[Beemer]

Originally Posted by nitinbhag

old LP

There you are ,i kept wondering the whole night as i was not able to recall the old format of music,(though it was just in the corner of my mind) . Yes LP's are known for its natural sound quality , played on turntables .

Originally Posted by nitinbhag

In fact, the extreme school of thought believes that CD or any digital music form will never be as good as the old LP & analog forms..

I totally agree, even i ve heard people saying this . Though i 've yet to listen Lp's and not to forget those good turntables are damn expensive .

[dmitri]

There are some advantages of Mp3 over audio cd.

Like,

We can see the track details, ID3 tag will keep scrolling.

Its easy to search for a song as the track name will be there.

Ofcourse more number of songs in one disc, so less number of discs to keep the enteire collection.

We can encode the mp3 in a higher bit rate and it will perfrom as good as a normal audio cd. The compression takes out the components of sound which we cannot perceive normally. So IMO the sound quality is as good as Audio CD.

I agree that mp3 files encoded below 128kbps and 44kHz lack sound quality.

Regards,
dmitri

[Harrie]

i would go for MP3 if it were to be for a daily driver or a car where i dont have a very good system put together.

but for a car i would use for long drives or something like that i would have a nakamichi single cd player with matching speakers. not too loud but the type that surrounds me with lushful melodies

[iceman91]

Originally Posted by dmitri

There are some advantages of Mp3 over audio cd.

Like,

We can see the track details, ID3 tag will keep scrolling.

Its easy to search for a song as the track name will be there.

Ofcourse more number of songs in one disc, so less number of discs to keep the enteire collection.

We can encode the mp3 in a higher bit rate and it will perfrom as good as a normal audio cd. The compression takes out the components of sound which we cannot perceive normally. So IMO the sound quality is as good as Audio CD.

I agree that mp3 files encoded below 128kbps and 44kHz lack sound quality.

Regards,
dmitri

hey track details are also possible adn found on audio cds!!

[GTO]

So whats the maximum to use while burning cds? My recent CDs, I have been using between 256 - 320 kbps always. Its pretty easy to find newer music with these ratings. Is it overkill?

GTO

[iceman91]

well gto when you "rip" an original audio cd into an mp3 then 192 is more than enough.
but if you are downloading from the net then forget it some have excellent quality and some are pathetic..also need to see the khz rating.

[CaliforniaKnight]

well everyones said it and ts true that its the audio Cd's for the audiophiles..no compromise music at its best..but for the youngsters many prefers mp3 primarily because it is handy to carry music and alsmost all players now play mp3...but yes it does have its own negatives. high frequencies tend to be on the high side...listen to the same song in the same player and feel the difference.

[nitinbhag]

In a car, on Indian roads, this debate is kind of redundant.. With so much road noise coming through, it hardly matters whther it is mp3 or CD as long as it is 128Kbps minimum.. of course, if you are the kind that stops the car to listen to music, get yourself audiophile grade stuff at home

[GTO]

So whats the minimum khz rating I should look for?

GTO

[nitinbhag]

Originally Posted by GTO

So whats the minimum khz rating I should look for?

GTO

CD-quality is defined as:

Sampling rate: 44.1 KHz (there is not much choice here)
Resolution: 16 bit stereo
Bit rate: 44100x16x2 = 1.4Mbps (2 for 2 channels)

MP3 encoding compresses by a factor of 10-11

so 128kbps is the minimum bit rate for decent quality sound.. of course, higher bit rates will give you better sounding music but file size will increase.. Beyond 192 kbps, the difference in sound in inaudible even to the trained ear.

[adya33]

128kbps : Below Cd quality (most widely used because file size is small & transfering it over the itnernet is easy)

196kbps : Near Cd- quality

256kbps : Cd quality

Also given a chance go for 192kbps WMA format over MP3 it is much better & file size is also comparitively small but sometimes the WMA files may be liecense locked

[nitrous]

i've been ripping audio cds to 320kbps mp3s with the file sizes as large as 12-14mb. i guess its a total waste .

[sbfx]

If one is after quality then in the digital arena a Audio CD/SACD/DVD-A are the best, afcourse very dependent on the DAC and Transport used, but in a CAR I feel Mp3 is more than enough but make sure it is encoded in 320K or even better a lossless format like the Apple ACC or WMA, I use my I-Pod with a Alpine KCA-420i, its not difficult to look for songs as one can create playlists for each album to browse easily.

Mp3 or any other digital format can never sound good as the Original CD PERIOD (Only exception is a WAV file ripped by a high quality Rom eg; Plextor or Yamaha)

But if someone wants to have the best then well Turntables are the only way to go, a half-decent Analog setup will blow the living day-lights of a really really expensive digital front-end, again there are many issues when dealing with records as one has to be almost anal to keep everything in good shape i.e. regularly clean the records, take a lot of care of the stylus.....

Regards,
Satyam.