At the risk of confusing things,
When CDs first came out, they had a three letter code of the back of
their carrying case composed of As and Ds. This code let you know what
technology was used in making the CD. A stood for for analog, D for
digital, the order of the code was: Recording, Mixing, Mastering. So a
DDD coded CD had digital processing at every step of "making the
recording" of the music. (There were no AAA CDs.)
Very little of the music back then came out on CD as DDD. Most were
redos from old master tapes and were put out to CD as AAD. There are
some notable exceptions. Some (Steely Dan comes to mind) were re-mixed,
re-mastered and put out as ADD.
Later this code use was dropped. Some artists preferred ADD vs DDD,
some folks that bought CDs gripped that they paid the same money for a
AAD as for a DDD CD.
AAD CDs just do not sound nearly as good as DDD CDs do, and cannot.
Limitations in the mixing process are such that an AAD CD does not
record onto disk with as much "sound" as do DDD CDs.
So what does this have to do with MP3s?
Well it is the same principle. When you convert from audio format (CDDA
if you will) to MP3, you can lose some "sound". But you might not
notice.
It depends on what technology went into making the CD to begin with. If
the artist made a ADD or DDD CD that you convert into MP3, and you have
a good stereo to play the "before" and "after" on, you might notice
that it (the MP3) does not sound as good as the original CD does. If
the artist made a AAD CD then you probably won't notice a difference.
As Lee points out, if you playing them while driving in your car, you
probably won't notice a difference unless your car is very quiet and
the stereo is very good.
More to the point now:
If you import CD songs with the idea of putting them back out as audio
CDs, be careful about using MP3 in the middle. You can introduce pops
and crackles into the song. Try your new CD you just made on a cheaper
system at middle volume, before popping it into a high end stereo at
loud volumes. Better yet, make it MP3 at both importing and exporting
and you won't get the Rice Krispy gang singing backup. Best yet, import
and export as audio format (this though will limit you to 70 minutes
instead of several hours of music per CD).
Jerry
That was a handful of acronyms to add to the list. The day is coming
when English will not be recognizable to its speakers!
On Sunday, March 16, 2003, at 05:55 PM, Marta Edie wrote:
> 16.03.2003 16:50 UhrLee Larsonleelarson at mac.com:
>
>> On Saturday, March 15, 2003, at 10:53 PM, Marta Edie wrote:
>>
>>> Thanks so very much Lee." Hut ab" to all that knowledge.. So I was
>>> on
>>> the
>>> right track, I looked at my preferences again and for the import it
>>> says it
>>> is a MATSHITA CD-RW CW-8121, it is burning at maximum speed. For the
>>> import
>>> it says Better quality 160 kbps, It also has a best quality of 192 .
>>> Should
>>> I set it on this quality? I learned from your explanation 192 is
>>> better .
>>> but Is there a drawback somewhere else in setting it that high , and
>>> once
>>> set at 192, can I keep it there indefinitely?
>>
>> The tradeoffs are between sound quality and file size. More kilobits
>> per second gives you better sound quality, but the file sizes are
>> bigger. I can't tell the difference between a CD and an MP3 when the
>> rate is 192 kb/s, and rarely ever hear a difference at 160 kb/s. I can
>> hear the difference at 128 kb/s on good playback equipment.
>>
>> My daughter, who knows a lot more about music than I do and has
>> younger
>> ears, claims she can tell the difference at 160 kb/s.
>>
>> Most of the time I listen to MP3s when I'm driving. (I have an in-dash
>> MP3-CD player.) With all that background noise, there's no difference
>> between 128 and an audio CD to my ears.
>>
>>
>>
>> | The next meeting of the Louisville Computer Society will
>> | be March 25. The LCS Web page is <http://www.kymac.org>.
>
> Thanks, Lee. I see now. It makes the files larger. As long as I don't
> want
> to put oodles of hours on a CD for meinen Hausgebrauch, well - So, this
> tidbit of technical knowledge is now stored on my hard disk in my
> brain. I
> shall hope it won't get erased by an interference of a component
> related
> to my age. They say age and memory aren't always compatible.
> Marta
>
>
>
> | The next meeting of the Louisville Computer Society will
> | be March 25. The LCS Web page is <http://www.kymac.org>.
>
>
>
| The next meeting of the Louisville Computer Society will
| be March 25. The LCS Web page is <http://www.kymac.org>.
