The current stereophile online has an article of the subject line. It
addresses in part the question of if it is possible to distinguish 320 and
cd sources. Reading between the lines me thinks the owner of Naxos really
does not think one can but bows to the author of the article so as not to
dissuade readers of the mag from becoming customers. He wants readers to
consider themselves the 2 percent, which is part of the self defined and
self admiration fringe of the hobby with the golden ears of course. Here
is the relevant part:

Even Naxos founder Klaus Heymann acknowledges the inaccuracy of the
claim, in a Naxos press release, that, at 320kbps, "speed and quality
make MP3 files indistinguishable from CDs."

"To the average consumer," he told me via telephone from his home in
Hong Kong, "320kbps is virtually indistinguishable from CD sound. You
would be surprised how many people listen to 128kbps selections from
the Naxos Music Library played back through my computer and hi-fi
system and ask, 'Where is the CD player?' 128kbps is not wonderful.
The overtones are missing, and the bass is not well defined. But at
320kbps, I believe that 98% of people think it sounds like a CD. I
personally think it is not exactly like a CD, but it sounds damn
good."

out-(E-Mail Removed) wrote:
> The current stereophile online has an article of the subject line. It
> addresses in part the question of if it is possible to distinguish 320 and
> cd sources. Reading between the lines me thinks the owner of Naxos really
> does not think one can but bows to the author of the article so as not to
> dissuade readers of the mag from becoming customers. He wants readers to
> consider themselves the 2 percent, which is part of the self defined and
> self admiration fringe of the hobby with the golden ears of course. Here
> is the relevant part:

> Even Naxos founder Klaus Heymann acknowledges the inaccuracy of the
> claim, in a Naxos press release, that, at 320kbps, "speed and quality
> make MP3 files indistinguishable from CDs."

> "To the average consumer," he told me via telephone from his home in
> Hong Kong, "320kbps is virtually indistinguishable from CD sound. You
> would be surprised how many people listen to 128kbps selections from
> the Naxos Music Library played back through my computer and hi-fi
> system and ask, 'Where is the CD player?' 128kbps is not wonderful.
> The overtones are missing, and the bass is not well defined. But at
> 320kbps, I believe that 98% of people think it sounds like a CD. I
> personally think it is not exactly like a CD, but it sounds damn
> good."

All Mr. Heymann would ahve to do to cap this, would be to present some
ABX test result.s

And even Mr. Heymann shoudl realize that there is no such thing as '128 kbps'
monlithically; there are different codecs that can compress to 128kbps
with different levels of success, also dependent on the input music.



--
-S
I know that most men, including those at ease with problems of the greatest complexity, can
seldom accept the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as would oblige them to admit
the falsity of conclusions which they have proudly taught to others, and which they have
woven, thread by thread, into the fabrics of their life -- Leo Tolstoy

"Steven Sullivan" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)
> out-(E-Mail Removed) wrote:
>> The current stereophile online has an article of the
>> subject line. It addresses in part the question of if
>> it is possible to distinguish 320 and cd sources.
>> Reading between the lines me thinks the owner of Naxos
>> really does not think one can but bows to the author of
>> the article so as not to dissuade readers of the mag
>> from becoming customers. He wants readers to consider
>> themselves the 2 percent, which is part of the self
>> defined and self admiration fringe of the hobby with the
>> golden ears of course. Here is the relevant part:
>
>> Even Naxos founder Klaus Heymann acknowledges the
>> inaccuracy of the claim, in a Naxos press release,
>> that, at 320kbps, "speed and quality make MP3 files
>> indistinguishable from CDs."
>
>> "To the average consumer," he told me via telephone
>> from his home in Hong Kong, "320kbps is virtually
>> indistinguishable from CD sound. You would be
>> surprised how many people listen to 128kbps
>> selections from the Naxos Music Library played back
>> through my computer and hi-fi system and ask, 'Where
>> is the CD player?' 128kbps is not wonderful. The
>> overtones are missing, and the bass is not well
>> defined. But at 320kbps, I believe that 98% of people
>> think it sounds like a CD. I personally think it is not
>> exactly like a CD, but it sounds damn good."

> All Mr. Heymann would ahve to do to cap this, would be to
> present some ABX test result.s

If he did, I suspect he'd characterize the audible degradation differently.

The statement that the overtones are missing is IME completely bogus.
Perceptual coding does not remove audible overtones, as a rule they are
among the sonic entities that are preserved the best. Again, bass defintion,
requiring a relatively low data rate to reproduce effectively, is unlikely
to be harmed. The usual artifacts of audibly inaccurate perceptual coding
take the form of a loss of articulation in the middle and high frequencies
during complex passages.

Even when there are audible problems, almost all of the musical work is
audibly accurate.

> And even Mr. Heymann shoudl realize that there is no such
> thing as '128 kbps' monlithically; there are different
> codecs that can compress to 128kbps
> with different levels of success, also dependent on the input music.

The myth that is purpounded here is that all perceptual coders operating at
a certain bit rate sound the same.