"Woody" wrote in message


How do you define "accurate"?

Like a dictionary?

Accurate to what?

The reference.

Unless you were there when the recording was made and have an
incredible memory of audio, then the judgement of what is
accurate or not is ********.

Good point.

Yes you may have an idea of
how it should sound..For example.A piano played in one
venue will have a different sound when played in another.

It will sound different if you move it around. A recording of it will sound
different if you move the mics around.

An individuals judgement of what might be accurate is purely
a subjective one.

Judgements can be better than that if there is a ready reference.

However,what sound better is another
matter.There is no doubt that MP3 has driven peoples
expectations of hifi downward.There's little point in
buying superb replay equipment if you supply it low
quality source material.

However, just because its a MP3 does not mean that it has to sound bad or be
audibly inaccurate. Low bitrate MP3s can sound bad and be inaccurate.
Someplace above 128 kbps, MP3 recordings can be very accurate and defy
detection by skilled listeners.

The sad bit is that with the right sample rate mp3 can
sound quite acceptable. From something I say earlier this
week - may even have been in this thread - the crossover
point is a sample rate somewhere between 192 and 224Kb/s.

About that, yes.

Browse many of the download sites that do give sample
rates and you will find that some (notably classical) do
192 most of the time, some at 224 or 256 and the odd one
as high as 320, but go looking at pop/rock and you will
find some at 160 but most at 128 and that is where the
real quality dumbing-down has occurred.

There are a lot of MP3s that have done time well below 128 kbps.