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**Codifus** · February 11th 04, 02:20 AM posted to rec.audio.pro,rec.audio.tech,uk.rec.audio

me wrote:

On 10 Feb 2004 19:02:08 -0500, (Scott Dorsey) wrote:

citronzx wrote:

To tell you the truth I don't know enough about the compression algorithm to
say why. My evidence only anecdotal. If I rip a cd and compare the mp3
ripped version to the original off the cd both played from my computer there
seems to be a reduction in bass in the mp3 version. Now, I am very willing
to admit that this my just be a psychological effect but that is way that it
seems to sound to me.

I've never heard actual loss of bass with the LAME encoder, but I have heard
a substantial loss of bass definition. Stuff goes from being clean and well
defined to being flabby and centered on one note. But then again, on a club
system you probably can't tell.

And forget about bass imaging. But then, few playback systems have any real
bass imaging anyway, let alone club rigs.

I think what you'll notice first is weirdness on the top end, but it might
be just fine for dance stuff.
--scott

I'm interested in this weirdness in the top end aspect of MP3s,
because I was tasked with replacing some museum systems (originally
minidisc) with CF card MP3 players. The thing is that these systems
used left for mono sound and right for 20KHz tones to sequence the
lights. Even the highest quality LAME VBR completely failed to work
the lights wheras 256k fixed rate LAME worked just fine. How much
information is lost in the squishing ?
M
It depends on the bitrate. 320k MP3 seems to be generally accepted as CD
quality, 128K is about the equivalent of FM radio. I record FM
broadcasts and make them into 192 MP3s simply because I think the lower
bitrates take too much life out of the music. I don't even bother with
320K, I just keep my files in WAV or AIFF in that case. Takes up lots of
space, I know, but CD-Rs are cheap

CD