:-( MP3 destroys Surround Sound encoding Options

[theaveng]

I've been experimenting with MP3 and converting my CDs to MP3-320 compressed files. Unfortunately, I've discovered that the MP3 encoding process destroys the Rear Channel Sound. In a few cases I can still hear music in the rear, but for most songs the rear speaker just produces garbage sound... rather disappointing compared to the rich sound produced from the original CD!

I suppose MP3 considers the rear channel information to be "inaudible" which it would be in a standard 2-speaker stereo arrangement, but the addition of the rear speaker makes these types of sounds *very* audible. It's basically an echo effect that is audible when listening to the CD and places the listener *inside* the music, but sadly lacking on the MP3 rip. The stripping of that rear channel echo dramatically diminishes the experience.

Troy

P.S. I'm using CDex for ripping and LAME for encoding with the following settings: q=0;Very High Quality, Stereo, 320kbps.

[atom]

you don't need -ms for surround, mj is just fine!

Hi Benjamin

Um... not exactly sure what you're on about, but if you're referring to my use of the --ms switch above, please re-read my post carefully.

The switch is used with MPC to adjust the accuracy of MPC's equivalent of joint stereo encoding. It was merely a suggested as an alternative to MP3 (Lame), which seems to have a hard time encoding surround information properly.