[Rufus]

Ok
I'm no new fangled MP3 expert, so I'd like your opinions please:

Player: Philips Gogear 2mb
Phones: Koss "The Plug" inner ear earpieces.

Source: CD.

Now I've been into HIFI sound for over 30 years, yet if I record the same track from a CD to MP3 at 128mbps, 192 and 320, I hear no discernable difference!
Am I just too old to hear it these days???

[shuttertalk]

Depends very much on the music you're recording. If you're listening to classical or "empty" pieces, I doubt there would be much difference. On live music though (with lots of clapping, cymbals or crowds) and you can start to hear "tinny" sounds at the lower bitrates.

That being said, 128kbps is pretty reasonable...

[dave]

also depends on the quality of the gear u are listening through...........

In my car you can very easily pick the difference between a song encoded at 128kbps compared to 192kbps. For that reason all my songs that i encode for my car are no less then 192 kbps.

[slejhamer]

I think there's a subtle difference, and I agree that it depends on the type of music and the quality of gear.

I remember when radio stations first began playing CDs instead of vinyl, and they'd always tell you when they did it. The general response was, "Oh. Doesn't sound much different." That's because the radio signal is so compressed that much of the dynamic range is clipped. But in your home, CD on a consumer-grade player is clearly better than vinyl on a consumer-grade turntable.

It's similar with MPEG. On low-end gear you may not hear any difference. But on decent equipment the higher bitrate recording should add tonality that you don't hear in the more compressed file.

For most consumers 128 seems acceptable.

I'm a big fan of the AAC format MPEGs, which are not compatible with most MP3 players. Apple uses AAC (AC3) in their iTunes store, and the quality is definitely better to my ears than standard 128kbps MP3.

[shuttertalk]

Hey funny that - I'm a fan of AAC (on wife's ipod) too, and also WMA (on my pocketpc)

I find they compress better and take up less space. Or looking at it another way, they give comparitively better quality than mp3 at the same bitrate.

[adam]

I can hear it

[slejhamer]

Anyone have an opinion on DTS vs. Dolby Digital?

[dave]

DTS sounds better than dolby digital because it is not compressed as much (i think) as it uses a higher bitrate for encoding. Basically the dolby digital 5.1 track will encode at roughly anywhere from 384kbps to 448kbps which is the dvd standard but has a potential of going up to 640kbps. DTS on the otherhand encodes at up to 1.5Mbps for dvd's (but this differs depending on the movie and free space on the disk nowdays i think they use a bitrate of about 800kbps)... quite a significant difference in bitrate quality anyhow.

I always pick the DTS audio option if possible.

(if you've ever ripped dvd you'll notice that the DTS audio track is usually quite a bit larger than the dolby digital 5.1 one)

[slejhamer]

Hi Dave!

You are right about the specs - technically speaking, DTS is superior.

But in terms of listening experience, my opinion is that sometimes the DTS track is better. Some DTS soundtracks come out very aggressive, with too much lower-midrange punch. I didn't like LOTR in DTS at all, and found the DD track more natural and open.

My system is a Pioneer receiver, PSB speakers with an Atlantic Tech sub. Great "value priced" set up, IMHO. Maybe if I had a higher-end system the DTS tracks would sound different - so it's possible that gear matters with home theater too!