> Originally Posted by Mark Lanctot > I'm curious - I see a lot of people saying that their entire music > library is MP3. > > Without unduly hijacking the thread, would anyone care to elaborate on > the reasons why? > > - you notice no audible difference?
thats right. and neither do most other people. i have used lame 3.96.1 or higher at 256kbps-cbr qval=1 j-stereo for all my stuff, and it sounds great, and gives me around a 7 to 1 compression ratio. now, if people were honest in their testing methods, they would take a blind test, that a friend administers. play song X as a wav, a flac, a mp3 (with my settings) whatever, but don't tell the listener which is which. have THEM say which is which. (and be sure to on some tests, not change the format at all) do it multiple times with multiple songs. you'll laugh out loud at how wrong they are. most people in fact, if they notice anything, notice slight differences in sound levels, and more often than not, they associate the louder sound with being the higher quality one. so if you're really serious about conducting double blind tests, u need a DB meter to compensate for any differences in replay gain between formats; in other words, you want to make sure you have the same sound pressure levels consistent from format to format for the same song. > - you don't have enough storage space? > > - compatibility with a portable player? > > - ease of conversion? > > Just curious. i have a 200gig HD just for mp3. i figured its enough for now, (i have 38gigs free with some more to rip still) and at 256 it would give me the right mix of quality / size and compatibility, so i could use it in portables or share with friends easily, whatever. another consideration is, how perfect do you need your music anyway? i have lots of songs and i like them, but there's probably only 100 or so albums i'd really care enough about to be lossless on. and then if i do that, i now have to decide if i'm going to keep the mp3 versions, for the reasons i mentioned above. sure, mp3 might be technically "lossy" but that only matters if one can tell, and i don't think nearly as many people can tell, as some would lead you to believe. until they pass a double blind test with statistically significant results, i don't believe it. zooropa320 Wrote: > I would guess the reason for some people is also because mainstream mp3 > encoders came along first and therefore people dedicated a significant > amount of time/effort ripping their cd collections and building fairly > sizeable collections. I'm sure if many of us were to do it again we > would go the flac route from the start, especially considering the drop > in hard drive costs. That said, I think most people are like me and > have a difficult time justifying the time/effort to re-rip for a > benefit they probably can't hear. I upgraded my dac, amp & speakers a > little less than 6 months ago and right after I purchased my SB3. I > thought the new setup would reveal differences between flac and mp3 but > it does not. VBR MP3s which are encoded using LAME and the -alt preset > standard flag (APS) reproduce excellent sound quality in my experience. right on. and i would say flac at 2-1 is not yet attractive, when i can get 7-1 with mp3, and have an easier time with portables and sharing. jmho. -mdw -- MrSinatra www.LION-Radio.org Using: Squeezebox2 w/SS 6.3.1 - Win XP Pro SP2 - 3.2ghz / 2gig ram ------------------------------------------------------------------------ MrSinatra's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=2336 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=23701 _______________________________________________ discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
