[BC] So, some consumers do care about audio quality...

[Fred Gleason]

On Wednesday 07 December 2005 11:21, Kirk Harnack wrote:
> Yes, the article is mostly in "layman's" terms, and part of it seems a
> PR piece for LAME, but it's interesting that a regular listener is
> talking about audio quality.

I think a lot of this is being driven by the adoption of iPods and similar 
devices.  Using decent quality earphones can make a *huge* difference -- 
you'll hear things you've never heard before using just speakers.

I can personally attest that the LAME encoder discussed in the article is an 
extremely well-engineered piece of software.  That it beats other L3 encoders 
in double-blind tests doesn't surprise me in the slightest, but equaling the 
original PCM sources -- I'm sorry, but I just don't believe it.  I use LAME 
routinely, and my ears tell me otherwise.

I wonder if the users referenced in the article are aware of MPEG Layer 2?  At 
the bitrates mentioned (160 kb/sec and above), L2 will generally yield better 
results without increasing file size.  All too often, folks assume that L3 
must be somehow 'better' than L2, not realizing that this is in many ways an 
apples-to-oranges comparison:  the two algorithms are each optimized to 
perform different roles.  Consumer markets -- ugh!

Cheers!


|-------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Frederick F. Gleason, Jr. | Director of Broadcast Software Development  |
|                           |             Salem Radio Labs                |
|-------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|  It's no surprise that things are so screwed up: everyone that knows    |
|  how to run a government is either driving taxicabs or cutting hair.    | 
|                                          -- George Burns                |
|-------------------------------------------------------------------------|