Questions for the tech-heads....

[marcus]

Apologies - A little long-winded, but please bear with me.

I started my music habit with vinyl - still have my first-generation single of "Spoogy" by Lester Sterling on Unity I bought in 1969 from either Curry's or downstairs at Debenham's in Guildford. Now, though, I buy mostly CDs (unless I'm after something unavailable on disc, in which case I rip it with Audacity). I understand the basic fact that CDs have less dynamic range than my LPs, but all the technical details are confusing to me.

So here's my question: Is there anything inherently/ automatically inferior about the sound quality/dynamic range that comes with an MP3 bought legally (from iTunes or Amazon, for example) as compared to a track from a CD?

Reason I ask: I already own the Mango CD of Bunny Wailer's BLACKHEART MAN. I could download the Solomonic/Tuff Gong reissue today for $9.99, or I could wait for the CD to become available and (probably) pay more when all is said and done.

Sometimes there are other factors that make it worth actually buying a physical copy of a reissue (new artwork or liner notes), but assuming all other variables are equal - does it make "sonic sense" to buy the CD, or is a download equally good? (Or equally BAD for the purists!)

I realise there's a range in quality in CDs. Hitbound/Channel One discs seem to be recorded low, and the common Studio One tracks released by both Heartbeat and Soul Jazz often sound different, and they're presumably mastered from [identical] original tapes?

One more question: I'm at my technology-novice limit when I use Audacity to rip LPs...there are probably more complicated ways to get a better sound. But I've done some as WAV files and as MP3 files, and I honestly can't hear the diff. (Maybe I just have sub-par speakers!) But why is a WAV file considered inferior to an MP3? Yeah, I know it's encoded with less MB/kbps/kHz (whatever they all mean) but in a "blind" test, could most people really hear the difference?

Thanks for helping me with something I feel very stupid/ignorant about.

[ACEtone]

you have the WAV vs mp3 quality part backwards.

mp3s can be encoded to a max of 320kbps
WAVs can go up to one hundred and ninety something or other. I forget the number.
But that said you can also encode a WAV to very low quality too.
iTunes sells their mp3 equivalents at I think 225 kbps which most ears will not be able to discern the difference between it and a CD. But as you noted CDs are somewhat beneath the range of analogue such as vinyl.
I think it is shocking that iTunes got away with selling millions of downloads at 99c per track at only 128kbps. The relatively recent increase to 225 was certainly an improvement, but really not enough. Can you tell the difference between it and a CD. Probably not.

At 320kbps I have read many places that it is really difficult to tell the difference between the mp3 and a 44.1k CD. True? I honestly don't know.

So many factors involved. Vinyl purists will just dismiss any and all digital approximations of their precious vinyl. I agree a little bit with this, but for practical purposes and I'm willing to admit that often I can't tell the difference between a 96kbps mp3 and a vinyl sound - well I'm exaggerating - but you get my point.

Personally, If I'm going to spend the money I'll get the physical object.
Thus far I have chosen to never actually buy a download...

I hope this is useful and not a mere ramble!

[Kemist]

Itunes now encodes at 256k, in my opinion still too low..A company like Apple who is monopolizing the digital market with Itunes should offer their customers 320k quality period.
About Bunny Wailer's Blackheart man, I have the first CD release and it it sounds much better than the new re-mastered version. The new version in my opinion is just louder and brighter.
A WAV (PC) or AIF (MAC) File is the format of the audio source recorded into a computer. The bit rate cannot be changed. The Sample rate can but thats another story.
The Bite rate is 1411k, The memory size is about 10MB a minute. Copying a CD into WAV format will have no loss at all but will use enormous amount of space. So encoding at 320k will still sound excellent and the more you compress the smaller the file and the worse it will sound. If you download free music where ever you go to get it I wouldn't take anything under 256k.
When I rip one of my old Vinyl i use Logic Audio to convert it into digital format that allows me to use divers plugins (Limiter, Compressor and EQ) to Get maximum gain and punch and then encode using Mp4 at 320k.

K.

[jb welda]

>I understand the basic fact that CDs have less dynamic
>range than my LPs

completely false. a cd *can* have as good or actually much better dynamic range than a vinyl record, if it is mastered properly and taken from master tapes. something mastered from a record really cannot sound better in as far as dynamic range goes and typically these days most dynamic range is lost on cds because they compress the signal and then increase the level giving you one solid block of basically noise instead of the up and down peaks and valleys seen on a recording of decent dynamic range. btw do you know what dynamic range means? it means the difference in level between the quietest and the loudest sounds in a recording. a lot of difference is good. when the sound is compressed the dynamic range is lost, and merely boosting the level doesnt restore it, it just raises the entire mess back up to a high level.

also, "low level" in any recording but esp a digital recording is not a bad thing unless it is so low in relation to the noise floor inherent in the breed that the signal to noise radio suffers. this is usually not a problem with digital as the noise floor is very low (assuming DDD not ADD or AAD) however on a record there is a lot of superficial noise from the stylus scraping the groove and just the noise from the record itself not to mention the analogue recording process which has a lot of noise inherent in it.

mind you, "noise" isnt always bad in fact its what give the much vaunted (i would say OVER valued) "warmth" of a vinyl record. but if you ask me that can be accounted for in mastering a cd, particularly by NOT following what has become the industry standard of compressing the dynamic range and then raising the level to compensate. and oversaturation of a tape used to be the standard in analogue days; with digital recording going over 0db is the kiss of death as it will cause metallic noise and just plain horrible sound because of the clipping that happens when the signal exceeds 0db.

anyway this isnt the most technical of explanations and im sure a sound engineer could explain it better.

to me mp3s are total crap and represent the ever present trend among record labels to put out stuff that sounds ok on some teenagers crap device (read: ipod these days) but really crappy on decent equipment. strange as it may seem record companies in general never catered to those who wanted good sound, they cater to teenage girls who dont know good sound from adam. this was true back in the 50s when 45s were engineered to sound good on tinny speakers of car radios and it was true when phil spector created the "wall of sound" business which was just mashing everything together in one big black waveform where you couldnt really tell one instrument from another. he got big kudos for that "innovation" but i always thought it was crap. it was crap with the shirelles and it was crap when he did it to the beatles let it be album. mp3s represent the most current attempt to sell the public garbage and as usual it is working very well. i forget who said it but it still rings true: no one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the public.

edit: ps: a wav file is far superior to any mp3 because it has much better resolution and less granularity. the very fact that you may have heard a wav is inferior to an mp3 of any resolution proves what i say above: those in "the business" want everyone to settle for mp3 as the ruling format so they can squeeze more music (at less resolution) onto a medium like a cd or into the blasted ipod and claim you wont hear the difference. yes little sally the 13 year old probably wont and thats who they are aiming tha propaganda at but its simply not true.

there is also the issue that came up at the dawn of the digital era: record companies dont like putting out what amount to copyable master recording quality product because you can copy it without degradation and people can buy bootlegs made that way without suffering loss of fidelity and in effect an exact copy of the master recording. so mp3s of lesser resolution especially are ideal for their purposes...they are degraded right from the get-go and though you can make perfect copies of them they are never up to the master recording standard.


one love
jah bill

[Kemist]

right..LOL

[groovy]

kemist is right when he says that wav quality can be much superior to mp3 quality , people are using mostly mp3 because it uses less space ...

in fact jb is right about the quality of tunes you get from itunes etc ...listen for example beam sound by dub specialist or three blind mice by max romeo : there is an horible "blow" noise that is most likely caused by a bad mp3 recording ...listen i roy dread in the west : i think they tried to remove a noise , now its sounds horrible ..

thats not the mp3 tech wich is here the cause , but the way it was used ...