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[zevele1]

I do not know really why,but i ripped some songs mp3 128kps
Songs that i have on cds and are on Emusic

And ....the Emusic mp3 sound dreadfull

Listening to: 'Less Than Zero' from 'My Aim Is True' by 'Elvis Costello' on Media Jukebox

[Harry The Hipster]

Z:

Is this true for all the files you d/l'd from EMusic, or something you got recently? I haven't noticed any deterioration in quality, but maybe that's just me (dusty ears).

HTH

Listening to: 'Move (Take 1)' from 'Bebop Revisited Volume 1' by 'Fats Navarro, Don Lanphere, Linton Garner, Jimmy Johnson, Max Roach, Earl Coleman' on Media Jukebox

[Dave]

I've always thought that Emusic sound quality is just awful...even for 128kbs...For maximum listening horror play them back using a player which uses the XAudio dll...(such as Musicmatch)..the most disgusting phase ever. I don't understand how Emusic still stays where it is with such bad quality mp3.....Think they're gradually moving over from Xing to Lame now though, which should make a big difference...not that I subscribe any more.

[zevele1]

the sart is ,not long ago ,an israeli band who is on Emusic.Musique very difficult to listen to
I got the cd at one of they concert and the difference of sound was HUDGE

I ripped some Elvis Costello from the new Rhino edition,Thin White Rope,and some others songs

Elvis Costello is from the start of Emusic and not anymore on it
The others from |PLS|\- one year
The difference between songs ripped with MJ and songs from Emusic is really big

Now ,to be fair,until now i said that the trade price/format is a good deal[and i still say so]and never found the sound fantastic,but never bad as well

But concerning Costello:
On Emusic ripped from the first reedition with extra tracks
Ripped by me from the same cds,Emusic dreadfull
Ripped from the new Rhino reedition,in this case ,an HUDGE difference

The problem is the encoder they use ,i am sure of it
Wiull run a program telling the encoder used for each song you have and tell you

[MWGilbert]

Just a thought...I have felt that some of the EMusic content was indeed badly encoded, but that it seemed to be variable. I had been wondering if that wasn't implicitly intentional, to discourage redistribution. They have seemed to be to be walking a fine line between not good enough to share but not bad enough to not listen to. This does not please me, as a subscriber, and have written them & their tech support that unless things improve noticeably over time, that I would no longer subscribe. They do have some very interesting music nevertheless, but I agree about their sonic quality control.

[gvag]

Does anyone know the source for the MP3s that eMusic posts?  Like does eMusic do their own encoding or do the record labels supply them?  I have some Bill Evans tracks (Riverside?) that are really excellent yet the Booker Erwin tracks (Fantasy) are terrible.

[zevele1]

Just used the  EncSpot software
It tells you which encoder was used and give you 'a global quality'.Quality of the encoder
green=good
yellow=not bad
pink=bad

ALL my Emusic mp3 are in pink
The encoder is xing
Very old for some[Art Esemble of Chicago-costello]
New for the others

Here is the answer:xing

Concernig what you said gvag,the use of the same encoder makes me think they encode
Now keep in mind that the quality of the sound of the cd is important

Fantasy was NEVER good,not on vinyl,the same on cd

Costello
I have all
vinyl
first english cds,not a good sound
first US cds,sound ok
first english reedition sound ok
Last Rhino reedition very goog sound

If i play the first english cd and the Rhino cd there is as much difference than with mp3 against cd
In fact i do not have all the cds 4 times.Only some.Because of box set sleeves,order of the songs

By the way  i do not like Costello anymore since few years.Only in concert.I saw him ,well,i do not remember but around  |PLS|30 times
But up to 'Blonde & Chocolat',i have all 7",12",lps with different sleeves,live bootlegs,mini cds and more
But i did buy all the Costello 5 times....Lp|PLS| cds

[tullio]

Harry

One of the benefits of age-related hardening of the eardrums.  It all sounds fine to me.

[Harry the Hipster]

Tullio:

Agreed. And Sinatra in mp3 at 64kbps will always sound better to me than Def Leppard at 320.

HTH

Listening to: 'I Wished on the Moon' from 'The Reprise Collection Disk 2-4' by 'Frank Sinatra' on Media Jukebox

[Lucy]

the quality of Kim Waters 's (or Kim Walters?) music on Emusic is quite good. Usually if I want to test quality, I would use earphone/headphone to listen to the music. Sound quality difference appear apparently if there is to be.

I notice a problem with Emusic. When listening to woman vocal with MJ8's DSP on, the woman's voice becomes like "filled with many bubbles" and sound bad. But this does not happen on my other woman vocal songs which are CDs I bought in physical CD stores.

[Influxor]

personally i would never subsribe to any service that uses 128k mp3's.
my current collection spans just over 4,000 mp3s.  
the lowest acceptable quality i can tolerate is 192k cbr.
when i encode my own i prefer Fraunhofer IIS highest quality VBR's (0 to 320k varible rate mp3's), which end up takeing about as much space per file as a 256k cbr.

[bcbc]

Hi,

Interesting discussion. I've run EncSpot too. Hard to understand their criteria. Clearly they hate Xing and Blade. Anything encoded with LAME comes out green?

I find that many tracks encoded with Fraunhofer at 128 are okay. Almost all other 128s are unacceptable. Yet mileage varies. Some Xings are okay. Most aren't.

VBR Joint Stereo at normal settings on LAME seem very good to me with the compression running around 12%. That's what I use to rip.

It's the stuff you download that's a problem--a real grab bag. But for free--tough to complain. There's always delete and Tower Records.