 from lossless and i think most people could tell 128 from lossless on a decent speaker system. Anyone can train their ears to do it, it just takes time, concentration and practice.

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Originally posted by Starrman
I can tell 256 from lossless and i think most people could tell 128 from lossless on a decent speaker system. Anyone can train their ears to do it, it just takes time, concentration and practice.
But why would you want to do it if it just meant you had to spend more money on a better stereo/more memory, etc 😛
Actually, I'm wanting to play them in my car so the quality needn't be all that good.

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To be honest I can't really tell the difference.
If playing on iPOD's etc and PC speakers etc then I find 128 to be fine.
I also burn a fair bit from 128 encoded mp3 files and the sound is fine.

This article may help you

http://arstechnica.com/guides/tweaks/encoding.ars

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Originally posted by Varg
But why would you want to do it if it just meant you had to spend more money on a better stereo/more memory, etc 😛
Actually, I'm wanting to play them in my car so the quality needn't be all that good.
I guess it depends how you listen to music. I trained as an engineer for a few years and I listen to the sound as much as I listen to the actual tune; balance, pan, frequency distribution, all these things done properly can enhance my pleasure. But I agree there's nothing wrong listening to stuff through your PC speakers, I just get a real kick out of flat response speakers in a decent soundspace. It does make a difference and if you ever get the chance to try it and then immediately listen to PC speakers, you'll see what a massive difference there is. The human ear/brain is very good at equalising, prefering the pattern recognition of the tune, to the sound structure.

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Originally posted by Varg

Obviously, if you compress, you lose data = sound quality.
Perhaps surprisingly, this isn't always true. Several codecs (FLAC, SHN, etc) exist that compress data without removing any details from the audio stream. The compression achieved isn't staggering but nevertheless remains handy for any audiophiles wanting to fit as much lossless music as they can on portable music players.

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Originally posted by Starrman
I guess it depends how you listen to music. I trained as an engineer for a few years and I listen to the sound as much as I listen to the actual tune; balance, pan, frequency distribution, all these things done properly can enhance my pleasure. But I agree there's nothing wrong listening to stuff through your PC speakers, I just get a real kick out of fla ...[text shortened]... ery good at equalising, prefering the pattern recognition of the tune, to the sound structure.
Yes I agree.
A friend of mine has a recording studio with some top kit in it including decent flat monitors.
Most people, however, are content to make do with listening to the tune and not paying a lot of attention to the quality of sound/production/reproduction.