Listening to MP3's?

[Chris D]

I'm wondering who here does and does not listen to MP3's.

Me personally, I can appreciate being able to fit a lot of music into one digital space. BUT, I just can't get over the loss of audio information by compressing the audio signal. Even if I use the highest quality ripping format, I occasionally get to certain part of songs that sound relatively horrible in comparison to the original, and I can't stand it. For me, one example is trying to rip the into to "One" by Creed--I can't get an MP3 recording of it to sound right, no matter what I do.

I guess I'll continue to keep my massive CD collection and play off the originals. Because of this, I've never gotten into MP3 swapping or anything.

Any other purists out there? Or am I just too picky?




CHRIS
Luke: "Hey, I'm not such a bad pilot myself, you know"

[Brandon B]

I'm with you, mostly. I have a sony minidisc portable, but the ATRACS compression is tolerable to me compared to MP3s.

BB

[Burke Strickland]

Any other purists out there? Or am I just too picky?

If by "purist" you mean someone who wants to hear music instead of overly compressed trash, then I guess I'm another "purist. :>) But "too picky"? Not on your life. It is a matter of having some standards. If you are going for "quantity" over "quality" MP3 is the way to go. You can fit a ton of crap in a given amount of space with MP3. But unfortunately, that's what it sounds like -- crap.

I listen occasionally to MP3 snippets of new material online to get an idea of what a selection is like (or to confirm that a particular song is the one I was looking for) but I NEVER listen to MP3 renditions for "pleasure". In fact, I almost passed on a new artist a friend was raving about because all I had heard of her work was the MP3 download sample from the official site... but upon one listen of the CD I became an instant fan (the CDs are "demo quality" and the artist is a national treasure) -- to the point that I ended up buying a copy of every CDs this artist has produced. But I've avoided all the other MP3 downloads of her work like the plague. :>)

So Chris, we may be outnumbered in the internet community, but at least we get to listen to music and not electronic hash. Of course there are those in the "vinyl forever" and "SACD/DVD-A rule" camps that would sniff that Redbook CDs are nearly as bad as MP3, but I can assure you there is enough of a difference that I'm going to hold on to my CD collection for quite a while longer. :>)

Burke

PS -- I agree with Brandon that ATRACS compression is tolerable -- in its most recent incarnations in Sony decks. Earlier implementations were a lot more "lossy" and subject to audible artifacts, while the latest algorithms are virtually "transparent". I use minidisc as a durable and easy-to edit transfer medium when archiving LPs and 78s to CD-R, not for its portability.

[JonMarsh]

Well, as the self designated analog curmudgeon, I'd have to say I just say "NO!" to MP3. Also tried ATRAC (Mini-dics), didn't like that either.

I have to say my favorite medium now is the CD layer down conversion of Hybrid SACD's; these are the best CD's I've generally heard. Then, for a little extra dose of anal retentiveness, I extract them using the low jitter mode on my Yamaha burner, and burn at 1X on data black CDR's. Now, THAT sounds good... :W

Seriously, things like MP3 and Mini-disk have their place in places where ambient noise and other playback conditions make CD quality a moot point, perhaps, and the convenience of higher file density desirable. I suppose. Maybe. Maybe not. Thing is, even on my Declo-Bloze factory audio system in my Z28, the difference between a "standard" Police CD and the CD layer of the new collection "Every Breath You Take" is quite audible- and for me, worthwhile. So, I'd probably have to say I'd never be happy in any environment with the lo rez formats.

But this is a very personal decision, and the trade off that is right for me may not be right for everyone- MP3 is only as big as it is, because for a lot of listeners, it does what they want, at an adequate quality standard.

I'm going to wait until they have an iPod like device with enough memory to at least hold full PCM resolution, say about 5-10 GB. That's enough CD grade music and variety to be worthwhile. I'm not holding my breath.... :roll:

YMMV.

~Jon




Earth First!
_______________________________
We'll screw up the other planets later....

[Rock Dog]

Picky? I don't think being a purist has anything to do with listening to MP3's. I am a musician and an audiophile (to a lesser degree than some) But first and foremost I LOVE MUSIC!

I use the MP3 format A LOT. But it depends on the environment. I have an IPOD (which I love) it is an amazing, wonderful and delightful little box. I use it at the gym. When I work on Saturdays I take my IPOD along, plug in the headphones, and just let it rip. Cutting the lawn. I also have a decent set of self powered "computer speakers" in the garage that I plug it into, when I'm out there. And about 50% of the time, when I am working on the computer in my home office, I pull up an MP3 playlist and let 'em rip. The other 50% I have a very nice, and not so inexpensive "office system" But when I want to "listen" to my music, I mean really listen too it. I fire up the audio system and sit and enjoy. But the best thing about MP3's is that I don't have to carry a Samsonite sized case of Cd's with me, just to enjoy some music. To me music is an integral part of my life and exsistence. I can't imagine what it would have been like living in the Taliban's Afghanistan where music was outlawed. Or any other such scenario. I would estimate that 90% of the time that I am not asleep, music is entering my head. Hell, sometimes it's there, with my brain being the only source.

I don't use anything below 192K on it, and I rip my own cd's even higher than that. And then there are the headphones, another variable... :roll: that makes a world of difference. I do use MP3 to audition new artists, (new-meaning brand new, or something I just haven't heard before) knowing that if I like what I hear in the MP3, I will LOVE the actual product. It's no different then hearing something on the radio, or MTV or VH1 for that matter, and having it peak your interest. The MP3 format does have it's place. And for those who dismiss it so vehemently, I ask these questions. If you don't have your home audio system to listen to. The one you spent so much care, time, money (and sometimes sweat) putting together. What do you do?

Do you NOT listen to your car stereo? And if so, did you put as much time and money into it as you did your home system?

And if you do listen to the car stereo (whatever it is) do you NOT listen to FM music broadcasts, especially rock or pop stations. Talk about compression. 8O

Do you ask your friend with the system he bought at Best Buy, NOT to turn in on in your presence?

Do you NOT have a, or listen to a, portable "walkman" type of CD player?

If you can't listen to your high end stuff, do you have a set of ear plugs to block out everything inferior? Is it that painful?

And please don't take these questions as offensive or disrespectful, they are truly meant in the vein of understanding.

$0.02

BTW, Jon. My IPOD is 10 Gig, and they have a 20Gig now. With rumors of a 40 in the not too distant future.




-Thomas-

The easiest way to find something lost around the house, is to buy a replacement.

Hey You! Make sure you stop by the HTguide Off-Topic section. It's FUN!!!

[Sonnie Parker]

I listen to MP3's in my truck only. I listen to XM Satellite Radio most of the time but occasionally listen to one of 3-4 MP3 CD-R's I've made. I can't fit as many as I'd like to on one CD because I encode my MP3's at 320kbps.

They sound fine to me in my truck, at least as good as XM.

As far as home, I don't listen to many CD's but when I do I listen to the original CD as I'm probably not gonna listen for long and it will usually be a particular CD I'm wanting to listen to and not a variety and not a lot of songs.






SONNIE

Cedar Creek Cinema

DVD Collection

BFD Comprehensive Setup Guide

[craigdcan]

Good questions Rock Dog. Makes a few good points....

I never listen to any compressed format when I am "doing critical listening".....or anything loud. I think mp3 is great for background music, or for mediocre PC systems, but I would never demo my system using an mp3..haha. I can barely stand some of the numerous poorly recorded cd's, let alone a compressed version of them...mp3 certainly does have it's place, and for me, that place is on my PC, or for background music when company is over....good when outside, in the backyard.....BBQ, and beer....not much room left for switching cd's...

[Brandon B]

I'm going to wait until they have an iPod like device with enough memory to at least hold full PCM resolution, say about 5-10 GB. That's enough CD grade music and variety to be worthwhile. I'm not holding my breath....
~Jon

Did you mean TB? Or 50-100 GB maybe? The iPod is already 5, 10, 20 GB.

BB

[Chris D]

Rock Dog- Good thoughts. I really don't use a portable recorder at all, and when I'm in the car I either catch up with news on the radio or listen to the CD's that I've already got, so might as well use and enjoy. If in an environment like outside or a loud gym where you couldn't tell a difference in sound anyway, you're right about not needing anything higher than MP3 anyway.

And no, I'd never tell someone else to turn off ANY music of theirs, regardless of what it is or what is sounds like. That's their business, not mine, and nothing I need to impinge upon.

When I'm listening to my own stuff, on my own system, I just prefer quality reproduction.




CHRIS
Luke: "Hey, I'm not such a bad pilot myself, you know"

[SiliGoose]

MP3 is great because you can have a massive collection that's very easy to organize, portable, and very customizable. The down side is the lossy compression scheme generally hurts the sound quality.

Well, there are mp3 alternatives that come with all the benefits and impressive sound quality.

You can stay in the lossless realm and play around with WMA, OGG, ACC, or MPC. All have variants which are perceptibly identical to the source CD. That's not to say they'd be exactly the same quality as the CD but most people wouldn't be able to tell the difference (and they all blow ATRACS out of the water). Even MP3, if done right, can sound pretty close to the CD. I'd put it a step below OGG and two or three steps below WMA (at the highest bit rates) and MPC.

Even better, you can go with lossless compression. These create bit-for-bit duplicates of the original but less of a foot print on your hard drive. Monkey's Audio (.ape), FLAC and WMA Lossless seem to be the biggies out there right now. All three sound identical to the source CD. They are perfect. I know that's hard to accept, but they are really perfect.

The downside to using lossless compression formats is that they take up significantly more hard drive space. Consider this prior to converting your music to your chosen lossless codec:

One minute audio file (uncompressed .wav) =
10.339 MB

Same file encoded as .mp3 @ 160 kbps (CBR) =
1.174 MB (88.6% of original)

Same file encoded as .ape lossless =
6.269 MB (39.4% of original)

I recently purchased a 120GB hard drive and began archiving all my CDs using Monkey's Audio & WMA Lossless. I filled that hard drive with 1035 .ape files, 1706 .mp3 files & 2933 .wma (lossless) files. I'll probably add a second 120GB HD tomorrow to allow for future growth.

All files are properly tagged and contain actual high resolution cover art (and many with lyrics). My goal isn't just convenience in playback (though that is a big factor). It's also an archival system for my CDs. If I were to loose or damage a CD I have new-found comfort knowing I can simply re-burn a bit-for-bit perfect version (back to the original CD audio) whenever I need to. Sure, I loose the spiffy CD paint job but the content of the disc is absolutely identical to the original.

My next step is to connect my PC to my HT so I can select the songs on the TV. Once that is done I'll be able to display the cover art on-screen (or lyrics). It'll be very cool.




-Sili

[JKohn]

Well, I'm going to go out on a limb and say MP3's don't deserve most of the trash-talk they get from audiophiles. It's true that early encoders had serious flaws and that even today lower bitrate MP3's are far from transparent. But the best the format has to offer has come a long way in the last several years, to the point where the highest bitrates are pretty much transparent to the source material (there may be some samples that "trip up" a given encoder, but they're the exception not the rule). Now it's easy say, "phhhht, I can tell the difference", but let me tell you a true ABX blind test can be a very humbling thing. I know because I'm speaking from personal experience. I tested VBR Musepack files at approx 200kbs encode rate, and was pretty please with myself for being able to tell the difference 8 times out of 10. But when I tested a LAME MP3 encoded at 320k with the --alt-preset insane setting, I could no longer reliably tell the difference. Now I didn't test every genre I have, but I did test a well-recorded rock song and a well-recorded classical piece. (In fact the classical piece was the Telarc 1812 Overture from the new CD based on DSD masters - CD audio doesn't get much better than that).

Maybe there are a few golden ears out there that can differentiate even at the highest bitrates, but I can assure you that most people can't. And if anybody expects me to believe they can tell the difference they're going to have to back that up with PC-ABX scores before I'll believe them. If you do a non-blind test where you know what you're listening to, it's just impossible to keep any bias you have from affecting your impression. If you want to try some real blind testing for yourself, visit the site www.pcabx.com and you can download some ABX testing software that makes blind testing a snap.

So this begs the question, why do so many audiophiles think so little of MP3? Well, first of all the most obvious reason is that a lot of the MP3's floating around on the internet are of dubious quality. Many are at most 192kbs, and that's just not high enough to be transparent. And with certain decoders or at lower bitrate, MP3 can sound downright awful. But I think there are some other reasons why even high-quality MP3's will be regarded as garbage by many people.

The first reason, and one that not many of us would not like to admit, is ego. I mean after all, how can you justify the $5-10K or more that you've invested in your audio system if you can't even tell an MP3 from a CD? I know I've been guilty of this, and probably still am a little bit today if I'm really honest (which is a small part of why I prefer APE to MP3, see end of post).

But the biggest reason, I think, is the playback equipment. Most people listen to MP3's on their desktop computers. And let's face it, most PC's have terrible audio playback capabilities. The speakers are probably going to be little cube satellites that sound bright, harsh, tinny and thin. Even if you have decent speakers, the soundcard almost definitely has lousy DAC's, and even if you're smart enough to use a SPDIF connection to a receiver or pre/pro, most soundcards are going to resample the audio to 48khz using poor algorithms. And if you're lucky enough to have a soundcard that supports 44khz output, there are still limitations in the WDM driver model that force the audio stream through the kmixer to be resampled to 44050hz (pathetic, I know). As you can imagine, under these circumstances even the best MP3 isn't going to sound good. Hell, playing the original CD isn't going to sound good on that setup. So if your only experience with MP3 is on the typical desktop computer, you're really in no position to judge MP3 quality; you're just judging the audio quality of your PC.

Even though most portable/headphone combinations will be much better than a PC, you're still going to be limited by the DAC's and headphone amps in the more affordable devices. So at this point you may be wondering if there is such a thing as a good setup for listening to MP3's. Well for starters the better-quality (and, alas, more expensive) portables can sound pretty good with a nice set of headphones (better yet, add a real headphone amp to the mix if your portable has a line-out). iRiver makes some pretty high quality portables; I use the SlimX 350 with some Sennheiser headphones for listening to music at work, and with this setup 320k MP3's are indistinguishable from CD's. Also, it is possible to get optimal playback from a PC if you have the right soundcard, drivers, and plugins. I use an HTPC in my home theater; it has a prosumer soundcard from M-Audio that has DAC's as good or better than most mid-fi receivers, and with the ASIO plugin for Winamp I can get excellent PCM audio performance with no resampling or other problems. Now I may not have the highest-quality audio equipment in the world, but I've invested about $6K in my audio setup and I think it sounds pretty nice. Even when playing MP3's. Granted, some MP3's sound bad, and for serious, critical listening lower bitrates are not transparent, but for the most part they sound excellent, especially the ones at 256k and higher bitrates.

Now, after that extremely long post in defense of MP3, it turns out I that I actually prefer the lossless Monkey's Audio format for archiving my ripped CD's. Not so much because I'm worried about the transparency of MP3 (although there is a certain peace of mind in knowing you have a bit-perfect copy of the original CD). APE has other advantages, such as being a gapless format that even supports single-file CD images which can later be used to burn a perfect copy of the original CD. I like knowing that I have a long-term storage solution that allows me to easily replace any damanged CD's I might have. Besides, with current (and ever-falling) hard drive prices the extra space required for APE files isn't too big a deal.

So even if you refuse to believe that MP3's can sound good, don't totally write off PC-based music storage. There are so many advantages, such as having as having a browsable collection at your finger tips that can easily be searched, plus no annoying disc-swapping is required, you have access to all the tag information for a given track, and the music is available to any network-aware device in your home. After living with an HTPC in my home theater, I could never go back to the "old" way of listening to music; in fact I find myself spending more "dedicated" time listening to music than ever before.




Jeff Kohn

http://home.houston.rr.com/jeffkohn

[Rock Dog]

HOLY CRAP!

That's what I love about this site. Sili, Jkohn... Some wonderful information. Absolutely first rate data and presentation, without an ounce of "superior" attitude. I for one (and I consider myself to be fairly in touch in this area,) haven't even heard of a couple of the formats and solutions you guys have discussed. Thanks a lot for sharing your knowledge and research. :T




-Thomas-

The easiest way to find something lost around the house, is to buy a replacement.

Hey You! Make sure you stop by the HTguide Off-Topic section. It's FUN!!!

[Steve]

I have almost 7500 (33G) mp3's on my computer, all copied from my own cd's at 160k. They sound extremely good on the computer using a couple of Monsoon ribbon speakers. We also have a couple of portable mp3 players that we use when exercising or going for walks.

Steve

[SiliGoose]

Jeff,

Very well written.
I'm afraid there are lots of audio enthusiasts who refuse to give compressed formats a fair chance based upon unfair misconceptions and experience with poorly encoded material.

It doesn't take much effort to encode audio right and the benefits will change the way you listen to music (in a positive way!).

Rock Dog,

Thanks for the kind words. If you'd like to read up on more of those formats I suggest you hang out in the forums at Hydrogen Audio.




-Sili

[Andrew Pratt]

I have a bunch of MP3's that I listen to at work on my PC and a couple one my home PC. I also have a bunch of CD's that were made from MP3's in the juke box that get listened to a lot...but non of these are listened to critically...they're all more a background music situation so the loss of high resolution doesn't mean much. I do think the format has a use and hope it survives. It would be nice to see more integration between our main systems and the PC world..ideally via a lan connection of some sort.

[Rock Dog]

Jeff,

Very well written.
I'm afraid there are lots of audio enthusiasts who refuse to give compressed formats a fair chance based upon unfair misconceptions and experience with poorly encoded material.

It doesn't take much effort to encode audio right and the benefits will change the way you listen to music (in a positive way!).

Rock Dog,

Thanks for the kind words. If you'd like to read up on more of those formats I suggest you hang out in the forums at Hydrogen Audio.

I whole heartedly agree. Back in the day. I was all over the first releases of Napster and the like. And mp2 and mp3 sites before that. I had my DirecPC connection sucking overtime.

I tried my hand at "making it big" I even went as far as doing a couple of self-produced, self-promoted, self-financed cds and cassettes. So I know the value of "my music, my work, my art" I WILL download music and try it on for size. If I like it, I buy it. I buy more CDs (and now DVD-As) every year. My collection is approaching 1,000. And that doesn't count the few hundred records and cassettes I have bought over the years. I believe in paying for an srtists work. However, I can't stand the fact that the market (especailly in popular music) has become so saturated, that you can't count on getting a good albums worth of material. And in those cases I make no apology for not buying the record with one good song on it.

Hmmm. I got off my point, and on my soap box. :P

One of the things that has become increasingly frustrating has been the quality of mp3's. A few years ago, there were only so many people, and so many ways to rip a song. So you could count a very good to great quality. But now... everyone and their grandmother can rip a track using their Palm Pilot, Calculator and soon their watch. I find it harder and harder to find a decent mp3s. They are everywhere, yes. But most of them are below 128K, or were ripped using a walkman, plugged into a Sound Blaster 16's mic input (which was clipping) using a $1.49 Radio Shack 3.5mm to RCA cable. There is so much garbage out there, that many times when I'm looking for a track, say something I caught a blip of on the radio, I have to download 6 or 7 versions. Just to get one that I can listen to long enough to decide if I like it or not.

Sili, Thanks for the link. I'll be checking out Hydrogen right away and often.




-Thomas-

The easiest way to find something lost around the house, is to buy a replacement.

Hey You! Make sure you stop by the HTguide Off-Topic section. It's FUN!!!