I can definitely tell the difference between mp3 (whatever bitrate) and 16-bit 41kHz CD Audio. You lost a lot of the depth to the sub-bass frequencies and there is a brittle 'fizziness' to the frequencies in the 17.2kHz - 20kHz range. I give you that for the average listener who has a cheap £200 hi-fi system from dixons or something will probably notice no difference, and the standard headphones that come with the iPod are terrible so music sounds crap whatever format they are in.
In fact, I am not a particular fan of digital audio is any form... CDs sound pretty good nowadays but you just can't beat the sound of vinyl. I know it's a cliche, but apart from the warmth, lushness and depth of vinyl, there is also the lovely big album artwork, the sensation and ritual of setting up the turntable and flipping the records over.
For me, music is not 'background ambience'... it is something I will sit down and listen to for a few hours a day. Having a computer whirring away in the background is not very nice.... and the act of clicking a mouse is rather unsatisfying.
In fact, most computer soundcards have very noisy outputs which only makes the sound worse. When you've spent lots of money on a soundsystem, you don't want to jepordise the quality with a crappy audio source.
Dave
quoted 45 lines Date: Thu, 25 Oct 2007 15:05:35 -0400
> Date: Thu, 25 Oct 2007 15:05:35 -0400
> From: ruinae@gmail.com
> To: idm@hyperreal.org
> Subject: Re: [idm] who still buys CDs
>
> LAME encoded Mp3 audio sounds completely transparent @ ~320 kbps --
> Especially if there's no filtering during the process.
>
> Grab your favorite .wav, plug the following into lame, and compress said .wav:
>
> -b 320 -m j -h -q 9 -k
>
> I challenge you to tell me there's any /audible/ difference.
>
> On 10/24/07, rednetic <mark@rednetic.com> wrote:
> >
> > Hi
> > Who still buys CDs? We are a small label that still sell CDs, but we are
> > also starting up paid for mp3 downloads. I have been thinking for a while
> > that the future will be limited vinyl and digital downloads for labels such
> > as us and CDs will disappear all together.
> >
> > We currently give away free mp3s as a netlabel, as i have always had the
> > opinion that the quality isnt as good. I would be interested in peoples
> > thoughts.
> >
> > mark
> > rednetic recordings
> > http://www.rednetic.com www.rednetic.com
> > http://www.myspace.com/rednetic www.myspace.com/rednetic
> > --
> > View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/who-still-buys-CDs-tf4684544.html#a13386412
> > Sent from the IDM mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
> >
> >
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