for some audiophiles, every beat note counts! heheheh for the avg user...i think MP3s are ok...just a case of quantity vs quality but i agree that even self encoded 192kbps or even 320kbps mp3s cant compare to the SQ of an original CD. there are certain notes esp the mids- highs that are very clearly shaper when heard from a CD compared to mp3s but tat was in a fren's iasca competition car la...own car cant hear any difference at all hehehe. try buying a piano only cd n listen then encode into mp3 and listen. if u listen properly u can hear the difference. sounds like its a little muted(like somebody put a thin curtain between the piano and u) on the mp3.
easiest way to understand compression and quality is youtube. 480hd is the clearest but the longest to load cos of the least amount of compression....
the logic of mp3 is it encodes the raw format from a cd. and in compression, it will get rid of much info. the more compression, the smaller the file and more info gone(it says compression but mp3 encoding compression works by removing sequential similar data). it sort of works this way... we all know data is stored in binary format in 1s and 0s. the raw cd audio will get broken down into a sort of binary format and then the encoding software will then try to compare sequential notes. lets say at 1.05 - 1.06minutes, the singer sings a note but it fluctuates ever so slightly. it gets converted to 1000101000100101001010(this is random - IT guys pls dont go calculate the binary value here hehehe). the software then will start compressing it by saying any 4 zeros in a row should be compressed into a 11 which sounds like 0000 so now the 1.05 - 1.06 minutes will become 1111011100101001010(once again pls dont calculate the binary value as this is just to give an idea to how it sort of works) . that is a very basic understanding of how compression works. of course there are very very complex algorithms and it isnt as simple as searching for 0000 and changing it to 11 everytime it happens. it will also need to depend on the previous and following notes and the notes before the following and previous notes. it will only change 0000 to 11 IF very specific criterias are in place. thats why some encoders can compress more and still retain a higher quality.
when MP3s first came out(my first mp3 was thupthumping - still remember?) it sounded like a record and was about 6mb. i was excited cos i could now start storing songs on my pc(i think it was a 200mb HD hahahahah) nowadays mp3s can be as small as 1.5mb for a 3+min song with very aggresive encoding but still sound better than that thupthumping i first downloaded. the norm nowadays would be to go 192kbps and maybe add VBR for further compression and this would be about 5-7mb for a 4min+ song. acceptable size and quality in my opinion.compression tech will keep on increasing the quality of SQ for MP3s(at the same bit rate for comparison), but in the end, nothing can beat a CD. (depends on yr ICE setup of cos)
me still love cd.. mp3 for personal use only..
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