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Originally Posted by Camaero
What kind of a sound system do you have to be able to tell the difference between MP3 and a normal CD? I honestly can't... Maybe I have been around too many top fuel dragsters without ear plugs or something.  |
Don't even get me started, but MP3's are extremely flat if you haven't noticed. In short, the version of Vorbis I use is a specially tuned version with no restriction on bitrate, so if a file needs 700 kbps to reproduce a particular high, it will get 700 kbps. If it only needs 100 kbps or less to reproduce a certain sound, it will get only 100 kbps or less to reproduce the sound.
MP3's have a very harsh sound around 8 khz (my estimation of the frequency). Of course MP3 were never designed for use as an audio compression algorythm, but sort of fell into the job over time, so I can't fault it for this. Ogg however 'was' designed for audio compression and is probably the best 'lossy' compression engine available, and constantly (though not always) achieves the award for best lossy engine out of all contestents, including MP3Pro. As you can see from my writing above however, I use a 'near lossless' specially tuned version of the ogg files in most of my compressions. It is leaps and bounds over the best possible quality that can be reproduced by MP3.
To me, it is near impossible to distiguish between the source CD and the ogg file itself. In tests of my master recording (which include Pink Floyd the Wall on 24k gold CD's) tests, my friend and I could hear no difference between the master CD and the compression, and this is played through a stereo that is in the 5 digit range in cost. The only noticeable difference is the signal to noise ratio loss as generated by the playing computers sound card itself, but of course this can be fixed by buying a more expensive sound card. The next step up from this is hardly a step up (though it is actually a minor step up), but that would be a an actual lossless file such as FLAC.
If it tells you anything, CD's sound terrible to me over pure analog or even the later generation of digital music. So when it comes to compression, I need my compression to sound at least as good as the original CD that produced the source file.
If I fed you some comparrisons, you would be able to tell the difference, even on cheap computer speakers if I told you what to look for. Truth be told however, I doubt I would even need to tell you what to look for since I'd expect you'd be able to hear it yourself.
-S
PS. Even CD's have a limitation of 44,100 samples a second with a 16 bit (65,535 possible levels of sound) resolution. If you look at some of the standards that have appeared since the beginning of the 2000's, you will find formats like DVD-Audio with support for 192,000 samples a second, and 24 bit (over 16 million levels of sound) resolution. Are you starting to notice that some of the CD's you buy are double sided? This is why! If I put you in my house and made you close your eyes, you would swear a concert if being played in front of you and know exactly where each musician is sitting. That is why!