MOTM

paulhaneberg wrote:
> 
> Although I would never consider MP3s as a substitute for a lossless 
> medium such as a CD, (remembering of course that much recording is 
> done at 24 bits, so it's somewhat questionable in this day and age 
> to actually consider a CD as lossless,)

It's more of an issue of what is "less lossy". If I have a CD source and an MP3 
source of the same material, why would I ever want to hear the MP3 version?

> MP3s are great in some 
> applications.  They are great for listening in your car, where the 
> noise floor is often so high that the losses are unnoticeable.

Yes, agreed.

> They 
> are also a great format for portability.  I listen to my iPod often 
> while away on business trips, etc.

Yup, but in my case, I encode everything in lossless compressed format. Works 
like a champ.

 > I also often listen to CDs in
> MP3 format at the office, where I'm too busy to listen critically 
> and really can't devote the attention to listen critically anyway.  

It guess it's all in our backgrounds. I grew up listening to the cheap sounding 
effects processors of the late 1980s and hating it, and I hear that same poor 
quality in MP3 as well. At any bitrate.

> And, like it or not, most of the listening public cannot even tell 
> the difference between an MP3 and the lossless version it came from.

Yeah, and I don't like that. That means those of us who do appreciate the better 
quality are left out in the cold by the uneducated masses. It sucks!

> Any alternative to mass distribution by the few remaining record 
> companies is certainly welcome.

Agreed wholeheartedly! I'm hoping that big record companies get completely sunk.

-->Neil