Posted 04/20/2007 at 08:31:14pm

thanks. could have been done better, but wasn't done terribly either. in the end some people just CAN'T tell a difference between compression for some types of music, while others CAN tell a difference for some types of music, but not all types of music. pretty much confirms things I've already known. for most people, moderately compressed MP3s are 'good enough', and that's why they exist: because there isn't a lot of market pressure driving higher bitrates. The unfortunately thing is that very avid listeners who buy things like $1,600 amplifiers and $350 speaker wire (like me), can't enjoy the conveniences of digital downloads because their bitrates are determined by the tastes of the lowest-common-denominator mass-market consumer. garbage in, garbage out another thing is that a lot of the music they were listening to was probably already damaged pretty badly by the time it got on CD. sound engineers these days really mutilate the music by compressing dynamic range and trying to get the signal as hot as possible--so that it stands out the radio--but clip transients in the process. etc. my own test CD is Miles Davis "Kind of Blue"--but that wouldn't work for other people unless they've listened to it enough to know the duration of every breath. reminds me: I went into a Home Entertainment once (think they got bought up by Tweeter) to audition some speakers, and when I put my disc on I instantly noticed that the speakers were wired backwards. I prodded the salesperson a bit, but he didn't seem very willing to straighten things out, so I went and dropped my $3000 budget somewhere else.