Downloaded music

Discussion in 'Hi-Fi and General Audio' started by doomjeffs, Nov 19, 2006.

  1. doomjeffs

    doomjeffs

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    Interested to know peoples oppinion on the quality of sound reproduction of downloaded music copied to c.d. & indeed copied c.ds? My father has an large classical collection & i sometimes do my own copies of certain titles.
    I haven't listened to any downloaded stuff but may try it sometime (purely out of curiousity)
     
    doomjeffs, Nov 19, 2006
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  2. doomjeffs

    Bob McC living the life of Riley

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    utterly, utterly rubbish.
     
    Bob McC, Nov 19, 2006
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  3. doomjeffs

    Gromit Buffet-blower

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    I've just downloaded the Chopin Etudes played by Pollini - the result when burned to CD is perfectly listenable. Not the last word in fidelity compared to the original I grant you, CD but pretty good all the same.

    It's easy to hear all the musical details - pedal sustain, the hardening and softening of attack, shape of phrasing, even the piano's timbre is accurate.
     
    Gromit, Nov 19, 2006
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  4. doomjeffs

    SteveC PrimaLuna is not cheese

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    I use www.emusic.com but not for classical, which I still prefer to buy physically. The stuff I pay for from emusic is often over 200kbps mp3, no DRM, superior to itunes and about 1/5th of itunes price per track. I find it more than merely acceptable for my current taste, mainly variations of electronica and ambient.

    Today I specifically tested my own rip of 320 kbps Bach/Gould and also found that acceptable.
     
    SteveC, Nov 20, 2006
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  5. doomjeffs

    MO! MOnkey`ead!

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    utterly utterly narrow minded comment :)

    Depends on the quality of the download or copy.
     
    MO!, Nov 20, 2006
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  6. doomjeffs

    julian2002 Muper Soderator

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    i don't usually download music i know i want, i buy it on cd. not for quality reasons but because if i have it on cd i can rip it any way i want without any of the drm crap record companies love so much.
    if i do download music i'll try to get it in flac format or as high bitrate mp3 or wma as possible.
    quality wise, even though there is a slight drop in quality with even 320pbs mp3 it's not catastrophic and if the music is good you forget all about it. anything under 192bps is not really hi-fi but down to 128bps is perfectly acceptable and what i listen to in the car.
     
    julian2002, Nov 21, 2006
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  7. doomjeffs

    Dick Bowman

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    In the last month I downloaded/burnt some new download-only releases from Ayler Records (www.ayler.com - or something similar). My impression - not knowing about the quality of the source material) is that there's a "flatness" there. This may be psychological, or it may be a true reflection of the quality of my burning hardware/software. Leaving press/burn quality in the hands of the purchaser doesn't feel good to me.

    I have a lot of other objections to small labels going down this road, but don't want to get into them right now.
     
    Dick Bowman, Nov 21, 2006
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  8. doomjeffs

    bottleneck talks a load of rubbish

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    I download TONS of music. I'm getting tons of pleasure from discovering and listening to new music.

    In fact I listen to more MP3's than I do vinyl or regular CD's.


    If I ever think that recording quality is more important than the music itself, shoot me..
     
    bottleneck, Nov 21, 2006
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  9. doomjeffs

    Gromit Buffet-blower

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    Amen to that. :)

    I also use Emusic (mentioned above) quite a bit - quality of download from those guys is generally excellent.
     
    Gromit, Nov 21, 2006
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  10. doomjeffs

    speedy.steve

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    I believe CD's to be recorded at PCM / 44.1 Khz / 16 bit format and this is the equivalent of 702kb/s per channel. Please correct if wrong...

    128kb/s sound fine on the computer or in the car but
    I have tried 128kb/s MP3's on my main hifi and they either sound flat and compressed or the high notes are not quite right - like they are on edge. The latter was a convert from MP3 to WAV so I could play it in my CDP.

    This site is interesting in that you can choose the quality in kb/s. Some are available up to CD quality (Narina Pallot for example) - you pay more on a prorata basis.

    http://www.allofmp3.com/

    The next step is to try the download of the one that sounded tinny at 320kb/s and try that.

    I've not really found that burned copies of CD's (only done so I can listen to them in the car of course) sound any worse TBH.
     
    speedy.steve, Nov 22, 2006
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  11. doomjeffs

    Hodgesaargh

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    Very hard to hear any difference at 320, and FLAC is impossible to tell the difference.
     
    Hodgesaargh, Nov 22, 2006
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  12. doomjeffs

    RobinVanPersie

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    I rip my cd's to flac and I'll have to agree with Hodgesaargh its impossible to tell the difference.
     
    RobinVanPersie, Nov 22, 2006
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  13. doomjeffs

    julian2002 Muper Soderator

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    the whole point of flac is that there IS no difference. mp3 is a lossy codec, flac is lossless. actually you do loose something - all those cd cases that need storing so really you gain space.
     
    julian2002, Nov 23, 2006
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  14. doomjeffs

    shrink

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    i listen to a lot of downloaded or ripped CD's (most of my cd collection is available over the wireless network for ease of access)

    i tend to use 256k AAC and it works just fine... good quality far beyond that of MP3 (which is now a rather old and primative format)

    when using proper apple lossless or flac.. you shouldnt be able to tell the difference at all... your just at the mercy of the quality of the components you play through.

    Recently did an experiment at my friends house.. he owns a complete cyrus system with the DAC XP and has a wireless squeezebox.

    he inputs the squeezebox digitally to the DAC XP. All his CD's are ripped to apple lossless through i-tunes.

    on going between the same track on both the original CD (via cyrus cd transport) and the squeezebox. I found it almost impossible to discern any difference.

    There were eventually some differences to be found, The squeezebox tracks were consistently a tiny bit warmer through the lower bass. But it was so slight that i could only detect it when forced to under blind listening situation.

    Basically he switched between the two sources without telling me which was which.

    Neither was better or worse.. just slight differences in bass weight which could be attributable to any number of things, quality of digital interface on the squeezebox, the cabling being used etc.

    Certainly for any normal listening it is more than competent and could hold its own against about £3500 worth of cyrus 2 box cd player.
     
    shrink, Nov 24, 2006
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