mp3 compression sux

[PaCrappa]

I never touch the stuff. Have a listen!

[Doc Holliday]

Thanks for the nightmares.

[Brisco Bold]

What's the bit rate? Is it any compression rate, or...

[Some Stupid Japanese Name]

Yeah, there's some details not being addressed there.
MP3 is lossy, so no matter what bit rate, you're missing out on some stuff. But I imagine there's quite a difference between a 64 and a 320 stream.

[PaCrappa]

Brisco I'm not going to reread the article but I don't recall it mentioning the bit rate. I'd have to imagine it's low so as to have the most noticeable effect. 320 is obviously pretty fucking good but there has been more than one instance where I could hear the difference so I avoid it. But I was late to the party to begin with, having never downloaded any music whatsoever before 2004 and even then it was just a half a dozen weird Headcoats songs I'd never seen on CD or vinyl. I ended up with a new laptop with Vista installed in '06ish and I immediately changed that shit out for Ubuntu. That was the first time I noticed flac being an option so I tried it out. Since there was nothing on that computer I just began ripping what CDs I wanted on there as flacs and never looked back or gave it another thought. I still don't download anything unless the code came with a record that I bought and of course nowadays flac is usually an option. I just checked how many songs I have on this hard drive it's a fairly modest 5896 (many of which haven't had a play in years) all acquired since the Linux switch in '06. So space isn't a factor. So anyway I suppose all of the above was my rambling roundabout way of saying that I don't think anybody needs to have anything less than radical losslessness ever.

[kedawa]

Most music is so badly mastered that the lossy compression is just sprinkling dirt on a turd, but the effect is pretty noticeable on tracks ripped from old CDs.

[Brisco Bold]

I got everything at 320, which I realize isn't optimal but I'm not going to notice the difference. The flip-side is, I still have the hard copies, so I don't particularly care.

Keep in mind, however: While I love music with all my heart, and can totally appreciate sick fucking sound quality, I came from a "if I can hear the song and it's not completely awful/tinny/roboty sounding, I'll listen to it," sorta semi-impoverished life. Beaten-up, piece-of-shit childhood stereos; my dad's booming sound system that never worked properly (because he didn't know how to use it/set it properly, and never let anyone—me—fix it): doesn't matter. In the words of every Jamaican elder I grew up, "As long as the bass is tuff and sound is criss', mi nuh care." Let's dance!

The only reason why I give a crap about bit rate now is because if I'm playing out, I don't want my music to sound like shit. And apparently digital files tend to sound really awful if you're pitching them up or down.

[Brisco Bold]

Here's another version of the article Pa posted.

There's a thrilling fight in the comment section.

Another take.

Comments from the second article:

There is an audible difference between 320K MP3s and lossless. It's subtle and your ability to hear it says more about your listening skills (and equipment) than it does about the comparison between formats. Most laymen who participate in this test will have no training, formal or otherwise, in listening for subtle differences. That's not a bad thing, people have demonstrated that the production quality of music is far less important to them than the content; even as a professional audio engineer, that doesn't really bother me, it should be about the content in my view.

I don't care if I hear the difference. Just the knowledge that I have it in the best possible quality is enough.

[PaCrappa]

Most music is so badly mastered that the lossy compression is just sprinkling dirt on a turd, but the effect is pretty noticeable on tracks ripped from old CDs.

I am not sure I agree with this. Rookies, dunces and arrogant dillweeds will often try to master their shit themselves or avoid it altogether for financial reasons but anybody who's been around the block usually realizes the importance of paying the right guy to do the right thing.

Brisco, I'm not such a snob about it all either really. Mostly for the reasons (Jamaican family not withstanding) you listed above. I started listening on my parents bottom of the line Sears stereo and then when I was five or six my mom gave me a little suitcase record player and all her bustedass old 45s. About a year after that I got a tape recorder. All of these devices were pretty crappy even by lowball 70s department store standards. I never had a decent stereo til I was 19 or so. Really I'm just lucky to have dodged the whole era where mp3's were pretty much automatically going to be shite so I like to rag on the format for fun :0)

[Josh]

I think kedwa is referring to the loudness wars, and digital clipping, which (can) sort of bury the mp3 artifacting in a way, kinda. Mostly.

I used to be able to spot the difference between 320 and wav on my laptop speakers when my ears were about 13 years younger. I don't remember who set up the challenge, but Cheebs and I were the only ones here that passed it.