MFSL/DCC/24-bit/MP3

I noticed one can download these from various sites.


How would you rate the quality vs regular recording

How would you in general rate the sound quality of an MP3
128/320 etc...

 

Mp3's are cute, sometimes useful, and very accessable from even a dialup connection.

But MP3's do many unkind things to musical data.

Next time you're at your favorite burger joint, order up a big tall sloppy burger. Now, remove the pickles, cheese, lettuce, sauce, onions, scrape off the mustard and ketchup.

Now just eat the wet, plain salted beef. No fun, huh?

That's how MP3's work, in a general sense. But you're still eating a burger. Encoding an MP3 at any bitrate, there's lots of data loss, and that makes it a lossy format.

But if you want to make it listenable, anything over 160 is ok. Try to resist bothering with Mp3s as a serious format for music. It's just not right. You'll see..... It's cute, convenient, sounds Ok, but it's not great.

 

And then there's that wonderful flanging sound...

 

>>>>This is not really true. yes, MP3 is a lossy format, but the quality is all in the encoding. I have encoded things at 128k that are IDENTICAL to the Cd source. True, its hit or miss, but with careful attention, you really can make a great rip.

The LAME encoder is very very good, and its free!! just a little hard to manage, but once you learn, its good.

 

I agree with Mikey. I have many 128k mp3s that sound terrific - virtually identical to the source. I also have some (even at higher bit rates) that sound godawful. You can really hear the differences (if any) through headphones. The weird flanging is, to me, the most noticeable compression artifact.

Ray

 

pardon my ignorance! what is flanging.

 

Do you know the sound of the guitar at the beginning of "Atomic Punk"?

"Cowboys from Hell" by Pantera?

That sort of thing, although the sound on "Atomic Punk" is technically a phaser, I believe.

 

My two cents,

All the MP3s I make for personal listening are encoded at 256kbps using Lame codec.

At 224kbps or less I begin to hear phasing/shakey/watery effect. Of course, at 256/320 the file size is the same as a compressed wav file.

Anyone know if there is a program to create and playback compressed (loss-less) wav files as easily as MP3s ?. Seems to me you could do that and have an exact reproduction of the CD wav file.

My Beatles remixes I encode live in analog at 256kbps.

Lance Hall

 

Many compression formats for the PC are available, MP3 is just one, and the most popular.

Many people use Liquid Audio for a "less lossy sounding" format, but you need to use their encoder/decoder. They have plugins available for Winamp. Sounds great, and usually less "detectable" as a lossy format than MP3.

Another popular one is Monkey's Audio. It's a lossless format, and DTS and HDCD discs among the full 44.1/16bit can be compressed by 2/3 original size, 1/2 the size for true MONO files. Shorten© is also a similar thing, similar effect. You can encode something for compression, and at the other end decompress (or play using Winamp) with nothing lost, even after a CRC check. Fragile DTS information is untouched and intact...

People on Usenet posting full CDs, even some hobby-oriented DTS CDs use both Monkeys Audio and Shorten. Some of which is used because nothing is lost after decompression. If you want the file size real small, yeah, things get lost. All about data-priority!

One of the most interesting compressed and lossy formats are none of these. It's called Dolby Digital. It's on most every DVD available. It's amazing that such a small file size sounds good, and was written for surround format as well. Lossy? You betcha. But it still intregues - how it saves a LOT of room on DVD for mainly video/MPEG-1 information. The sound/vid ratio at a whole is a heavy tipped scale!

 

Not a chance. Unless the CD source was garbage to begin with.

Any MP3 under 256kbps is unlistenable to me and I can pick them out like a bad tomato.

It is impossible -- unless your hearing is shot -- that a 128 kbps MP3 regardless of encoder is "identical" to the CD source. Just by virtue of how the alogrithm works....it's impossible.

MP3 is good for the gym, for running, etc..

For serious listening? Ugh....no thanks.

 

It's most noticeable in things like cymbals (particularly when they're played with brushes), vocals or vocal harmonies (especially when there is little echo added during the mixing).

 

MP3

 

Hmm...

Look at it this way...

In 1995 I bought my 1st PC. I put an upgraded 33.6 modem in it (Zoom) and I had speakers the size of my mouse. Real Player was a 1.2 meg download, and hearing a scratchy, warbly (but fairly audiable) radio station from 1000 miles away... Hey I thought it was pretty neato. I must have spent $2k on that poor POS. That was then.

Mp3 serves both the dialup and broadband community well. It serves its purpose, and occasionally an MP3 isn't going to ruin your day... but it's true. You should never concider an MP3 source something with significant quality or trust it. But if it was cool to hear something "before you bought it" with a margin of CD-quality, hey, that's just cool man.



And yes LAME encoders are still the best. Open code too!

 

I have to admit that the great thing about mp3's, at least for a short while, was trading them over Napster. I'm not referring to mp3's of, say, Metallica songs that I can easily buy in any store, but mp3's of stuff you can't find anywhere. It could be music that's been out-of-print since the 70's, or something like "Child Bride" from Springsteen's Nebraska sessions, or a live recording of "Just My Imagination" by Prince. It was so cool to hear someone gush over a recording you never realized existed, and then five minutes later, listen to it on your computer.

 

Do you know what some of the newsgroup names are where they distribute DTS stuff??? I have tons but I would love to get more. Thanks, Bob

 

Nope sorry. It was not identical, it was lossy compressed and I'd be able to pick it out 100% of the time. If you can't, I guess that's good, you're not as discriminating a listener as I am.

If you like the way it sounds, that's great. But please don't kid yourself into thinking that a 128kbps file is identical to a 1.44 Mbps PCM stream, because it isn't....not by a longshot.

 

I'd love to say that the scene is progressing, but it's died (or died down). There's 3 major QUAD maniacs who do business, collecting and consulting on the net, and the bigger of the three was posting up to 3-4 Q8 or Q4 titles to DTS a week. It's since died in a major way. Now, it's a lot of HDCD remasters, funky yENC binary weirdness and yes, non-rare or non-audiophile stuff. It's like the light's been turned off, if at least for now.

alt.binaries.cd.image.other is the group that has seen many binary posts of hobby-oriented DTS encodes from Q8 or Q4 reels. QuadRADIAL is the guy (nickname). (BKA Tab Patterson).

You do need to be proficient into nailing down RARs, using Monkey's Audio (sometimes not) and also using CDRwin OR EAC. Knowing how ForteINC's Agent (Not FreeAGENT) or NewsPRO works also helps quite a bit. Don't bother coming in with Outlook Express. It doesn't work that hot into binary groups.

 

Wow Sckott, I think I love you. I've been using usenet for a long time now and that group is *exactly* what I was looking for. Any more info on that "scene"?

I doubt the legality of this stuff is a problem too, as most of these cds are long out of print and of no benefit to any corporation anymore.

 

*double take*

You're Beatles remixes?! What are you hiding from us, Lance?

And I bet you thought no one would notice.

 

Anybody know about yEnc? What is it? I see tons of files out there "encoded" using this... and a lot of people that are pretty peeved about the files being encoded that way??

I got the Monkey Audio compressing program and it seems a lot like SHN to me (am I correct?)

The new thing seems to be to take the DVD-A multichannels out now and convert them to DTS cds. I also see DVD rips of 5.1 sound encoded for DTS as well. Hey Sckott....thanks for the news group information!!

Bob

PS... I am open to trading DTS discs that I have, so anyone interested email me!!!