Re: MP3 quality

[QUOTE=Steve Graham;835397]you're really clueless aren't you[/QUOTE]

me?

Re: MP3 quality

[QUOTE=thebanned1;835398]me?[/QUOTE]

thought it was me :what

Re: MP3 quality

[QUOTE=Micko;835396]I see the Super Audio CD format was on the cards some years back, but didn't take off. I think some Jazz CDs have been released in this format ;)[/QUOTE]

it didnt take off because it was competing with the cost of mp3 and cds compared to the higher price of the super audo cd.....in the past 10 years we have actually gone bcward with regards to sund quality due to thngs like compression

Re: MP3 quality

Couldn't be me :D

I know a thing or two :idea:

Re: MP3 quality

plus....it was a completely new system using 1 bit technology so everyone would also have to buy new hardware in order to play them lol

u could compare it with blu ray

Re: MP3 quality

[QUOTE=Micko;835402]Couldn't be me :D

I know a thing or two :idea:[/QUOTE]

probibly me :lol:

Re: MP3 quality

[QUOTE=thebanned1;835401]it didnt take off because it was competing with the cost of mp3 and cds compared to the higher price of the super audo cd.....in the past 10 years we have actually gone bcward with regards to sund quality due to thngs like compression[/QUOTE]

I have to agree

Re: MP3 quality

[QUOTE=thebanned1;835404][SIZE=4][B]probibly[/B][/SIZE] me :lol:[/QUOTE]

ya think? lol

Re: MP3 quality

Well......

I like to move it, move it!!!!

:Mike:

Re: MP3 quality

[QUOTE=Steve Graham;835417]ya think? lol[/QUOTE]

:lol:

:lol: for that i hope rooney breaks both legs before the world cup :lol:

:lol: infact i,m praying for the first time in many years :lol:

Re: MP3 quality

that's bang out of order! lol

Re: MP3 quality

in the name of the father and of the sun and of the holy.........:lol:

Re: MP3 quality

Super Audio CD is a superb format. The Downward Spiral is simply a masterpiece in its 5.1 glory. My whole opinion on this is that nothing else than 320kbs CBR will do when it comes to mp3. I'm not a fan of the format as it is, so accepting anything under is a no go. Don't forget that these days if you're buying your tracks as mp3 that after you've recorded a mix you'll be then compressing that recording also. Which will degrade the quality even further. As has been said earlier. The whole mp3 revolution came out of convenience rather than being a superior format. Unfortunately it's stuck. We have definitely gone backwards as a whole. People now happily listen to 96kbs mp3's through tinny ipod headphones or, worse still, listening to it through their phones loudspeaker (I actually yearn for someone to get on the train home with a ridiculous ghettoblaster like the good old days). Hopefully with hard drives getting ever increasing storage space and internet connections getting ever faster we may start to see FLAC take over as a compression standard. Although quite frankly I'd rather see an advance on physical medium itself. We've been stuck on 16bit 44.1khz for over 20 years. And once you've heard SACD or DVD-Audio (NIN for the former, BT - This Binary Universe for the latter) doing it's thing you'd be wanting to know why.

Anyways, rant over. :lol:

Re: MP3 quality

[QUOTE=Simon Preston;835451](I actually yearn for someone to get on the train home with a ridiculous ghettoblaster like the good old days).[/QUOTE]

+9000

fucking yes!

:Twilo:

:Rasta Ba::Rasta Ba::Rasta Ba::Rasta Ba::Rasta Ba::Rasta Ba::Rasta Ba::Rasta Ba::Rasta Ba::Rasta Ba:

Re: MP3 quality

mp3 for an Ipod, or small speakers at work it´s perfect... Nowadays music is so compressed in the mastering, that it sounds like shit directly from origin. At my sound system, I´m staying with my cds. btw, there are many kinds of compression for mp3. LAME or VBR doesn´t sound so bad for compressed music. just my opinion.

Re: MP3 quality

Think you guys need to check out some of these high resolution audio to see what things really sound like, lol

[url]http://www.2l.no/hires/index.html[/url]

Personally I rip everything to lame --preset-standard and it lands about 185 VBR and sounds fine. Obv if anything were to even be played out it would be FLAC all the way :roll:

Re: MP3 quality

i think everyone should have/look into getting a high end DAW - to see all the wonderful things they can do with sound, as well as all the easy mistakes one can make by making the wrong moves. for instance: this issue on compression and distortion is quite considerable, and many are really sick of all the shitty mastering done (wrong leveling with meters etc.) by so many artist, djs, nowadays. "kill the loudness war" ffs. so every time i come across tracks "in the red" i have to go in and compensate to make it sound relatively balanced. :evil:

yeah Simon, using WAV is very unrealistic forsure. but when you have tetrabytes, TBs, you can work to contain those god aweful size of files. i'll do a 45min to 90min mix, and when it's rendered to disc in WAV, they usually range in size from 500MB to 1.5GB :shock:

Re: MP3 quality

[IMG]http://www.beveragewarehouse.com/images/products/6068.jpg[/IMG]

Enough of this shit, and it doesn't matter either way

:RockOn:

Except for tomorrow morning..., then it's back to 192

Re: MP3 quality

95%+ of the people cant even notice the difference between 128, 192, 320kbs or wav.

But the ones that can (includes me and i guess many more on this forum) will always prefer, like my brother Haziel, the higher the better.

Also if you listen to music on shitty 15$ headphones you shouldnt worry about soundquality :p

Re: MP3 quality

i don't touch anything under 320

i never buy mp3. WAV FTW. true musicians/audio engineers will be able to tell the difference.

Re: MP3 quality

Can't comment on what to use at the clubs but for me 192 is perfect. 128 and 160, I can hear a difference. 192, I really can't. 320 seems like an overkill and eats up a lot more space on the hard drive.

Re: MP3 quality

Actually, not so long ago I'd transcode to 64 kbps to fit more on to portable audio devices. Can barely tell any difference with all the background noise. I think anything above 160 with standard ipod ear buds is massive overkill.

Re: MP3 quality

^what? no diff? no way.

This is from the lame encoder help, some approximate kbps to sound sources:

[code] A few aliases are available for ABR mode: phone => 16kbps/mono phon+/lw/mw-eu/sw => 24kbps/mono mw-us => 40kbps/mono voice => 56kbps/mono fm/radio/tape => 112kbps hifi => 160kbps cd => 192kbps studio => 256kbps [/code]

But I do agree with the earbuds, those things suck. You need better headphones than that for any decent sound quality.

Re: MP3 quality

[QUOTE=demonAfro;836176]Actually, not so long ago I'd transcode to 64 kbps to fit more on to portable audio devices. Can barely tell any difference with all the background noise. I think anything above 160 with standard ipod ear buds is massive overkill.[/QUOTE]64 AAC yes, MP3 no! standard ipod earbuds can easily handle much more than 160, 1411 wav sounds like a symphony ;)

Re: MP3 quality

It's all the little nuances within the music that really complete it.

mp3s rob music of that.

A good set of speakers or earphones can only do so much...

Re: MP3 quality

[QUOTE=Kat;836184]64 AAC yes, MP3 no! standard ipod earbuds can easily handle much more than 160, 1411 wav sounds like a symphony ;)[/QUOTE]

A symphony on a bus, or a tube, or a crowded street? :p Even any of the noise isolating canalphones that I've tried have a little trouble with the tube sometime.

But Yah, I was playing devil's advocate a little, as lower bitrates tend to go into vorbis or aac. My mp3 player was quite limited capacity and only for commute/sport so it was quantity over quality. Of course in a quiet room with halfway decent listening apparatus it is really easy to tell the difference up to about 192 kbps with mp3. And sometimes the difference between codecs like aac and mp3 is stunning, especially just a bit lower.

As for .wav, since there is no way of properly tagging them, anything losless gets flac'd up straight away, but that tends to only be downloaded stuff. The only lossless copy that I've made is for 5.1 materials 8)

Anyways, anyone up for some double blind listening tests? Would be interesting to see if any of you can actually tell the difference :p

Re: MP3 quality

hard drives are monsters these days. 320 or eat a dick imo.

Re: MP3 quality

[IMG]http://i47.tinypic.com/24exkjq.png[/IMG]

Re: MP3 quality

[QUOTE=floridaorange;836359][IMG]http://i47.tinypic.com/24exkjq.png[/IMG][/QUOTE]

:CrackUp:

Re: MP3 quality

320 mp3 / wav or bust

Re: MP3 quality

[QUOTE=demonAfro;836283]

Anyways, anyone up for some double blind listening tests? Would be interesting to see if any of you can actually tell the difference :p[/QUOTE]

I'm on the snooty side of audio quality. Of course, I also failed this test to identify the difference between a 128 or 320 mp3:

[URL]http://www.noiseaddicts.com/2009/03/mp3-sound-quality-test-128-320/[/URL]

Re: MP3 quality

Great thread

Now a curious thing here is ,that a lot of fucking kick ass producers like to use an analog sound ( jamie jones , lee foss , varoslav , shonky , dyed soundoroum , shaun reeves , ewan pearson etc ) that will not make much of a diference if you listen to something on 320 or 192 .

Still though vynil has some great sound elements that digital cannot reproduce .

long live Vynil :Respect:

Re: MP3 quality

I think there have been enormous compromises made in music quality over quite a few years for the sake of convenience. The joy of listening to music on high quality music systems has been sacrificed for ipod docks!! We have become used to lesser quality. I was at a friends place the other day and he has an absolute kiss ass system. It was so good. I miss it :(

The way the music is recorded is incredibly important. It makes lower bit rates at least listen able. But a well recorded piece of music will always sound better in a higher bit rate. If I buy tracks I always buy then in wav.

Re: MP3 quality

192 minimum, or VBR, or 320. 128 to 192 to 320 are jumps in sound quality. 128 is useless, 192 is serviceable when music is in the background such as at work or on the move, 320 for auragasm. I have some music on AAC and Flac, but I don't really bother with the distinction between 320, AAC, or Flac.