Fun Stuff > BAND
MP3 Players: iPod / iriver / Zen
Signum_Tenebrae:
A funny anecdote..
When I went to go buy my Zen Xtra the salesman tried to talk me into buying an iPod instead because he claimed "the Zen Xtra doesn't sound as good when plugged up to big sound systems."
WTF man I'm going to listen to it in a car or walking to class with headphones not hook it up to a Bose surround sound system or something.
KharBevNor:
Well, I haven't got particularly good hearing.
That probably contributes to it.
blindsuperhero:
16 bits per sample. 44,100 samples per second. 705600 bits per second, 689.025 kilobits per second. Of course that doesn't relate in a meaningful way to MP3 encoding, but I can't begin to imagine what is meant by saying 172kbps MP3 is 'cd standard'.
What I mean by MP3 distortion are little artifacts, if you will, at certain points in some songs, usually only on one channel, they are kind of like little bursts of white noise, they're quite hard to explain without you being able to hear them. You probably have to pay quite close attention to notice them, but I do pay close attention when listening to music. I assume they are a side effect of the MP3 encoding system just as JPEG artifacts are side-effects of how they are encoded.
This is entirely unrelated to the compression effect when playing MP3s, which does kind of manifest itself as a lack of 'loudness'. This is a more audiophiliac distinction, so I didn't make a point about it, but yes, it makes the whole thing sound unclear and hazy (in a fairly subtle, but definitely noticable, way). A non-audiophile would most likely notice the songs not sounding as 'loud' or as rockin' as they usually do.
KharBevNor:
Well, I record stuff onto my computer at 16 bit PCM, stereo, 44.1 kHz, and it comes out as 172 kpbs wavs. I have no idea about those white noise things you're talking about. Given that almost everything I have is at 128 or lower, I can't believe I wouldn't have heard them whilst trying to pick lyrics out.
-sam:
Whatever program you're using must be doing some encoding of those PCM files. I've dropped AIFFs (what Apple calls a .wav) into iTunes and the bitrate was huge.
Really though, if sound quality is that big of a deal, what are people listening to mp3s? Use flac and/or ALE and be done with it...and get an appropriately huge player to store them. :)
-sam
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