Recording CDs

[nick77]

I have just tried downloading music from itunes and then burned a cd. Is this as good as cd purchased from retail store. Quality sounds fine but I dont know anything about retaining sq and playback. Is their any settings that might improve quality in windows and does a good sound card do anything? Any pointers? Thanks

[Alloroc]

Hi,

I suppose the only way you'll get anything really close to CD quality is if the files downloaded were 'lossless'. MP3/lossy files by their nature are compressed and therefore are not of the same quality as a CD. Note that MP3s encoded at high bitrates (320k) are not bad at all - but ulitmatly and this is my opinion in fairness, the quality will be exposed on a decent hifi system.

Theoretically at least and in my general experience, lossless files are of an acceptable 'high fidelity' quality - I rip in WAV but am experimenting with FLAC. It's then down to how you play them back and on what. For my portable player, I then transfer at 320k and live with the smaller amaount of files I can travel with. You'll need about 700mb space for an album ripped in lossless - so a lot of space is required.

I've never purchased MP3s online. I'd much rather buy the CD and rip my own MP3s. I believe that iTunes supplies files that have a 128k bitrate but I read somewhere that they are planning to present files in AAC lossless. Just in time for everyone to buy new, higher capacity iPods!

V.

[Boombox]

Theoretically at least and in my general experience, lossless files are of an acceptable 'high fidelity' quality - I rip in WAV but am experimenting with FLAC. It's then down to how you play them back and on what. For my portable player, I then transfer at 320k and live with the smaller amaount of files I can travel with. You'll need about 700mb space for an album ripped in lossless - so a lot of space is required.

V.

FLAC is certainly the part, its my prefered format. However, the files remain large. I have also found that the linux driver for my Augidy 2 soundcard is far superior than the windows driver (much, much less hiss on my tweeters....quite surprising). I can't understand this.....then again, I'm on SuSE most of the time...

iTunes sell 128kb/s tracks, but as you mentioned, they're going to sell "hi-def" soon...

I myself buy the CD, rip to FLAC and +/-224 kb/s(VBR) mp3 and will use the mp3 playback in iTunes......the album information retrieval is just tooooooooo convenient to pass.....

[bigburner]

I have just tried downloading music from itunes and then burned a cd. Is this as good as cd purchased from retail store. Quality sounds fine but I dont know anything about retaining sq and playback. Is their any settings that might improve quality in windows and does a good sound card do anything? Any pointers? Thanks

I often download mp3 tracks to evaluate a CD before I buy it. Frequently I then burn those mp3's onto a CD (.cda) so I can play the whole album in different players around the house. When I do buy the CD I am able to compare the mp3 CD with the real CD on my main hi-fi system. The real CD always has more life to it than the mp3 version. However, as Alloroc pointed out, the quality of a 320 kbps mp3 is pretty good. You probably wouldn't even notice unless you had the real CD there to compare. So my advice is to use mp3 for evaluation purposes and then get the proper CD if you like the album and want a superior audio experience.

I also store thousands of single mp3 tracks on my laptop and play these back through a low-end Creative 16-bit soundcard. I don't expect the quality to be great and it isn't. I keep these songs for their interest value, not their superior audio quality. A better soundcard doesn't make much difference. However if you store your music in a lossless format on a computer a superior soundcard will make a big difference. Many people in this forum will tell you that the combination of a lossless format on a computer plus a high quality soundcard is just as good as a CD.

Nigel.

[Alloroc]

I seldom listen to music thru the soundcard on my PC but when I do I use the jetAudio player - I think it just sounds better, believe it or not.

However, where I get the real benefit of lossless is when I stream to my Soundbridge M2000.

I have two of them abou the house and they work a treat. I've been contemplating a Slim Devices Transporter but it's quite expensive. I'd like to try before I buy so someday perhaps.

V.