# YES loses to NATALIE MERCHANT???? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 3, 2004, 6:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yes-loses-to-natalie-merchant/253355 "2004-07-03T06:56:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Osip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/4491bb/32.png) [@Osip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Osip)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2004, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yes-loses-to-natalie-merchant/253355/21 "2004-07-05T00:53:14Z")
> [@Cartooniverse](#): > > Yes, I know his name is Steve **Howe** - didn’t even catch that on preview !!! > > 😃 Remember his work with GTR? an alright albumn for the 80’s ---
**Author:** ![Inigo\_Montoya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inigo_montoya/32/124_2.png) [@Inigo\_Montoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inigo_Montoya)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2004, 1:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yes-loses-to-natalie-merchant/253355/22 "2004-07-05T13:01:01Z")
> [@Usram](#): > > Am I the only one thinking that 180 Gigabytes is one hell of a music collection? At ~1 megabytes per minute, that’s 3,000 CDs’ worth! Four months’ of non-stop music. Time for a spring clean, surely? : checks the “E:” drive … Yep 180 Gb, ~165 used (only music on this drive). I’m probably not doing it right. ELTON JOHN, _IDOL_ is a 4:03 track and uses 42,826 Kb of space…keeping in mind I’m just an insurance guy and may have the conversion off a little, doesn’t that fit the 1 Mb(10,000Kb)/minute formula? : does some more quick math : OK, no, not 3,000 _albums_, 3,000 _tracks_, eh? 😉 I’ll remember you when I’m looking for someone to itemize my income tax deductions: 1 envelope = 1 box of 500 envelopes, we used 2,000 envelopes last year at a price of $4.50 each…$9,000 in envelopes. Now, pencils… Jesting. In all fairness, the music is all saved as .wav files (because I’m a silly person, that’s why), which still burn a good enough CD for my chintzy stereo equipment and blown out eardrums. And no, I do NOT save all my graphics as .BMP files. Oh, the OP. I didn’t mean to imply that YES in any way bites. Artistically they are par for the course, it’s just that Big Generator in general seemed like the low point–kind of like when an artist goes too far and completely loses his audience (“_Eeeeeeevery_body must get saved…” ---
**Author:** ![Bambi\_Hassenpfeffer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Bambi\_Hassenpfeffer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bambi_Hassenpfeffer)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2004, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yes-loses-to-natalie-merchant/253355/23 "2004-07-05T14:47:39Z")
> [@Inigo Montoya](#): > > I’m probably not doing it right. ELTON JOHN, _IDOL_ is a 4:03 track and uses 42,826 Kb of space…keeping in mind I’m just an insurance guy and may have the conversion off a little, doesn’t that fit the 1 Mb(10,000Kb)/minute formula? 1 MB = 1024 KB. So, Elton John’s “Idol” is about 10 MB / minute, so more like 300 CDs worth, which is much more reasonable. The fact that they are encoded as straight PCM WAV files explains **Usram** ’s and my confusion. MP3s are usually 1/10th the size, so he was off by a factor of 10 in his calculations. ---
**Author:** ![Inigo\_Montoya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inigo_montoya/32/124_2.png) [@Inigo\_Montoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inigo_Montoya)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2004, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yes-loses-to-natalie-merchant/253355/24 "2004-07-05T15:19:47Z")
> [@Bambi Hassenpfeffer](#): > > 1 MB = 1024 KB. So, Elton John’s “Idol” is about 10 MB / minute, so more like 300 CDs worth, which is much more reasonable. The fact that they are encoded as straight PCM WAV files explains **Usram** ’s and my confusion. MP3s are usually 1/10th the size, so he was off by a factor of 10 in his calculations. HIJACK 1/10th the size? Sound quality is not further compromised? Can I convert .WAVs to .MP3s? /HIJACK ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2004, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yes-loses-to-natalie-merchant/253355/25 "2004-07-05T16:42:13Z")
Well, sound quality isn’t compromised _at all_ when you save them as AIFF or WAV (or SND for that matter). The MP3 format is a lossy compression scheme but if you use a high bitrate or variable bitrate (the most efficient solution), you really aren’t going to be able to tell the difference. ---
**Author:** ![KGS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/90ced4/32.png) [@KGS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KGS)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2004, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yes-loses-to-natalie-merchant/253355/26 "2004-07-05T19:41:25Z")
If you convert the WAV’s to MP3 at a bitrate of 192 kbps or higher, you’ll hardly notice any difference. MP3’s also allow you to add a “tag” to the file which will display the artist, song name, and album name while playing in Winamp – the WAV format doesn’t allow for tags. You’ll also save a ton of HD space, 1.5mb/minute instead of 10mb/min. Don’t rip them at a lower rate, however…128 k/s sucks, even though a lot of people who release their music on the Internet seem to assume it’s the standard. :rolleyes: As for **Yes** , _Big Generator_ is one of my favorite albums by them. _Union_ and _Open Your Eyes_ suck, however. And _anything_ by Natalie Merchant or 10,000 Maniacs gives me hives! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yes-loses-to-natalie-merchant/253355.md?page=1)