Nope. It’s easy to make an MP3 that sounds terrible, but it’s also pretty easy to make one that sounds indistinguishable from the original, even at moderate bit rates.
I always come back to this interesting blind test performed by German magazine C’t, which suggests that even hardcore audiophiles can’t decide whether 256k MP3s or CDs sound better, often mistaking one for the other. They had more success identifying 128k MP3s, but in a few cases thought that they sounded better than CD too!
The ubiquitous 128k MP3 does get an undeserved bad rep because there are so many poorly encoded ones out there. Early versions of things like MusicMatch came with lousy encoders.
Really interesting article, thanks for posting it.
There’s an ongoing debate in the UK techno scene about the increasing use of mp3s / CDs to replace 12" vinyl in clubs, with predictably polarised opinions on each side.
The c’t article’s conclusions (ableit slightly evasive!) mirror my own - which is that much of the perceived “differences” are due to musical snobbery rather than any objective comparison.
However, as has been aluded to already, there is more to listening to music than a stark appreication of the audio physics… a 12" vinyl record is a lovely artefect to hold and collect (on one of the forums I post at we refer to it as “black crack”); and the act of carefully placing a needle on a record is perhaps more engaging than simply hitting the “PLAY” button on a CD player.
It’s easy to understand why audiophiles like vinyl. They’re drawn to the arcane, and vinyl records allows you to indulge yourself.
When digital everything came along, many audiophiles were lost. Back in the day, you could have endless discussions of phono cartridges, turntable designs, needles, yada yada. You could have an array of album-cleaning materials, and enjoy hours of carefully maintaining your collection. Needles could be inspected for damage or wear with magnifying classes, turntables could be tuned, isolated wtih special feet, etc. For a hobbyist into tinkering with hardware, it was heaven.
Along comes digital, and now you just drop your CD in and press play. For many people, this took half the fun out of the hobby, so they simply refused to buy in. They came to rationalize all their old equipment so they could remain in the world they enjoy. To this day, any good audiophile store will sell you a multi-thousand dollar phono cartridge and the whole gamut of maintenance supplies for vinyl.
Some audiophiles moved into the digital world, and re-invented a whole array of myths and beliefs that allowed them to continue tinkering and fussing over their sound. Everything from drawing with felt markers on the rims of CDs to expensive and useless digital cables to special clocking devices and filters that were supposed to make digital bitstreams better. They fuss about with power conditioners, special power cords, bi-wired speakers, yada yada. And of course, many still swear by tube amplifiers.
I think this is all more about the psychological needs of hard core audiophiles, driven by the marketing of unscupulous companies, than about any true differences in sound quality.
I believe that Sam Stone has truly nailed this one. It’s not about any sort of objective improvement in sound, it’s about having something to spend ungodly sums on and talk about.
Whoa. I never thought about it that way, yet it makes so much sense. 'splains a lot.
Having had some years’ experience in mastering, and also in the restoration of records on the computer, I would have to say that CDs are a better reproduction medium. You have 22,050 Hz of frequency response in each channel, which can’t be got from a record. Due to the restrictions of the physical medium, the sound on records had to be squashed so your tonearm would track the loudest, bassiest passages without jumping out of the grooves. This not only makes compression and limiting mandatory, but they must also reduce the overall level to accommodate these loud, bassy passages. That, in turn, makes the quiet passages even quieter, making any noises on the vinyl more noticeable.
They came up with the RIAA equalization curve, which adds (mainly bass) EQ to the output so records would sound “normal” coming out of speakers. A record without the RIAA playback EQ sounds pretty tinny. Add to this the sound of the turntable motor and chassis resonance (present on all but the most expensive machines), and the sound of the stylus passing through the grooves, and it’s a wonder that records sounded as good as some of them did. And of course, there’s stylus wear, and all the dust and grit that sits on the bottom of the grooves, making millions of little noises you probably never even noticed, because we used to take them for granted.
None of this is a consideration in CD format. The first generation of CDs sounded pretty awful, because the format was so new, no engineers had any experience working in digital yet. So they used LP masters for CDs, which were all squashed as mentioned above. Then it became necessary to go back to the master tapes, which is what the second and all future generations of CDs were made from. A CD is more able to reproduce exactly what’s on the tapes. The improper use of noise reduction on thousands of CDs is another issue, but that’s another topic. The gist is that they don’t have to mess with the original audio to get it to sound exactly the same on your system as it did at the studio, exensive reproduction equipment concerns aside. A record had to be fiddled with to make it sound that way. A CD didn’t. I converted.