Re: Digital to Analog downloading Question ?

"Sonnova" <sonnova@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
news:ftjge8023b4@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> But if you grew-up listening to tape and LP as I did, you
> learn to listen around those obstacles because the music
> is STILL there.

Sorta. I grew up on a steady diet of acoustical music, and I was never
that 
happy with the LP format. I did like tape, particularly half-track at 7
1/2 
or 15 ips.

> With MP3 and other lossy schemes, I find
> that the music sounds like its been put in a blender and
> reduced to mush.

Depends on the bitrate. In a earlier ****tion of this post that you
clipped, 
you mentioned 128 bps, and that has always been sort of a hinge point.
Below 
128 kbps, music is often in trouble, and well above 128 kbps, music is
often 
unhindered.

> Mush that has nasty artifacts riding on it. In other words I find that I

> cannot listen around MP3
> nastiness because the music ISN'T still there.

Like I said, try bitrates higher than 128 kbps, try other coders.

> While I
> realize that it's possible for one to use a higher
> bit-rate when one is ripping their own CDs, and at 320
> kbps, MP3 doesn't sound all that bad, Apple is the
> largest online music store in the world and they only
> give one the option of 128 kbps.

Remember that the music business still nurtures hopes of selling you 
physical media, even after you've downloaded the song. I see the choice of

128 kbps as being a commercial strategy to foster further sales.

> I always thought that
> Sony's Mini-Disc compression scheme sounded much better
> than MP3 and the downloads available on Sony's on-line
> music store (now defunct) Sounded MUCH more listenable
> than did the MP3s available from Apple and other on-line
> music sources.

My recollection is that the basic historical MD format  was based on a
much 
higher basic bitrate that 128 kbps. Of course Sony cut that down a lot in 
the later days. I believe that bit for bit, ATRAC can't hold a candle to
AAC 
and really good MP3.

> And, finally,  I don't see what my tolerance for canned
> music sins, whether they be analog or digital has to do
> with my notion of "real music". Live music has none of
> the drawbacks of recording and storage schemes past or
> present.

However, there are as many different flavors of live music as there are 
seats in the auditorium and on stage.