Re: New Thread: Preferred Formats

> Previously, I ripped everything to 320K MP3.  However, after listening to
> that for over a year I pulled out the original CD and was amazed at the
> difference between the MP3 and the CD.  I'm slowly converting to WAV now
> and all new music gets ripped to WAV.  I still keep the MP3 around for
> portable players.

Hi Howard,

When you compared 320K MP3 to WAV and were amazed by the difference, what
was your methodology? And which MP3 encoder had you used initially? The
reason I ask is, if you were comparing the two, and you knew which was the
WAV and which was the MP3, it's entirely possible that your brain was
subconsciously influencing your decision more than you realize and more than
just what your ears told you. The mind is tricky that way. If you (like most
people) are predisposed to think that non-compressed music is always better
than compressed music, it's possible your mind tipped the scale that way to
validate your mental model. I'm not saying that you didn't hear a real
difference, but I would be interested to know if you see the same obvious
difference with a true blind test (using ABX software or with a friend
queuing up tracks and not telling you which is which until the test is
over).

Cheers!
Brent