128 KB-Quality Music Is A Rip-Off

This is exactly how I feel.

But really, even 128kbps MP3 tracks are listenable (most of the ones I have are mixtape tracks downloaded from MP3 blogs and I'm not going to find better versions probably).

but really, this shit only matters when you're listening to music loud on big speakers. of course it'll sound better then with bigger rates (or on vinyl or cd)! but for listening to music on the go or with my lil speakers i have for my mp3 player, 128 is fine.

* = and is it available in LAME 4.0a11?

if you insist on paying for that one song, most -- maybe all -- of the big subscription services also offer songs for individual sale. napster, yahoo, urge, etc., take your pick. some of 'em are 128k, some of 'em are 192k.

and if you want to splurge for a high-quality, windows media lossless file, you can spend an extra 30 cents and buy your tracks at music giants for $1.29.

hell no

Meanwhile, over at Bleep.com, the download store run by Warp Records, you can download the UK's fastest selling debut album as DRM-free MP3s for £6.99, and at the noticeably higher bitrate of 320kbps - still four times less than the CD.

ARGH, mp3 bitrate does not have a linear relation in terms of quality to the sampling rate of a uncompressed audio. Lossy compression is not downsampling!

It's legal so far as Russian copyright goes. There is extreme international pressure on Russia to change their copyright laws from all the usual suspaects.

But shouldn't that mean that the individual tracks of an album are all at different quality levels?

Huring otm

does this mean you never buy second hand either?

>does this mean you never buy second hand either?

that's not an appropriate comparison. in the physical world there's a big difference between buying a single used copy of a legit used cd and buying a complete & utterly bootlegged rip-off of one, the proceeds of which _never_ reached the artist.

sites like allofmp3 undermine consumer confidence. it's pointless to buy mp3's online if the artists are getting 0% of your money. i've seen albums of mine offered for sale from vague sites that I've never even heard of -- the idea that bootlegging could become a tolerated _norm_ is mindboggling. anyone recommending allofmp3.com is a fool, you really might as well be soulseeking.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/02/22/allofmp3_probe/

Allofmp3.com claims to be legal, having licensed its content from the Russian Organisation for Multimedia and Digital Systems, an organisation that represents songwriters. It claims a loophole in Russian law means it doesn't have to pay artists and labels, a contention disputed by representatives of the music industry.

IT'S A RIP-OFF! A RIp-OFF!

-- archer (arche...), July 27th, 2006.

Individual tracks of the album won't be at different quality levels; each moment of each mp3 will be at different quality levels. Variable rate means that the encoder varies the bit rate based on what the song requires. Music has many highs and lows and a fixed bitrate is overkill and leads to bloated file sizes. In fact, when using LAME a 192kbs variable rate is going to sound better than a 192kbs fixed rate mp3.

I don't understand people who listen to 128kbs mp3s - I can't even stand 160kbs.

I really can't stand people who rip to 128 from old vinyl that's not available on cd. That makes me weep, it really does.

not if you want higher bitrates (anything above 192 is a bit harder to come by on slsk, certainly 320) of older songs (i never bought anything recent from there), and not if you feel the runaway success of a site like allofmp3 is the latest indication to the industry that this sort of model is the way forward (cheap non-digital music at high quality - but with the obv. difference being the artists get paid of course) and they need to work harder and faster to compete with it to the extent where it becomes redundant, rather than attempting to block it just so they can maintain boring old status quo. plus you can always download a lesser quality copy of the same song from a legitimate source for a higher price in addition if you're feeling guilty about it...

i don't understand people who don't understand people who listen to 128kbps mp3s who had tapes and still listen to radio.

the fact that they're completely uninteresting in recompense for artists & labels utterly nullifies any lessons a site like this might teach the industry, though, I can't call them anything but criminals and don't find their 'runaway success' very encouraging

Radio is a different kettle of fish. For speech it's fine and I listen to current affairs more than any music programmes. Even then I don't mind that radio isn't high quality audio, it's function is communicative. In the mp3 age I don't dub songs with my minidisc off it anymore, the odd live concert recording maybe. And I listen to 128k streams of radio online, why should my music be as low quality as my radio stream?

I know it's not important to the people you're referring to Konal, but when it comes to music purchasing why should we get fobbed off because they don't know any better. It's not that I don't understand them, it's that I don't have to live by their low audio standards. Screw iTunes. Esp if they start hiking up the charges for "deluxe" bit rates, which is bull.

my posts as always come off too sanctimonious, I'm absolutely with your main points Konal.

it's just that I'm amazed by how the ante keeps getting upped -- just when artists start getting used to the idea that people are just downloading their music for free, they have to start getting used to other companies downloading it for free, and then selling it

passing on the savings to you!

Virgin France fined over piracy

French music retailer Virgin France has been fined 600,000 euros ($754,266) for music piracy.

The firm, owned by Lagardere, was fined for illegally downloading Madonna's Hung Up to resell on its own website.

Anyone else here the rumour that Microsoft will port your iTunes to their new player environment for free? There's talk they might have negotiated some ridiculously low rate for the labels for this to happen, and the labels would agree to it because they've already sold the music once so another marginal amount wouldn't be unwelcome. Microsoft would take the hit to steal as many apple customers as possible. Of course the thing will still be locked up to their player via DRM I imagine.

Did you ever see that show Con with Skyler Stone on Comedy Central? Maybe that's what Jon was referencing. There was an episode where he made a "fully clothed porn" and even got a Vivid exec to come to the premeire. He wasn't impressed.

i didn't know such thing as russian copyright ever existed. it's all so fucked up here that it's like you can do whatever, and it all depends on whose lawyer will show more wit

An album ripped at 192, or an album ripped using VBR but listed as around 170-190?

In iTunes I tend to use the highest VBR setting with a minimum of 192k; most stuff tends to come out at 220-240k. The highest average bitrate from a track encoded in this way was 303k for a Kid 606 track on a FatCat comp. I'm not sure I've actually listened to it (iTunes play count is zero anyway).

Can't recall my settings on CDex but that's on the desktop and I barely use that for music now.

CDex v1.51 settings: LAME v1.30/engine 3.92 MMX; min 192k, max 320k; VBR (q=2; VBR-NEW; VBR 4). Most of the MP3s on this machine seem to be 170-190k so they can't have always been the settings.

Then again, if they were playing the record on the kind of deck that used to come with consumer-grade home "hi-fi" systems, and recording it via the line-in of their computer's integrated audio system, it hardly matters what the bitrate is.

I was under the impression that given those circumstances the lower bit rate would only serve to dull the recording even more. If you have to compromise on the available deck and audio hook up why compromise on the bit rate too?

Strictly speaking, you're right. The point I was making, though, is that applying lossy compression to a recording that was made using the kind of signal chain I described is just a final indignity. It was barely worth listening to even before it was shredded by being encoded at 128kbps.