Is compression used in CDs? Options

[plazz]

Is any kind of compression at all used in audio CD's? I know that there is on DVD's, just at a huge bitrate.

[JonPike]

Originally posted by plazz
Is any kind of compression at all used in audio CD's? I know that there is on DVD's, just at a huge bitrate.

Actually, in an indirect sense, the answer may be yes.

I don't know the details, but I have heard a lot of talk that for the anti-skip feature in portable CD player, you have a memory buffer, AND audio compression. For a reasonalble amount of anti-skip time, you need either a expensively large amount of memory, or you can do compression on the data, making your smaller ram buffer "bigger", and not spend as much... therby more profit for you and/or cheaper players for your customers. If this is true, it would seem the compression isn't the best in the world.. (Hmmm.. developers, need to port Lame or MPC to those little micro's the CD's use! If they have the grunt to handle it, that is!)

I'd like to hear about this from someone who knows.. many audiophile types say that anti-skip degrades the sound.. and you want a player that either dosen't have it or truly bypasses it when turned off. I think I might believe them, on my player with my KSC-35's on.. I think I notice a loss of dynamic range, slightly muddy highs, etc..

But my CD software can't run ABX...

Jon