| Subject: MP3 or WMA vs Audio-CD |
Author:
Betty
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Date Posted: 10:49:56 03/31/05 Thu
In reply to:
marcy
's message, "Re: Article: CDs vs Downloads" on 13:52:01 03/30/05 Wed
Downloaded material is highly compressed to MP3 or WMA format to save on file size & downloading times. Whether it's music or video. Downloaded leagally or illegally, i-pod, walmart, or kazaa downloads, they're all highly compressed, & the quality suffers greatly. It has to be. On fair-speed broadband a song on a CD in it's original quality format, can take many hours to download, where in compressed MP3 format, the file size is so much smaller, it only takes a few minutes to download. AMF on broadband one could download 200 mp3s & WMAs all at the same time in a few minutes.
A store-bought CD can be 45-78 1/2 minutes long or burned onto an expensive audio-cd 45-78 1/2 minutes long. You can fit 6-7 hours of mp3s & WMAs on a 2 to 20 cent data CD, or 150-200 songs on 1 disk.
Skip the $200-$1200 mp3 or i-pod players too. One could buy a $35 I-River cd player that will play any cd in any format... CD-audio, MP3, or WMA! The 2 AA batteries power the unit for 6-19 hours depending on the quality of the batteries. You plug in your headphones, car stereo, or home stereo into it. Most modern DVD players going for as low as $35 also play these data discs with MP3 or WMA on them as well as audio-cds, which is why many people have their DVD player also connected to their home audio system.
This compressed audio may be fine for listening to in the car for short trips, jogging, background music, for listening to unknown or "unsigned" bands, or to preview a song you might want to buy, but the quality isn't very good. If you really like a song, & want to do any serious listening, buy the CD. The quality is 10 times better than any downloaded music, whether downloaded legally or illegally... even on an i-pod.
Many of my non-audiophile friends say they can't tell the difference, but I say to the untrained ear, they may not notice the difference, but the song will sparkle more with a good CD of the song. If I take the same song on an store-bought audio CD, & an MP3 or WMA version of the same song, & toggle back & forth between the 2 bersions, even my non-audiophile friends notice a lot of difference between the 2 within seconds. So they DO notice a difference, but just didn't know they can without comparing them.
So if you really like a song buy the CD. But don't sell yourself short buy paying to download it online... best to just record it off your FM or satellite radio. Buy the CD!
Likewise with video. Downloaded video is far less resolution, pixels, frame rate, with tons of compression artifacts.
That's why I can't understand the fuss the RIAA & MPAA are making over free downloaded material. It's poor quality, frequently with the beginning or end cut off, & maybe full of errors. One could liken it to kids of decades ago trading their poor qualty scratchy 45s or cassette tapes of them with their friends.
I like file-sharing because it gets unsigned bands or my own music & video I wrote & produced easy exposure to the world.
The problem is the RIAA & MPAA wants you to entertained by stuff they sell, not what somebody else sells or offers free. They want to decide what you listen to, see, & buy.
I actually prefer listening to almost any band together, rehearsing, & playing out for a year or more than most of the recent stuff RIAA is cranking out anyway.
I don't believe there is 1 song currently on america's top 40 lists that I like or gets played in any of the many clubs I do business with.
Which brings up another problem, there's so much great music that simply isn't available in the U.S. that's really hot in other countries. So many people will get the music any way they can.
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