CD's vs MP3 players...

[Diamond45]

My take on this:

CDs:

1. Great best quality sound (unless you want to get into the CD vs. Vinyl wars...) in your home or car CD player.

2. Great for a source of MP3s. You rip them yourself at the bitrate you want (quality vs. file size) for your MP3 player of choice.

3. A CD can only hold one album (maybe two at the most if you can squeeze it on there). Remember folks, this technology is over 25 years old. Great back in the day, but now with DVD and Blu-Ray you can cram more stuff on a 5 inch disc.

MP3s:

1. Great for convenience. My 5th gen iPod can hold 80 GB (6th gen can hold up to 160 GB). You can put your ENTIRE collection on an iPod and still have room left over.

2. Download MP3s off the Internet. Great if you want to "test drive" an album, or if you want to get them from eMusic (like Steve I have an account there too).

3. Not very great in quality. Even a 320 kps MP3 still doesn't sound as good as an CD. It's close, but not quite. Anything less and you can tell the difference (especially below 160 kps).

Bottom line:

CD - Quality. MP3 - Convenience. Take your pick which you want for your situation.

 

[Creeps]

I love CDs but I'm still leaning towards straight digital for many reasons everyone here is posting.

Gone are the days, for me, having a dozen or so CD's in my car. My car stereo reads MP3 discs I've created. So now the same little binder in my car that held 12 albums, now holds over 120.

My car stereo also has an auxiliary input on the front that I can plug my 8 or 30 gig Creative Labs Zen MP3 players into. No more CD changers needed when you have that kind of technology while you're driving around.

I used to love my Sony 200 CD changer in my stereo system, but since I can stream from my PC or plug in an MP3 player that handles more, I no longer have to change out disc after disc when a different mood strikes me.

I'm big on convenience. If I could have my entire music collection at my fingertips no matter where I went, that technology would have my support. I'm currently pushing 225 gigs of music on one hard drive in my PC and I still don't have everything ripped or converted from out of print vinyl and cassette. I've been an avid music collector since the early 80s and haven't stopped.

 

[end]

Stuff about quality

I'm not really able to tell a difference between various bitrates. I'm kind of jealous honestly, it would be nice to have that discerning of an ear. I feel like I'm missing out on something.

 

[General Zod]

I meant when you're not connected to a PC and are downloading them straight through your phone service. Your method is a "way around" what I mentioned.

I suppose it's a matter of perspective. I would never want to download music through my phone service. For starters, I use my own MP3s, I never buy MP3s. Even if I bought them, I can't imagine Verizon Wireless offers a ton of Black Metal.

Zod

 

[nailz]

I'm not really able to tell a difference between various bitrates. I'm kind of jealous honestly, it would be nice to have that discerning of an ear. I feel like I'm missing out on something.

95% of the world can't tell the difference between 160kbps and 256kbps, and less than 1% of the world can tell the difference between 256kbps and 320kbps, and less than that from 320kbps to CD quality.

My ears top out at 256kpbs. My brain tells me 320 is better, and I rip at that, but I really can't hear a difference.

 

[TychoCelchu]

For me the mp3 threshold starts at 256 kbps. I can "hear" 256 but accept it. 160-downward is unacceptable to me. I would do 192kbps if small filesize is needed. If it's AAC (iTunes), 256 and up is fine by my ears.

I don't have high-quality enough stereo equipment to communicate the difference between vinyl and CD. If I choose vinyl, it's just because it's more fun

 

[Wherewolf]

There's definitely a difference between CD quality and 320kbps mp3. Thats why you rip your CDs in .flac format, no compression at all.

Agreed, there is technically a difference BUT, listen to a cd and then ripp the same cd at 320, you WILL NOT hear a difference, not an opinion, it's a FACT. The compression is sooo minimal you cannot hear the difference. Also, I would ripp a cd in WAV instead of flac if I was going to ripp with no compression, wav is superior to flac. In conclusion, if you want to split hairs here if I played you a song at 320 and then the real cd, you would not be able to tell me which is which.

 

[nailz]

http://mp3ornot.com/

And this might be a little clearer. I can hear a much, much clearer difference with the REM song over classical.

http://blogs.pcworld.com/staffblog/archives/003993.html

 

[zedowns]

Agreed, there is technically a difference BUT, listen to a cd and then ripp the same cd at 320, you WILL NOT hear a difference, not an opinion, it's a FACT. The compression is sooo minimal you cannot hear the difference. Also, I would ripp a cd in WAV instead of flac if I was going to ripp with no compression, wav is superior to flac. In conclusion, if you want to split hairs here if I played you a song at 320 and then the real cd, you would not be able to tell me which is which.

Not true at all. Just because you can't, doesn't make it fact. I'm able to easily distinguish 320 from a CD, and I'm far from being an audiophile.

As far as .wav vs. .flac is concerned there is 0 difference in terms of sound quality, THAT'S fact. Flac files are compressed to reduce the file size, bigger file sizes =/= bigger sound quality.

 

[Wherewolf]

Not true at all. Just because you can't, doesn't make it fact. I'm able to easily distinguish 320 from a CD, and I'm far from being an audiophile.

As far as .wav vs. .flac is concerned there is 0 difference in terms of sound quality, THAT'S fact. Flac files are compressed to reduce the file size, bigger file sizes =/= bigger sound quality.

Like I said, not trying to start a war here, But that's it, now i'm pissed and I am sending you a shit load of cd's at 320 bit so you can suffer the quality loss .

 

[nailz]

As far as .wav vs. .flac is concerned there is 0 difference in terms of sound quality, THAT'S fact. Flac files are compressed to reduce the file size, bigger file sizes =/= bigger sound quality.

The only way to compress something is to take something away. You can't make data smaller than it is. Compression works by taking away certain parts of whatever your compressing and then using a specialized algorythm to rebuild it on playback. Sometimes, that algorythm is incorrect, and you suffer artifacting. It happens all the time with, for example, jpegs. it's why it's called "lossy codec".

So, technically, yes, bigger file sizes = more data = better sound. Unless, of course, you eclipse the original source in size, then you have corruption - If you can honestly tell the difference between 320kbps and CD quality, you are some kind of a medical miracle, and I, for one, salute you.

I'd like to know aslo if you tried out my link above and what your honest results were.

 

[Diamond45]

There's lossless compression and lossy compression.

FLAC = lossless compression, similar to compressing files with WinZIP/PKZIP. These are basically WAV files that are compressed and reconstructed to original. No loss of quality.

MP3 = Lossy comprssion where a mathematical algorithm goes through the file to remove "extra" stuff to compress it. Also with MP3 files you can use "joint stereo" mode to have the mono MP3 file with information for the MP3 player to reconstruct the stereo component upon playing, further reducing the file size. In theory there is no difference in the sound, but I can tell sometimes especially at low bitrates (especially with out of phase and lack of high frequency components).

 

[nailz]

So, flac just expands a file on playback?

FLAC uses linear prediction to convert the audio samples to a series of small, uncorrelated numbers (known as the residual), which are stored efficiently using Golomb-Rice coding. It also uses run-length encoding for blocks of identical samples, such as silent passages. The technical strengths of FLAC compared to other lossless codecs lie in its ability to be streamed and in a fast decode time, which is independent of compression level.

Ah, that's an interesting way to do it. So, really, it doesn't "compress" so to speak, as much as it does copy/reuse, or am I reading this wrong?

Come to think of it, I know when I was video editing, I was using HuffyYUV or something as a lossless codec for video, but the file sizes were massive.

 

[Magius]

Nailz, tour avatar is bugging me.

 

[nailz]

Nailz, tour avatar is bugging me.

I don't tour.

 

[Creeps]

I suppose it's a matter of perspective. I would never want to download music through my phone service. For starters, I use my own MP3s, I never buy MP3s. Even if I bought them, I can't imagine Verizon Wireless offers a ton of Black Metal.

Zod

My guess is sooner or later phone companies will try to get music services under contract for mobile downloads.

 

[Creeps]

Here's an interesting article for you all discussing being able to tell the difference between MP3 and CD.

http://phineasgage.wordpress.com/2007/10/16/hearing-limitations-pt-2-distinguishing-mp3-from-cd/

I particularly like this excerpt;

"This illustrates the human tendency to overestimate our own perceptual ability – if we know that two things are different, we will find differences, imagined or otherwise. Blind testing is the only way to establish whether a genuine difference in sound quality exists, yet, this is very rarely done."

 

[General Zod]

My guess is sooner or later phone companies will try to get music services under contract for mobile downloads.

It comes down to the device. The wireless company can probably force you to use their service for over the air downloads, since they'd argue you're using their bandwidth. However, with the better devices, especially those that have their own OS (Blackberry, Apple, Android) the phone companies will be unable to prevent you from simply dragging and dropping files to the phone as you would to any other USB device.

Zod

 

[Rycher]

It comes down to the device. The wireless company can probably force you to use their service for over the air downloads, since they'd argue you're using their bandwidth. However, with the better devices, especially those that have their own OS (Blackberry, Apple, Android) the phone companies will be unable to prevent you from simply dragging and dropping files to the phone as you would to any other USB device.

Zod

I think it depends on the service company. I use Verizon, and have a plain old cell phone. I never use any of the music features regularly, but I have played around with it. You can drag and drop music files to use with the V-Cast player, however Verizon will disable certain features on ALL of their phones, such as using your own MP3 a ringtone. They want you to buy ringtones and other products from their service.

 

[Creeps]

I think it depends on the service company. I use Verizon, and have a plain old cell phone. I never use any of the music features regularly, but I have played around with it. You can drag and drop music files to use with the V-Cast player, however Verizon will disable certain features on ALL of their phones, such as using your own MP3 a ringtone. They want you to buy ringtones and other products from their service.

Verizon does offer an accessory that you can use to use your own MP3s as ringtones, but even the guy that works the booth says there's cheaper and/or free ways to do it.