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Posted: |
Mar 23, 2014 - 12:07 PM
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By: |
slint
(Member)
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The endless debate over mp3´s "lossy" quality astounds me.
An audiophile proved to me that you really need extremely sensitive hearing and complex hifi-equipment to truly recognize the loss of mp3 quality.
Also, anyone over the age of 40 will rarely still possess the ability to hear it.
So... I´m good ;-)
Probably for lossy stuff that you purchase online, they have some verifications about the quality. 15 years ago, I noticed that a significant fraction of MP3s had defects : noticeable sound differences, bad stereo, clicks, gaps. This where I decided to stop listening any lossy material. A high bitrate on a lossy file doesn't guarantee you have the same thing as on the CD, but for a lossless file and a log of the CD rip, yes -- so I'm quite proud of my trouble free/exact CD rip collection, even though I might or might not tell the difference.
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The thought of an ethereal collection of music is very appealing to me -- and I do have hundreds of CDs encoded on my computer. However, my NYC CD and lp collection of over 2,000 dates back to the dawn of the format -- and for me to find the time now to rip everything to a hard drive (where I DO have the storage capacity) is not possible as I have a full time job, 9 - 5. I am not averse as I get older to sorting through my collection and getting rip of extraneous material.
I recently faced a major life event when my father went into an assisted living facility in the Midwest -- which forced the sale of our family home where I had stored virtually everything from my life up to age 24 (when I started living in NYC). I threw out virtually everything from the past -- saving only a few "resonant" items. Part of that included dealing with my 45, 78, and lp "Midwest" collection that totaled over 3,000. Luckily I had a young cousin who is crazy about vinyl-- and I gifted the entire collection to him.
I've felt a huge "weight of the past" lifted from my shoulders since we closed out the house -- which is encouraging me to look at my present NYC collection of books, lps, and CDs with a more jaundiced eye. I've already given some treasured movie memorabilia to the Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences. It makes me feel great that those items are now safe and available for others to enjoy.
Perhaps it's time to look at my other material -- and in fact books are actually harder for me to get rid of than CDs.
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Am I the only one who finds it odd that a producer of albums that retail at $20 a throw is suddenly telling us that mp3 files sound fine, and that CDs are not worth the clutter? Not exactly a ringing endorsement of his product, especially when his entire output is readily available as free mp3 downloads. The mind boggles….
I was thinking the same thing, except I do not download the free mp3s. I do not download anything.
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CDs go bad! I have some CDRs of things that we either created for internal work purposes, or were given to us, etc.—many of them are now unreadable...
Lukas
Good grief! I hope that these don't include some of the additional Bond tracks that didn't make it into the expanded "Thunderball" and "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" CDs that you produced over a decade ago!
In preparation for a move, gradually thin out your physical CD collection on a regular basis. Thousands of CDs can weigh quite a lot, and moving them can be quite a strain on your back (which is a lot more important and a lot more irreplaceable than any CD collection).
Thanks for your refreshingly candid post, Lukas. (Come to think of it, that goes for all of the posts that you've made on this forum.)
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In echoing OnyaBirri's comment, I think that Lukas should be trying to promote CD purchases. After all, why should I as the consumer pay for a poorer quality mp3 download, for example on iTunes, than what is easily available as an illegal download at FLAC or high quality mp3. Personally I like a physical product in order to somehow feel that my hard earned money is buying something better than what can be easily found illegally. Plus I like listening to CDs in my car CD player and high fidelity audio system.
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Posted: |
Mar 23, 2014 - 1:55 PM
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By: |
TerraEpon
(Member)
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Am I the only one who finds it odd that a producer of albums that retail at $20 a throw is suddenly telling us that mp3 files sound fine, and that CDs are not worth the clutter? Not exactly a ringing endorsement of his product, especially when his entire output is readily available as free mp3 downloads. The mind boggles….
Setting aside the quality issue, the bigger point weather ripping in lossless or lossy is the sheer conviniance.
Not only is it nice to not have to get up each time (or even go and get a bunch at once) when wanting to listen to something, having an easily accessible digital archive has other advantages beyond that. One major one is an easy way of searching through stuff -- for instance today I wanted to know if I had a track of Jingle Bells, so I just typed 'jingle' into the search box and found one...no need to try and remember what CD it might be on, if any (and since it's not on a classical CD it's not in my database).
Also being able to check how something sounds....or merely listen to any track right away without having to dig out the disc just for that track.
Anyone one most people probably don't consider since they are so slavishly beholdedn to 'albums' is being able to listen to things in customized order without annoying programming a multi-disc player and pauses while the discs change. One can listen to, say, a symphony cycle in order without dealing with the fact that one disc has 1 & 4, the next 2 & 6, etc....or even just the simplicity of multi-disc sets with no breaks (certainly good for a lot of film scores).
There's other benefits I'm sure I could come up with given more time...
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). He usually can be counted on to lay it on the line, more often than not in a diplomatic manner.