# Is it live, Memorex or MP3?



## Hamstrung (Sep 21, 2007)

Here's an interesting article on how people's perception of what sounds good is largely influenced by what they're used to. 

http://radar.oreilly.com/2009/03/the-sizzling-sound-of-music.html


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## james on bass (Feb 4, 2006)

That was interesting. 

I haven't listened to vinyl really since CDs came out. I did have a chance though about 5 years ago at a party. A friend put on an album (do you know what those are kiddies?), and it was one I was familiar with on CD. The sound on vinyl was just so organic and rich. Maybe that's just my perceptions and memories of youth making vinyl _seem_ to sound better.


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## Andy (Sep 23, 2007)

I'm sure that vinyl does sound better as a medium as compared to CD (and it certainly does compared to mp3), but I believe most of the degradation of quality in modern music comes from the loudness war.

I'd much rather listen to a properly mastered song as a 128kbit mp3 than an overly compressed and limited one as 16/44.1. Overly loud music just sounds like its suffocating. Very unpleasant to listen to.

If you want to hear a GREAT sounding CD, listen to Rage Against the Machine's self-titled album. It's an example of how great digital can sound.


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## Luke98 (Mar 4, 2007)

Andy said:


> If you want to hear a GREAT sounding CD, listen to Rage Against the Machine's self-titled album. It's an example of how great digital can sound.


Mentioning modernish music on this forum? OoooooOOOoooOOoooooooooh...

Your right though. I just put it in to see if there was a difference.


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## Guest (Mar 12, 2009)

Andy said:


> I'm sure that vinyl does sound better as a medium as compared to CD (and it certainly does compared to mp3), but I believe most of the degradation of quality in modern music comes from the loudness war.


I'm in this camp. Maybe even more extreme: I believe all of the degradation in quality in a CD vs. vinyl comparison can be blamed on the mastering techniques.

16-bit quantization with 44.2 kHz sampling is adequate to represent all range of audible content. Most audio systems can't even accurately represent this broad spectrum of frequencies. You're into the tens of thousands of dollars before you can find a system capable of reproducing, with accurate fidelity, the full range of sounds that can be stored (and extracted) from a CD.



> I'd much rather listen to a properly mastered song as a 128kbit mp3 than an overly compressed and limited one as 16/44.1. Overly loud music just sounds like its suffocating. Very unpleasant to listen to.


Absolutely. The challenge, for me, is finding good, properly mastered, source material regardless of the storage medium.



> If you want to hear a GREAT sounding CD, listen to Rage Against the Machine's self-titled album. It's an example of how great digital can sound.


An excellent disc. I always point to anything on the TELARC label as just being done right all the way through the mixing and mastering process.


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