Read about MP3 compression.
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Copyright © 2012 NONALIGNMENT·PACT - All Rights Reserved |
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TitleRead about MP3 compression. 10 comments to TitleLeave a Reply |
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Copyright © 2012 NONALIGNMENT·PACT - All Rights Reserved |
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Ok, i read that and its way to technical for me. Can you please give a summary in a way that skips over all the technical stuff? like maybe a summary that explains why this is relevant. I mean, i get the basic idea that MP3 are basically watered down versions of actual music, but isnt all recording in some way or another a simplification of some sort? is the MP3 way worst than most?
To me MP3s dont sound all that different from AIFF or WAV files, i mean not in ways that i currently care about, but maybe i need some guidance. Granted my ears are probably fairly damaged, plus when i listen to music i’m listening to chord progressions, melodies, rhythm patterns, song structure, arrangements of instruments and not so much at the quality of the format. Is there some glarring problems I’ve been missing, is there stuff that i’m not hearing, taht i should be hearing? maybe if you point out to me where to listen, i might be able to hear the difference…
THREE WORDS:
1) MARSHALL
2) TUCKER
3) BAND
…
Make it so!
I can hear the difference between WAV files and MP3s, and can tell that MP3s are a somewhat compromised form of sound file. For whatever reason, I have no such problem with AAC files, or M4A files I guess is what they actually are. They’re the default setting for importing on iTunes, and they’re not only smaller than MP3s, they sound way better.
When you’re listening to Sabbath, the format doesn’t really matter a whole lot.
And like john mentioned before, if you’re not listening out of a stereo that can tell the difference…
The thing that sticks out when I listen to MP3s (or any other lossy format) is the way cymbals sound. And this even applies to Black Sabbath. Cymbals are full of high frequencies and those are the frequencies that are compromised the most. So if you listen to the drums on an MP3 encoded song, it’s very likely that you’ll hear the compression, especially at lower bitrates. And for somebody like me that loves listening to drums, that can be a drag.
Next week, it’s all Marshall Tucker, baby.
To me, it’s all about the bit rate. I encode all my stuff at 256 VBR and I can’t tell the difference on any of my equipment from CD recordings. But at 128 it’s obvious, and sub-128 it’s painful.
For those of you who can’t tell the difference: go into iTunes (or your favorite MP3 encoder), change your import settings to the lowest bit rate possible, and import a favorite song. (Preferably one with cymbals, as that’s where I notice it first as well.) Listen to it loud, then listen to the CD. Then tell me if you can’t tell the difference. Then, if you’re inclined, experiment with progressively higher bit rates until you can’t tell the difference.
Charlie, my problem with AAC is that it’s a proprietary format, so I’m unwilling to switch to it. I don’t know about the sound, but the file size is a good reason.
I also have a problem with proprietary formats. It would suck to have a large collection of stuff that I spent a large collection of time ripping only to have it unusable on some future device.
It does seem that AAC is slightly smaller than MP3, but it’s not that much smaller, so I don’t know if that justifies the format, especially as disk space on all devices only increases.
Justin, the thing about it is that while AAC is only marginally smaller than MP3, it’s significantly higher quality. A 128 AAC is equivalent to about a much higher bit-rate MP3. Sure, it’s proprietary, which is why you don’t get rid of your CDs so in case you change formats someday you can re-rip them, which is a huge pain, I know. The only reason I’m comfortable using them is because I never plan on changing formats. I’m a “don’t fix it if it ain’t broke” kind of guy when it comes to technical stuff, and I don’t switch to new technical items until years after they’re introduced so they get all the bugs out of them and such, and so far, no one’s even come close to making something better than the iPod/iTunes combo, so I’m happy with that, and will be for a long while. Possibly forever.
The way I worked it was I just ripped all of my music by other people into AAC format, and then I rip my own stuff at 160 MP3 format so I can use that stuff if I need to post it somewhere or whatever, and it won’t be proprietary. And since most of my own music is older and not recorded that well anyway, and 160 is slightly higher and works just fine sound-wise, it’s not much of a loss, if any. And I’d read one of these technical articles that basically said that bit-rates higher than about 160 weren’t really significant improvements in the audio. Now, I don’t know, and I never bothered to experiment with that, but my 160 bit-rate MP3s don’t sound deficient like the few 128 rate MP3s I burned when I first got iTunes, and the 256 bit-rate MP3s I’ve gotten from others via downloads and such didn’t sound that much better as I recall… who knows though… at a certain point I’m sure the quality of stereo becomes pretty critical for real assessment.