5 pounds for .MP3?

[*_*]

192 kbps mp3 vs CD quality AIFF/WAV is entirely discernible to me, and every person i know who's listened to stuff through my semi-audiophile grade setup.

seriously, as the author of the linked material states, there's just *something* missing... and that something is flattened bass and mid sections, and metallic highs.

it didn't stop me from buying stuff of iTMS Japan, nor will it kep from buying any and everything UW put out via UWLive, but i do think its important for people to understand that if one takes the time to properly A/B original source with ripped 192 kbps mp3, that one'll readily hear the difference on any decent system.

/rant

[Dirty0900]

I can't tell the difference..........

[holden]

maybe the boys should ship around the master analog tapes? That'd be most efficient, high-quality, and cost-effective


i agree that higher encoding could help and wouldn't be that much larger of a file. But i also agree with BSS's point above that mp3 is where it's at for most of the downloading public. So that's what we're likely to get for the time being.

[kagenaki koe]

i cant tell the difference either since i dont have the original uncompressed version to compare it to.

[big screen satellite]

Originally Posted by kagenaki koe

i cant tell the difference either since i dont have the original uncompressed version to compare it to.

yeah who says the original doesn't sound exactly like this....



nothings prefect...

[thee carp dreamer]

i can tell the difference, but frankly i couldn't give a fuck.
new underworld music is new underworld music.

[34958hq439-qjw9v5jq298v5j]

I think they ought to at least give us VBR mp3s, encoded in --aps, because that's the closest you can get to CD quality, and since it's MP3, any program can play it. The only real complaint I had of LBT is the "vision...come on" part which sounded terribly compressed.

[Malt Refund]

I dont know or care about the difference, maybe thats because everything I have is converted to mp3 in the end.

[the mongoose]

I can tell the difference....and it's kinda dumb not to be able to download a wav or at least a 320kbps vbr......

[Random Tox]

A bunch of musicians and production whizzes will be even more discerning. Underworld is state or the art and don't normally skimp on quality. MP3 is no gift to those of us who value UW enough to listen with discretion.

LIke I say, £5 for 25 minutes of quality UW material would be a bargin in my book. But if you think a £5 .mp3 is a gift, you are a push-over. (The problem with 'fans' is they think whatever turd their band lays is worth something and they stop thinking about what is good/bad.) With no manufacturing or marketing cost, and no record company taking a fat slice, UW is probably getting over 90% of our £5 per download. With traditional CD releases they may have seen 10% return. They could encode a .flac and plop it on the site while they wait for a a cup of coffee to cool.

If you don't do a comparision then don't talk about it sounding the same. You don't know until you try. Rip your fave CD track to both .wav and .mp3. Make sure there is no gain correction so the levels are identical. (Louder always sounds better, even if the difference is barely noticable.) Play both back simultaneously and switch between them with whatever mixer app your computer uses. If your speakers really suck so bad you can't tell the diff, use headphones. If your computer is not plugged into the system you listen to, decompress the MP3 to wave and burn both to a cd. The loss occurs during .mp3 compression so the resulting .wav will sound like the source .mp3.

If you still don't hear the diff, lucky you. Your collection of crap quality pirated MP3 will still have some value for you. I can hardly wait for my hearing to be that shot and I can quit spending money on decent audio.