Copy protected CD's not the worst threat to sound quality!
 

I fear that in a few years the majority of music will not be availble on
physical media but instead be sold on-line in compressed form!

The move has allready started with Apple's ITunes, TDC's solution here
in Denmark and several others. For now they make deals with the record
labels but soon the musicians will make their own deals with them, and
the on-line shops in effect becoming new record companies forcing the
record labels to minic the model.

Now I'm all for the artists getting a bigger share of the money but I
fear sound quality will get lost in the process of the music
distribution going on-line. My prediction is that getting uncompressed
music will be just as hard as it is to find vinyl theese days!

Am I just over pesimistic or ?

Kind regards

Bruno, Denmark

Copy protected CD's not the worst threat to sound quality!
 

iddqdATworldonline.DenmarK wrote:

Now I'm all for the artists getting a bigger share of the money but I
fear sound quality will get lost in the process of the music
distribution going on-line. My prediction is that getting uncompressed
music will be just as hard as it is to find vinyl theese days!

Agree entirely.... I hate record companies for the fat profits they take out
of CD sales and pass on a pittance to the artist, along with them churning
out drab pop-crap. So anything online music can contibute towards the death
of a few record companies is a good thing IMO.

But on the other hand there's no way I'd pay for lossy compressed music. I
don't mind downloading the odd MP3 to listen to new stuff, I can live with
the drop in SQ when it's free. But when shelling out over £10 for an album I
want the proper uncompressed audio - hence the attraction of audio CD (and
not bloody corrupt copy-protected ones at that!). I'd be quite prepared to
wait the few hours it takes to download an uncompressed audio CD image on
broadband though.

--
Paul Morgan
Replace nospam with paul_morga to reply via e-mail

Copy protected CD's not the worst threat to sound quality!
 

iddqdATworldonline.DenmarK wrote:

Now I'm all for the artists getting a bigger share of the money but I
fear sound quality will get lost in the process of the music
distribution going on-line. My prediction is that getting uncompressed
music will be just as hard as it is to find vinyl theese days!

Agree entirely.... I hate record companies for the fat profits they take out
of CD sales and pass on a pittance to the artist, along with them churning
out drab pop-crap. So anything online music can contibute towards the death
of a few record companies is a good thing IMO.

But on the other hand there's no way I'd pay for lossy compressed music. I
don't mind downloading the odd MP3 to listen to new stuff, I can live with
the drop in SQ when it's free. But when shelling out over £10 for an album I
want the proper uncompressed audio - hence the attraction of audio CD (and
not bloody corrupt copy-protected ones at that!). I'd be quite prepared to
wait the few hours it takes to download an uncompressed audio CD image on
broadband though.

--
Paul Morgan
Replace nospam with paul_morga to reply via e-mail

Copy protected CD's not the worst threat to sound quality!
 

"Paul Morgan" wrote in message
...
iddqdATworldonline.DenmarK wrote:

Now I'm all for the artists getting a bigger share of the money but I
fear sound quality will get lost in the process of the music
distribution going on-line. My prediction is that getting uncompressed
music will be just as hard as it is to find vinyl theese days!

Agree entirely.... I hate record companies for the fat profits they take
out
of CD sales and pass on a pittance to the artist, along with them churning
out drab pop-crap. So anything online music can contibute towards the
death
of a few record companies is a good thing IMO.

But on the other hand there's no way I'd pay for lossy compressed music. I
don't mind downloading the odd MP3 to listen to new stuff, I can live with
the drop in SQ when it's free. But when shelling out over £10 for an album
I
want the proper uncompressed audio - hence the attraction of audio CD (and
not bloody corrupt copy-protected ones at that!). I'd be quite prepared to
wait the few hours it takes to download an uncompressed audio CD image on
broadband though.

--
Paul Morgan
Replace nospam with paul_morga to reply via e-mail


128kbps can sound very good if encoded properly with decent software etc
'Lame' or 'Blade',
160kbps is supposed to be cassette quality, 192kbps CD etc.

and I never personaly have come across OGG but its supposed to be better
than MP1 layer 3......

Copy protected CD's not the worst threat to sound quality!
 

"Paul Morgan" wrote in message
...
iddqdATworldonline.DenmarK wrote:

Now I'm all for the artists getting a bigger share of the money but I
fear sound quality will get lost in the process of the music
distribution going on-line. My prediction is that getting uncompressed
music will be just as hard as it is to find vinyl theese days!

Agree entirely.... I hate record companies for the fat profits they take
out
of CD sales and pass on a pittance to the artist, along with them churning
out drab pop-crap. So anything online music can contibute towards the
death
of a few record companies is a good thing IMO.

But on the other hand there's no way I'd pay for lossy compressed music. I
don't mind downloading the odd MP3 to listen to new stuff, I can live with
the drop in SQ when it's free. But when shelling out over £10 for an album
I
want the proper uncompressed audio - hence the attraction of audio CD (and
not bloody corrupt copy-protected ones at that!). I'd be quite prepared to
wait the few hours it takes to download an uncompressed audio CD image on
broadband though.

--
Paul Morgan
Replace nospam with paul_morga to reply via e-mail


128kbps can sound very good if encoded properly with decent software etc
'Lame' or 'Blade',
160kbps is supposed to be cassette quality, 192kbps CD etc.

and I never personaly have come across OGG but its supposed to be better
than MP1 layer 3......

Copy protected CD's not the worst threat to sound quality!
 

"malcolm" wrote in message
news:pQEjb.786893$YN5.777106@sccrnsc01...

128kbps can sound very good if encoded properly with decent software etc
'Lame' or 'Blade', 160kbps is supposed to be cassette quality, 192kbps CD
etc.

256kbps seems to be emerging as the new 'minimum standard' on Kazaa as
people move to broadband.

12-18 months ago, it was difficult to find any downloads better than
128kbps, now I won't even look at anything less than 256 - excepting
non-commercial rarities - but, where possible, go for 320. A decent 256 or
320 rip will produce an acceptable CDR - certainly good enough for normal
day-to-day listening

Copy protected CD's not the worst threat to sound quality!
 

"malcolm" wrote in message
news:pQEjb.786893$YN5.777106@sccrnsc01...

128kbps can sound very good if encoded properly with decent software etc
'Lame' or 'Blade', 160kbps is supposed to be cassette quality, 192kbps CD
etc.

256kbps seems to be emerging as the new 'minimum standard' on Kazaa as
people move to broadband.

12-18 months ago, it was difficult to find any downloads better than
128kbps, now I won't even look at anything less than 256 - excepting
non-commercial rarities - but, where possible, go for 320. A decent 256 or
320 rip will produce an acceptable CDR - certainly good enough for normal
day-to-day listening

Copy protected CD's not the worst threat to sound quality!
 

On Fri, 17 Oct 2003 00:14:51 +0100
"Stimpy" wrote:

A decent 256 or
320 rip will produce an acceptable CDR - certainly good enough for
normal
day-to-day listening

320 is known to be able to pass for real in double-blind tests.

That said, LAME does an *extremely* good job of variable bitrate
encoding, the theory being that you only use as many bits as needed to
reach 'indistinguishable' quality.

typically I find that 'normal' music (thats anything from rock to
classical for me, none of this pop crap), that LAME generates an average
of 160kbit/s for a variable bitrate track. Very few tracks average over
224.

Yes, Im a die-hard linux user ;-)

--
Spyros lair: http://www.mnementh.co.uk/ |||| Maintainer: arm26 linux

Do not meddle in the affairs of Dragons, for you are tasty and good with
ketchup.

Copy protected CD's not the worst threat to sound quality!
 

On Fri, 17 Oct 2003 00:14:51 +0100
"Stimpy" wrote:

A decent 256 or
320 rip will produce an acceptable CDR - certainly good enough for
normal
day-to-day listening

320 is known to be able to pass for real in double-blind tests.

That said, LAME does an *extremely* good job of variable bitrate
encoding, the theory being that you only use as many bits as needed to
reach 'indistinguishable' quality.

typically I find that 'normal' music (thats anything from rock to
classical for me, none of this pop crap), that LAME generates an average
of 160kbit/s for a variable bitrate track. Very few tracks average over
224.

Yes, Im a die-hard linux user ;-)

--
Spyros lair: http://www.mnementh.co.uk/ |||| Maintainer: arm26 linux

Do not meddle in the affairs of Dragons, for you are tasty and good with
ketchup.

Copy protected CD's not the worst threat to sound quality!
 

more from the 'Ian Molton school' of uk.rec.audio-ism:


Yes, Im a die-hard linux user ;-)


A die-hard linux user not using ogg as their main format?

I wonder... how high a bitrate would an (stereo) ogg vorbis file need
before it surpassed CD quality? Obv you would have to be encoding not from
a CD to start with, but I think the point would be well below CD bitrate,
assuming humans can actually distinguish better-than-CD audio.

If ogg takes off there's a very interesting technology - bitrate peeling;
for a given hosted file with bitrate X you could download a copy with any
quality upto X without re-encoding. This would allow the musicians to
encode at very high bitrates, but still make the music avaliable to 56k
users. I believe there is a BitTorrent plugin in development to do this
transparently.

If you really must have 1:1 audio, there's always the lossless codecs -
FLAC, BONC etc. Although audiophiles seem to be unnecessarily wary of data
compression - AFIK SACD/DVD-A formats don't even employ lossless data
compression.

--
Jim H jh
@333
.org

Copy protected CD's not the worst threat to sound quality!
 

more from the 'Ian Molton school' of uk.rec.audio-ism:


Yes, Im a die-hard linux user ;-)


A die-hard linux user not using ogg as their main format?

I wonder... how high a bitrate would an (stereo) ogg vorbis file need
before it surpassed CD quality? Obv you would have to be encoding not from
a CD to start with, but I think the point would be well below CD bitrate,
assuming humans can actually distinguish better-than-CD audio.

If ogg takes off there's a very interesting technology - bitrate peeling;
for a given hosted file with bitrate X you could download a copy with any
quality upto X without re-encoding. This would allow the musicians to
encode at very high bitrates, but still make the music avaliable to 56k
users. I believe there is a BitTorrent plugin in development to do this
transparently.

If you really must have 1:1 audio, there's always the lossless codecs -
FLAC, BONC etc. Although audiophiles seem to be unnecessarily wary of data
compression - AFIK SACD/DVD-A formats don't even employ lossless data
compression.

--
Jim H jh
@333
.org

Copy protected CD's not the worst threat to sound quality!
 

"Ian Molton" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 17 Oct 2003 00:14:51 +0100
"Stimpy" wrote:

A decent 256 or
320 rip will produce an acceptable CDR - certainly good enough for
normal
day-to-day listening

320 is known to be able to pass for real in double-blind tests.

Hmmm... I've been pretty pleased with most of the many 320 tracks I've
downloaded/burned so I can believe that. It'd be interesting to read the
studies though - any references on the WWW?


That said, LAME does an *extremely* good job of variable bitrate
encoding, the theory being that you only use as many bits as needed to
reach 'indistinguishable' quality.

Hmmm... (again). I've never used variable bitrate and always rip at 320 -
easy option I guess :-). Have you tried a back-to-back variable vs fixed
rate rip? I might have a play over the weekend. I think my concern is
that, for file sharing purposes, people often search for tracks at a
specific bitrate (i.e. minimum 256). Although variable bitrate ripping
might save a little space, the lower bitrate won't do anything to raise the
average bitrate used for sharing

Copy protected CD's not the worst threat to sound quality!
 

"Ian Molton" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 17 Oct 2003 00:14:51 +0100
"Stimpy" wrote:

A decent 256 or
320 rip will produce an acceptable CDR - certainly good enough for
normal
day-to-day listening

320 is known to be able to pass for real in double-blind tests.

Hmmm... I've been pretty pleased with most of the many 320 tracks I've
downloaded/burned so I can believe that. It'd be interesting to read the
studies though - any references on the WWW?


That said, LAME does an *extremely* good job of variable bitrate
encoding, the theory being that you only use as many bits as needed to
reach 'indistinguishable' quality.

Hmmm... (again). I've never used variable bitrate and always rip at 320 -
easy option I guess :-). Have you tried a back-to-back variable vs fixed
rate rip? I might have a play over the weekend. I think my concern is
that, for file sharing purposes, people often search for tracks at a
specific bitrate (i.e. minimum 256). Although variable bitrate ripping
might save a little space, the lower bitrate won't do anything to raise the
average bitrate used for sharing

Copy protected CD's not the worst threat to sound quality!
 

"Jim H" wrote in message
...

Yes, Im a die-hard linux user ;-)

A die-hard linux user not using ogg as their main format?

I guess if you want to share, you have to go with the masses ;-) For
better or worse, MP3 has a *huge* amount of momentum - look at the
comparative volume of MP3's vs. Ogg on Kazaa

If you really must have 1:1 audio, there's always the lossless codecs -
FLAC, BONC etc. Although audiophiles seem to be unnecessarily wary of data
compression - AFIK SACD/DVD-A formats don't even employ lossless data
compression.

There was an amusing article in one of the hi-fi comics last month about how
to 'get into' ripping CDs - they were suggesting that anything lossy at all
was a no-no and one should only ever rip at 'full size' (1411 kbps). I've
done a few back to back 1411 vs. 320 kbps tests and, to be honest, struggle
to find *too much* difference. I think ripping at 320 is about the point
where the old diminishing returns thing kicks in.

Copy protected CD's not the worst threat to sound quality!
 

"Jim H" wrote in message
...

Yes, Im a die-hard linux user ;-)

A die-hard linux user not using ogg as their main format?

I guess if you want to share, you have to go with the masses ;-) For
better or worse, MP3 has a *huge* amount of momentum - look at the
comparative volume of MP3's vs. Ogg on Kazaa

If you really must have 1:1 audio, there's always the lossless codecs -
FLAC, BONC etc. Although audiophiles seem to be unnecessarily wary of data
compression - AFIK SACD/DVD-A formats don't even employ lossless data
compression.

There was an amusing article in one of the hi-fi comics last month about how
to 'get into' ripping CDs - they were suggesting that anything lossy at all
was a no-no and one should only ever rip at 'full size' (1411 kbps). I've
done a few back to back 1411 vs. 320 kbps tests and, to be honest, struggle
to find *too much* difference. I think ripping at 320 is about the point
where the old diminishing returns thing kicks in.

Copy protected CD's not the worst threat to sound quality!
 

On Fri, 17 Oct 2003 08:27:44 +0100
"Stimpy" wrote:

I've never used variable bitrate and always rip at 320 -
easy option I guess :-). Have you tried a back-to-back variable vs
fixed rate rip?

No, I figure if I cant distinguish the fixed OR the variable from the
original, both are good enough, and I'll take the smaller one.

:-)

--
Spyros lair: http://www.mnementh.co.uk/ |||| Maintainer: arm26 linux

Do not meddle in the affairs of Dragons, for you are tasty and good with
ketchup.

Copy protected CD's not the worst threat to sound quality!
 

On Fri, 17 Oct 2003 08:27:44 +0100
"Stimpy" wrote:

I've never used variable bitrate and always rip at 320 -
easy option I guess :-). Have you tried a back-to-back variable vs
fixed rate rip?

No, I figure if I cant distinguish the fixed OR the variable from the
original, both are good enough, and I'll take the smaller one.

:-)

--
Spyros lair: http://www.mnementh.co.uk/ |||| Maintainer: arm26 linux

Do not meddle in the affairs of Dragons, for you are tasty and good with
ketchup.

Copy protected CD's not the worst threat to sound quality!
 

more from the 'Stimpy school' of uk.rec.audio-ism:

"Jim H" wrote in message
...

Yes, Im a die-hard linux user ;-)

A die-hard linux user not using ogg as their main format?

I guess if you want to share, you have to go with the masses ;-) For
better or worse, MP3 has a *huge* amount of momentum - look at the
comparative volume of MP3's vs. Ogg on Kazaa

But who uses kazaa anymore?

Maybe 5.1 audio will help ogg take off, dvda/sacd ripping would certainly
help ease people away from old stereo formats like mp3. There are also some
cheap ogg decoding chips for portable players around now. Thanks to the
dodgy buisness practices wma has a large share of audio on personal
computers, but is less often shared than mp3.

If you really must have 1:1 audio, there's always the lossless codecs
- FLAC, BONC etc. Although audiophiles seem to be unnecessarily wary
of data compression - AFIK SACD/DVD-A formats don't even employ
lossless data compression.

There was an amusing article in one of the hi-fi comics last month
about how to 'get into' ripping CDs - they were suggesting that
anything lossy at all was a no-no and one should only ever rip at
'full size' (1411 kbps). I've done a few back to back 1411 vs. 320
kbps tests and, to be honest, struggle to find *too much* difference.
I think ripping at 320 is about the point where the old diminishing
returns thing kicks in.

With mp3, maybe, but mp3 is getting on 13 years old now, and at 320k it's
really outside the original design. You can't keep throwing high, out of
spec bitrate at an old format it and expect the quality to scale nicely. I
do not believe there to be audiable difference between an r3mix lame rip
(vbr,~180) and a 320 cbr one.

--
Jim H jh
@333
.org

Copy protected CD's not the worst threat to sound quality!
 

more from the 'Stimpy school' of uk.rec.audio-ism:

"Jim H" wrote in message
...

Yes, Im a die-hard linux user ;-)

A die-hard linux user not using ogg as their main format?

I guess if you want to share, you have to go with the masses ;-) For
better or worse, MP3 has a *huge* amount of momentum - look at the
comparative volume of MP3's vs. Ogg on Kazaa

But who uses kazaa anymore?

Maybe 5.1 audio will help ogg take off, dvda/sacd ripping would certainly
help ease people away from old stereo formats like mp3. There are also some
cheap ogg decoding chips for portable players around now. Thanks to the
dodgy buisness practices wma has a large share of audio on personal
computers, but is less often shared than mp3.

If you really must have 1:1 audio, there's always the lossless codecs
- FLAC, BONC etc. Although audiophiles seem to be unnecessarily wary
of data compression - AFIK SACD/DVD-A formats don't even employ
lossless data compression.

There was an amusing article in one of the hi-fi comics last month
about how to 'get into' ripping CDs - they were suggesting that
anything lossy at all was a no-no and one should only ever rip at
'full size' (1411 kbps). I've done a few back to back 1411 vs. 320
kbps tests and, to be honest, struggle to find *too much* difference.
I think ripping at 320 is about the point where the old diminishing
returns thing kicks in.

With mp3, maybe, but mp3 is getting on 13 years old now, and at 320k it's
really outside the original design. You can't keep throwing high, out of
spec bitrate at an old format it and expect the quality to scale nicely. I
do not believe there to be audiable difference between an r3mix lame rip
(vbr,~180) and a 320 cbr one.

--
Jim H jh
@333
.org

Copy protected CD's not the worst threat to sound quality!
 

"Jim H" wrote in message
...

If you really must have 1:1 audio, there's always the lossless codecs -
FLAC, BONC etc. Although audiophiles seem to be unnecessarily wary of data
compression - AFIK SACD/DVD-A formats don't even employ lossless data
compression.


Actually both SACD and DVD-A do employ losses compression, DST for SACD and
MLP for DVD-A.

Copy protected CD's not the worst threat to sound quality!
 

"Jim H" wrote in message
...

If you really must have 1:1 audio, there's always the lossless codecs -
FLAC, BONC etc. Although audiophiles seem to be unnecessarily wary of data
compression - AFIK SACD/DVD-A formats don't even employ lossless data
compression.


Actually both SACD and DVD-A do employ losses compression, DST for SACD and
MLP for DVD-A.

Copy protected CD's not the worst threat to sound quality!
 

"Jim H" wrote in message
...

If you really must have 1:1 audio, there's always the lossless codecs -
FLAC, BONC etc. Although audiophiles seem to be unnecessarily wary of data
compression - AFIK SACD/DVD-A formats don't even employ lossless data
compression.


Actually both SACD and DVD-A do employ lossless compression, DST for SACD
and
MLP for DVD-A.

Copy protected CD's not the worst threat to sound quality!
 

"Jim H" wrote in message
...

If you really must have 1:1 audio, there's always the lossless codecs -
FLAC, BONC etc. Although audiophiles seem to be unnecessarily wary of data
compression - AFIK SACD/DVD-A formats don't even employ lossless data
compression.


Actually both SACD and DVD-A do employ lossless compression, DST for SACD
and
MLP for DVD-A.

Copy protected CD's not the worst threat to sound quality!
 

"Jim H" wrote in message
...

I guess if you want to share, you have to go with the masses ;-) For
better or worse, MP3 has a *huge* amount of momentum - look at the
comparative volume of MP3's vs. Ogg on Kazaa

But who uses kazaa anymore?

Mwa ha ha ha!! 4,250,000 people are logged onto Kazaa as I type this!

There was an amusing article in one of the hi-fi comics last month
about how to 'get into' ripping CDs - they were suggesting that
anything lossy at all was a no-no and one should only ever rip at
'full size' (1411 kbps). I've done a few back to back 1411 vs. 320
kbps tests and, to be honest, struggle to find *too much* difference.
I think ripping at 320 is about the point where the old diminishing
returns thing kicks in.

With mp3, maybe, but mp3 is getting on 13 years old now, and at 320k it's
really outside the original design. You can't keep throwing high, out of
spec bitrate at an old format it and expect the quality to scale nicely. I
do not believe there to be audiable difference between an r3mix lame rip
(vbr,~180) and a 320 cbr one.

So, in reality, you don't download a lot - i.a. more than 4 or 5 complete
CDs each day, then?

Copy protected CD's not the worst threat to sound quality!
 

"Jim H" wrote in message
...

I guess if you want to share, you have to go with the masses ;-) For
better or worse, MP3 has a *huge* amount of momentum - look at the
comparative volume of MP3's vs. Ogg on Kazaa

But who uses kazaa anymore?

Mwa ha ha ha!! 4,250,000 people are logged onto Kazaa as I type this!

There was an amusing article in one of the hi-fi comics last month
about how to 'get into' ripping CDs - they were suggesting that
anything lossy at all was a no-no and one should only ever rip at
'full size' (1411 kbps). I've done a few back to back 1411 vs. 320
kbps tests and, to be honest, struggle to find *too much* difference.
I think ripping at 320 is about the point where the old diminishing
returns thing kicks in.

With mp3, maybe, but mp3 is getting on 13 years old now, and at 320k it's
really outside the original design. You can't keep throwing high, out of
spec bitrate at an old format it and expect the quality to scale nicely. I
do not believe there to be audiable difference between an r3mix lame rip
(vbr,~180) and a 320 cbr one.

So, in reality, you don't download a lot - i.a. more than 4 or 5 complete
CDs each day, then?

Copy protected CD's not the worst threat to sound quality!
 

more from the 'Stimpy school' of uk.rec.audio-ism:


"Jim H" wrote in message
...

I guess if you want to share, you have to go with the masses ;-)
For better or worse, MP3 has a *huge* amount of momentum - look at
the comparative volume of MP3's vs. Ogg on Kazaa

But who uses kazaa anymore?

Mwa ha ha ha!! 4,250,000 people are logged onto Kazaa as I type this!

I'd take those figures with a *big* pinch of salt. How can a supernode know
the total users on a decentralised network? In kazaa people who logged off
some time ago tend to remain counted and those with flaky 'free'
connections + dynamic IP can be counted several times.

Besides, how many people use a network isn't important to file avaliablity
if search facilities do not scale sufficiently to allow them to be reached.
How many of the 4million computers do you think your search queries?
Possibly less than a smaller, but better organised p2p network.

I really wouldn't recomend kazaa. The files are often fake or corrupt, with
no serious attempt at maintaining file integrety, there is nothing to guard
your privicy, there is no real hashing, it has disproportionaly many 56k
users and so is generally slow, the search facilities are inappropiate for
a network of it's size and it's users tend to be technically naieve.

With mp3, maybe, but mp3 is getting on 13 years old now, and at 320k
it's really outside the original design. You can't keep throwing
high, out of spec bitrate at an old format it and expect the quality
to scale nicely. I do not believe there to be audiable difference
between an r3mix lame rip (vbr,~180) and a 320 cbr one.

So, in reality, you don't download a lot - i.a. more than 4 or 5
complete CDs each day, then?

I don't understand the question. Are you acusing me of piracy, or of not
pirating enough? I'll prob download 0.01 full music albums per day, but use
BitTorrent as an ftp replacement. I'd say at least a gig a week, often
maxing out a 2meg line.

What does that have to do with mp3 bitrates? I have many ogg/mp3 files from
my own cds.

--
Jim H jh
@333
.org

Copy protected CD's not the worst threat to sound quality!
 

more from the 'Stimpy school' of uk.rec.audio-ism:


"Jim H" wrote in message
...

I guess if you want to share, you have to go with the masses ;-)
For better or worse, MP3 has a *huge* amount of momentum - look at
the comparative volume of MP3's vs. Ogg on Kazaa

But who uses kazaa anymore?

Mwa ha ha ha!! 4,250,000 people are logged onto Kazaa as I type this!

I'd take those figures with a *big* pinch of salt. How can a supernode know
the total users on a decentralised network? In kazaa people who logged off
some time ago tend to remain counted and those with flaky 'free'
connections + dynamic IP can be counted several times.

Besides, how many people use a network isn't important to file avaliablity
if search facilities do not scale sufficiently to allow them to be reached.
How many of the 4million computers do you think your search queries?
Possibly less than a smaller, but better organised p2p network.

I really wouldn't recomend kazaa. The files are often fake or corrupt, with
no serious attempt at maintaining file integrety, there is nothing to guard
your privicy, there is no real hashing, it has disproportionaly many 56k
users and so is generally slow, the search facilities are inappropiate for
a network of it's size and it's users tend to be technically naieve.

With mp3, maybe, but mp3 is getting on 13 years old now, and at 320k
it's really outside the original design. You can't keep throwing
high, out of spec bitrate at an old format it and expect the quality
to scale nicely. I do not believe there to be audiable difference
between an r3mix lame rip (vbr,~180) and a 320 cbr one.

So, in reality, you don't download a lot - i.a. more than 4 or 5
complete CDs each day, then?

I don't understand the question. Are you acusing me of piracy, or of not
pirating enough? I'll prob download 0.01 full music albums per day, but use
BitTorrent as an ftp replacement. I'd say at least a gig a week, often
maxing out a 2meg line.

What does that have to do with mp3 bitrates? I have many ogg/mp3 files from
my own cds.

--
Jim H jh
@333
.org

Copy protected CD's not the worst threat to sound quality!
 

"Jim H" wrote in message
...
more from the 'Stimpy school' of uk.rec.audio-ism:

"Jim H" wrote in message
...

Yes, Im a die-hard linux user ;-)

A die-hard linux user not using ogg as their main format?

I guess if you want to share, you have to go with the masses ;-) For
better or worse, MP3 has a *huge* amount of momentum - look at the
comparative volume of MP3's vs. Ogg on Kazaa

But who uses kazaa anymore?

Maybe 5.1 audio will help ogg take off, dvda/sacd ripping would certainly
help ease people away from old stereo formats like mp3. There are also
some
cheap ogg decoding chips for portable players around now. Thanks to the
dodgy buisness practices wma has a large share of audio on personal
computers, but is less often shared than mp3.

If you really must have 1:1 audio, there's always the lossless codecs
- FLAC, BONC etc. Although audiophiles seem to be unnecessarily wary
of data compression - AFIK SACD/DVD-A formats don't even employ
lossless data compression.

There was an amusing article in one of the hi-fi comics last month
about how to 'get into' ripping CDs - they were suggesting that
anything lossy at all was a no-no and one should only ever rip at
'full size' (1411 kbps). I've done a few back to back 1411 vs. 320
kbps tests and, to be honest, struggle to find *too much* difference.
I think ripping at 320 is about the point where the old diminishing
returns thing kicks in.

With mp3, maybe, but mp3 is getting on 13 years old now, and at 320k it's
really outside the original design. You can't keep throwing high, out of
spec bitrate at an old format it and expect the quality to scale nicely. I
do not believe there to be audiable difference between an r3mix lame rip
(vbr,~180) and a 320 cbr one.

--
Jim H jh
@333
.org

WMA which is suppose to be twice!!! as effiecent as MP3. I havent heard a
good WMA yet.

Copy protected CD's not the worst threat to sound quality!
 

"Jim H" wrote in message
...
more from the 'Stimpy school' of uk.rec.audio-ism:

"Jim H" wrote in message
...

Yes, Im a die-hard linux user ;-)

A die-hard linux user not using ogg as their main format?

I guess if you want to share, you have to go with the masses ;-) For
better or worse, MP3 has a *huge* amount of momentum - look at the
comparative volume of MP3's vs. Ogg on Kazaa

But who uses kazaa anymore?

Maybe 5.1 audio will help ogg take off, dvda/sacd ripping would certainly
help ease people away from old stereo formats like mp3. There are also
some
cheap ogg decoding chips for portable players around now. Thanks to the
dodgy buisness practices wma has a large share of audio on personal
computers, but is less often shared than mp3.

If you really must have 1:1 audio, there's always the lossless codecs
- FLAC, BONC etc. Although audiophiles seem to be unnecessarily wary
of data compression - AFIK SACD/DVD-A formats don't even employ
lossless data compression.

There was an amusing article in one of the hi-fi comics last month
about how to 'get into' ripping CDs - they were suggesting that
anything lossy at all was a no-no and one should only ever rip at
'full size' (1411 kbps). I've done a few back to back 1411 vs. 320
kbps tests and, to be honest, struggle to find *too much* difference.
I think ripping at 320 is about the point where the old diminishing
returns thing kicks in.

With mp3, maybe, but mp3 is getting on 13 years old now, and at 320k it's
really outside the original design. You can't keep throwing high, out of
spec bitrate at an old format it and expect the quality to scale nicely. I
do not believe there to be audiable difference between an r3mix lame rip
(vbr,~180) and a 320 cbr one.

--
Jim H jh
@333
.org

WMA which is suppose to be twice!!! as effiecent as MP3. I havent heard a
good WMA yet.

Copy protected CD's not the worst threat to sound quality!
 

"Jim H" wrote in message
...
more from the 'Stimpy school' of uk.rec.audio-ism:


"Jim H" wrote in message
...

I guess if you want to share, you have to go with the masses ;-)
For better or worse, MP3 has a *huge* amount of momentum - look at
the comparative volume of MP3's vs. Ogg on Kazaa

But who uses kazaa anymore?

Mwa ha ha ha!! 4,250,000 people are logged onto Kazaa as I type this!

I'd take those figures with a *big* pinch of salt. How can a supernode
know
the total users on a decentralised network? In kazaa people who logged off
some time ago tend to remain counted and those with flaky 'free'
connections + dynamic IP can be counted several times.

Besides, how many people use a network isn't important to file avaliablity
if search facilities do not scale sufficiently to allow them to be
reached.
How many of the 4million computers do you think your search queries?
Possibly less than a smaller, but better organised p2p network.

I really wouldn't recomend kazaa. The files are often fake or corrupt,
with
no serious attempt at maintaining file integrety, there is nothing to
guard
your privicy, there is no real hashing, it has disproportionaly many 56k
users and so is generally slow, the search facilities are inappropiate for
a network of it's size and it's users tend to be technically naieve.

With mp3, maybe, but mp3 is getting on 13 years old now, and at 320k
it's really outside the original design. You can't keep throwing
high, out of spec bitrate at an old format it and expect the quality
to scale nicely. I do not believe there to be audiable difference
between an r3mix lame rip (vbr,~180) and a 320 cbr one.

So, in reality, you don't download a lot - i.a. more than 4 or 5
complete CDs each day, then?

I don't understand the question. Are you acusing me of piracy, or of not
pirating enough? I'll prob download 0.01 full music albums per day, but
use
BitTorrent as an ftp replacement. I'd say at least a gig a week, often
maxing out a 2meg line.

What does that have to do with mp3 bitrates? I have many ogg/mp3 files
from
my own cds.

--
Jim H jh
@333
.org

lucky you are in the UK not the RIAA owned USA.

Copy protected CD's not the worst threat to sound quality!
 

"Jim H" wrote in message
...
more from the 'Stimpy school' of uk.rec.audio-ism:


"Jim H" wrote in message
...

I guess if you want to share, you have to go with the masses ;-)
For better or worse, MP3 has a *huge* amount of momentum - look at
the comparative volume of MP3's vs. Ogg on Kazaa

But who uses kazaa anymore?

Mwa ha ha ha!! 4,250,000 people are logged onto Kazaa as I type this!

I'd take those figures with a *big* pinch of salt. How can a supernode
know
the total users on a decentralised network? In kazaa people who logged off
some time ago tend to remain counted and those with flaky 'free'
connections + dynamic IP can be counted several times.

Besides, how many people use a network isn't important to file avaliablity
if search facilities do not scale sufficiently to allow them to be
reached.
How many of the 4million computers do you think your search queries?
Possibly less than a smaller, but better organised p2p network.

I really wouldn't recomend kazaa. The files are often fake or corrupt,
with
no serious attempt at maintaining file integrety, there is nothing to
guard
your privicy, there is no real hashing, it has disproportionaly many 56k
users and so is generally slow, the search facilities are inappropiate for
a network of it's size and it's users tend to be technically naieve.

With mp3, maybe, but mp3 is getting on 13 years old now, and at 320k
it's really outside the original design. You can't keep throwing
high, out of spec bitrate at an old format it and expect the quality
to scale nicely. I do not believe there to be audiable difference
between an r3mix lame rip (vbr,~180) and a 320 cbr one.

So, in reality, you don't download a lot - i.a. more than 4 or 5
complete CDs each day, then?

I don't understand the question. Are you acusing me of piracy, or of not
pirating enough? I'll prob download 0.01 full music albums per day, but
use
BitTorrent as an ftp replacement. I'd say at least a gig a week, often
maxing out a 2meg line.

What does that have to do with mp3 bitrates? I have many ogg/mp3 files
from
my own cds.

--
Jim H jh
@333
.org

lucky you are in the UK not the RIAA owned USA.

Copy protected CD's not the worst threat to sound quality!
 

"Stimpy" wrote in message
...
"Ian Molton" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 17 Oct 2003 00:14:51 +0100
"Stimpy" wrote:

A decent 256 or
320 rip will produce an acceptable CDR - certainly good enough for
normal
day-to-day listening

320 is known to be able to pass for real in double-blind tests.

Hmmm... I've been pretty pleased with most of the many 320 tracks I've
downloaded/burned so I can believe that. It'd be interesting to read the
studies though - any references on the WWW?


That said, LAME does an *extremely* good job of variable bitrate
encoding, the theory being that you only use as many bits as needed to
reach 'indistinguishable' quality.

Hmmm... (again). I've never used variable bitrate and always rip at 320 -
easy option I guess :-). Have you tried a back-to-back variable vs fixed
rate rip? I might have a play over the weekend. I think my concern is
that, for file sharing purposes, people often search for tracks at a
specific bitrate (i.e. minimum 256). Although variable bitrate ripping
might save a little space, the lower bitrate won't do anything to raise
the
average bitrate used for sharing



bit rate doesnt always come into it, I have heard some better quality 128s
than 320s.
it depends on the encoder more than the bit rate.
Lame does a very good job, Blade not too bad.
regards malcolm

Copy protected CD's not the worst threat to sound quality!
 

"Stimpy" wrote in message
...
"Ian Molton" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 17 Oct 2003 00:14:51 +0100
"Stimpy" wrote:

A decent 256 or
320 rip will produce an acceptable CDR - certainly good enough for
normal
day-to-day listening

320 is known to be able to pass for real in double-blind tests.

Hmmm... I've been pretty pleased with most of the many 320 tracks I've
downloaded/burned so I can believe that. It'd be interesting to read the
studies though - any references on the WWW?


That said, LAME does an *extremely* good job of variable bitrate
encoding, the theory being that you only use as many bits as needed to
reach 'indistinguishable' quality.

Hmmm... (again). I've never used variable bitrate and always rip at 320 -
easy option I guess :-). Have you tried a back-to-back variable vs fixed
rate rip? I might have a play over the weekend. I think my concern is
that, for file sharing purposes, people often search for tracks at a
specific bitrate (i.e. minimum 256). Although variable bitrate ripping
might save a little space, the lower bitrate won't do anything to raise
the
average bitrate used for sharing



bit rate doesnt always come into it, I have heard some better quality 128s
than 320s.
it depends on the encoder more than the bit rate.
Lame does a very good job, Blade not too bad.
regards malcolm

Copy protected CD's not the worst threat to sound quality!
 

more from the 'iddqdATworldonline.DenmarK school' of uk.rec.audio-ism:

I fear that in a few years the majority of music will not be availble on
physical media but instead be sold on-line in compressed form!

The move has allready started with Apple's ITunes, TDC's solution here
in Denmark and several others. For now they make deals with the record
labels but soon the musicians will make their own deals with them, and
the on-line shops in effect becoming new record companies forcing the
record labels to minic the model.

Now I'm all for the artists getting a bigger share of the money but I
fear sound quality will get lost in the process of the music
distribution going on-line. My prediction is that getting uncompressed
music will be just as hard as it is to find vinyl theese days!

Am I just over pesimistic or ?

Kind regards

Bruno, Denmark


I just discovered somthing that may be of interest.

The FooBar2000 media player comes with a quite good ABX comparator (with
proper level matching etc).

Might be a good idea to rip a few well known pieces of music to different
codecs and see if you really can hear the difference. Original wav, lame --
r3mix, lame 320cbr and quality 6 vorbis would make an interesting test set.

I've tried this, comparing each compressed format to the wav. Vorbis scored
best, 320cbr was a /little/ better than r3,

--
Jim H jh
@333
.org

Copy protected CD's not the worst threat to sound quality!
 

more from the 'iddqdATworldonline.DenmarK school' of uk.rec.audio-ism:

I fear that in a few years the majority of music will not be availble on
physical media but instead be sold on-line in compressed form!

The move has allready started with Apple's ITunes, TDC's solution here
in Denmark and several others. For now they make deals with the record
labels but soon the musicians will make their own deals with them, and
the on-line shops in effect becoming new record companies forcing the
record labels to minic the model.

Now I'm all for the artists getting a bigger share of the money but I
fear sound quality will get lost in the process of the music
distribution going on-line. My prediction is that getting uncompressed
music will be just as hard as it is to find vinyl theese days!

Am I just over pesimistic or ?

Kind regards

Bruno, Denmark


I just discovered somthing that may be of interest.

The FooBar2000 media player comes with a quite good ABX comparator (with
proper level matching etc).

Might be a good idea to rip a few well known pieces of music to different
codecs and see if you really can hear the difference. Original wav, lame --
r3mix, lame 320cbr and quality 6 vorbis would make an interesting test set.

I've tried this, comparing each compressed format to the wav. Vorbis scored
best, 320cbr was a /little/ better than r3,

--
Jim H jh
@333
.org

Copy protected CD's not the worst threat to sound quality!
 

more from the 'malcolm school' of uk.rec.audio-ism:

lucky you are in the UK not the RIAA owned USA.

Even if I was, I'm confident the p2p software I use does enough to protect
my privacy.

Btw, when I say I use BitTorrent as an ftp replacement, I mean to download
legitiamte files in order to take the strain off the ftp server (and
normally means a faster download :) I'll ocasionally get music off p2p to
try it out, but only because the music I like is never played on the radio.

If I like the music sometimes I'll buy the CD and never use it, I'll buy it
because I want to stay within the law and support artists in the only way I
am allowed to, but I have no *use* for it once I've already downloaded a
good mp3/vorbis file.

I see technologies like BitTorrent as important to usurping record
companies, not just a convenient way to rip them off. Allowing artists to
publish their material for almost nothing is an essential step to freedom
from the labels.

--
Jim H jh
@333
.org

Copy protected CD's not the worst threat to sound quality!
 

more from the 'malcolm school' of uk.rec.audio-ism:

lucky you are in the UK not the RIAA owned USA.

Even if I was, I'm confident the p2p software I use does enough to protect
my privacy.

Btw, when I say I use BitTorrent as an ftp replacement, I mean to download
legitiamte files in order to take the strain off the ftp server (and
normally means a faster download :) I'll ocasionally get music off p2p to
try it out, but only because the music I like is never played on the radio.

If I like the music sometimes I'll buy the CD and never use it, I'll buy it
because I want to stay within the law and support artists in the only way I
am allowed to, but I have no *use* for it once I've already downloaded a
good mp3/vorbis file.

I see technologies like BitTorrent as important to usurping record
companies, not just a convenient way to rip them off. Allowing artists to
publish their material for almost nothing is an essential step to freedom
from the labels.

--
Jim H jh
@333
.org