>You really need to use the same DAC and line amplifier to compare
>these two sources. Is it possible to try this experiment again with
>the CD signal being routed through the MD recorder while the MD unit
>is in REC-PAUSE (i.e. "monitor") mode? Ideally you'd take a digital
>signal from the CD. This way you can really compare the difference in
>the two sources.
For my fair A/B test, I used keyboard shortcuts with WinAmp, EQ off, to
compare short .wav CD rips against 224 Kbps .mp3's of the .wav, with good
headphones, with problematic passages. I was unable to reliably distinguish
between A and B -- but could easily and reliably identify the .mp3 at 192
Kbps. This proves I know what artifacts to look for and am perfectly
satisfied with 224 Kbps with that encoder, for those passages. However, to be
safe, I often bump up the rate to 256 Kbps. I concluded I don't like
Joint-Stereo encoding.
I have been surprised how good such MP3-then-ATRAC sounds on MiniDisc -- this
says alot about how good ATRAC is, that it can re-compress good 224 Kbps MP3s
and still sound very nearly like the uncompressed source. I would expect
recompression to sound horrible but it sounds great -- much better than
typical 128 Kbps (which sounds horrible).
I need to test MDLP2 to better characterize degrees of lossy compression and
compare ATRAC to MP3 artifacts. It was interesting to see my girlfriend
uncritically accept the marketing claims of cramming a bunch of albums onto a
single MD. For her first MP3-mix MD, she wanted to use MDLP4 to store our 192
Kbps MP3s. I had already tested this to confirm that it sounds truly horrible
by any standards, so I dissuaded her.
-- Michael Hoffman
http://www.amptone.com/audio
-----------------------------------------------------------------
To stop getting this list send a message containing just the word
"unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
