So I'm innocently checking my email on a (very) early Christmas morning when I notice an article titled "Turn CDs into MP3s" on the MSN page that comes after I sign out of Hotmail. I clicked it because I thought there might be some new revelation in the media world about how to rip CDs...maybe they discovered APS or something. Once I got to the page, however, I realized that my guess was too good to be true.

Thanks to CNET for being the technology experts; I now know that I can get CD-quality MP3s using Musicmatch and ripping at 128kbps. CNET's checklist is even better. Here's what you need to get started: CDs, a CD-ROM drive, and Musicmatch. Is it really necessary to mention the first two?! Even worse, you know that some moron out there will worry because he has a DVD-ROM drive.

Does this article shock anyone else? Not the stupidity of the article itself, but the fact that it's almost 2004 and they're writing an article like this. I'd expect this in a pre-Napster era, not this one.

Merry Christmas to all!

Maybe this will boost the sale of musicmatch LOL

same here on t-online.de. Big MP3 Special feat. MMJB with CD Quality archieving at 128 kbps

Hrmmm just like all the release groups that say 192kbps 2-channel stereo is CD quality.

But then again to the masses 128kbps is CD-quality since they all won't be looking out for artefacts and also more than likely listening through some sub optimal system (don't get me wrong I listen through a sub optimal system ie. lots of ambient noise from other sources but then again when I am relaxing I want to hear clear and crisp sounds out of my Sennheisers). I guess the article is correct to some extent, but not optimal enough for us HA.org users.

Regards

AgentMil

Merry Christmas to all!!

"rmmm just like all the release groups that say 192kbps 2-channel stereo is CD quality"

no... they do know its not cd quality... but they are so bloody fixed onto outdated standards and are unable to start some revolution.. in addition to this they are scared that if they start to rip with new standards, that ppl will ask to rip all the old cds once again...

but anyway.. scene is BAD and shouldnt be discussed here

Maye it is some of the intellectual property they picked up when they bought mp3.com

edit, just in case:

It doesn't shock me one bit. CNET probably has some sort of advertisement deal, or whatever with MMJB.

More troublesome in my opinion is it doesn't help when players/rippers have misinformation and propaganda in them about "cd quality" at 128 kbps. Probably the most disturbing thing is never mentioning clipping audio and the need to apply ReplayGain, never mentioning secure ripping, etc.

The sad thing is people who are just starting out won't know the truth, which just add's nothing but confusion.

Thats quite worrying, as I wrote a guide on how to rip CD's to MP3s with the same title a few days before hand, though my article said to use LAME with the line "--alt-preset extreme -q 0" so it wasn't me

Still worrying that they are telling people to encode crap like this.

This is nice. First they say that 128 kbps is cd quality, then they say that increasing the bitrate will give better sound. This nice sentence is inconsistent with itself.

But what else do you expect if you're using one of the most idiotic services for the masses: Hotmail ?

Hey - I've had hotmail for >6 years, and I agree it is not a great service but it is free and for being free it isn't bad.

I agree with you guys, but just because the people here are up to date with audio ripping standards you can bet that a majority of people who are email/surfer internet people are getting used to the concept of mp3s - might even venture to get kazaa & download some songs - and they are estatic that "they can" do such great things on the computer. The fact that it sounds like it was recorded from an underwater speaker with the last 15 seconds clipped is quite besides the fact that they are able to download & play an mp3 so that they feel they belong to present day when others talk about doing such things. However if you start talking aps & replaygain you will see the glaze of something "too complicated" flashing over the face.

It took me some time to learn that a great deal of the population has a lack of understanding and worse - a lack of desire to learn about improvement. For a lot it is sufficient that they can just do something. Cnet of course just caters to this large population (probably because it is written by someone who probably has a flashy new ipod to listed to their 128k mp3s downloaded from kazaa and who has never heard of aps or replaygain)

Count yourself lucky that you have the desire to learn, a lot of people are less fortunate

I can only confirm this.

Exactly!

ROFLMFAO

You know, guys, this can be completely false information from CNet, but if someone has the ears, s/he can quickly decide if the sound is good enough for her/him on a 128kbps encoded mp3. If one does not like it, one can search for some information to have it sound well enough.
Hell, I don't even have the ears to successfully distinguish 128kbps from -aps on purpose, but somehow I felt something was not good enough for me. This is why I changed from Xiph encoders to Lame (first step: Xiph CBR->Xiph VBR), from VBR@160kbps to -r3mix, and after that -aps - and reading HA forums me shows there is always a space to evolve, if there is a need. First step can be 128k, but if one wants to learn, one can always take a step. I'm sure not all of you started listening -aps, and possibly most of you said at least once about 128kbps mp3: "Hey, this almost sounds like a CD"

I hope I'm not completely wrong or alone with this

1: They only said that it's near CD-quaility.

2: If they said so, so WHAT ? 192kbps is better than 128kbps trash

3: I'm very curious to know how many people can hear the different between 192kbps and alt-preset extreme and/or alt-preset aps

Hotmail was a lot better when I signed up for it. I believe it was a 5mb limit for e-mails, two or three meg limit for attachments, your account was only deleted if you didn't sign in for six months or a year, and I didn't receive a single spam the first two years that I had the account (the golden age ). The only reason I use it now is because I've had it for four or five years. I'm migrating all accounts and subscriptions that I wish to keep to my Comcast account now, but everyone that's known me for years has the old Hotmail address, so I must keep it. Truth be told, I normally just use Outlook and Hotmail Popper to circumvent the entire web-based interface (which also helps keep me from hitting the 2mb e-mail limit since the e-mail is downloaded locally), but I'm back home from college and don't have my own computer. Also, I still have to check that junk mail folder every few days. Fortunately, it appears that reporting spam through the new web-based interface actually does something, since my flood of spam has gone from > 15 spam per day to 3-5 spam per day.

It's really the MSN start page that's the culprit, I found the article after signing out of Hotmail took me back to that page. Of course, the blame really falls on corporate sponsorships in the end , as Andavari mentioned

Get an account at myrealbox.com. Free of ad lines and does the job perfectly.

I would sign up, but I'm pretty happy with Comcast's e-mail, and the only real reason I used hotmail is because I don't know what accounts I have that use it, thus I can't get rid of it until I've determined that everything important has been transfered over. Besides, according to the website, "The MyRealBox service has acquired sufficient users for testing needs. We have therefore disabled new account signup until further notice. We apologize for any inconvenience this might cause." Oh well.

Hello,

I'm coming from Hong Kong, Asia.

I've seen stupid buzz words like this a thousand times in my city, because the business RULES. In these few years the business gone agreesive and gone further from truth, trying to cheat the consumer with those FALSE MESSAGES, but in return no one have enough resources to against them.

I'm very glad I come to HA forum and learn a lot from all the nice guys here. At least I know the TRUTH is not "128K MP3=CD Quality", and more ... CD is not the perfect media to music, since SONY and PHILIPS didn't put the CRC into the music, so every CD player sound different.

CNET is not non-profit organization, I can understand this is a kind of advertisment. But I promise myself I'll try my best to tell everyone I know NOT TO USE MUSICMATCH since it cheat the consumer with those buzz words.

!!!! I sometimes have this reaction, but then remember that hydrogenaudio and other forums like it are not exactly what I would call representative of the average digital audio "user".

OT: This is not true. CDs have built-in error detection and lossless data recovery mechanisms. Not as good as in cd-roms, but they are there. The data read from a cd-audio in good condition should be the same in any minimally decent cd player.

The typical view of many people seems to be this -- a post from my own forum in a thread where I was trying to advise someone to look into LAME, RazorLame, EAC, mp3Gain, etc, rather than MusicMatch Jukebox:

"Blah blah blah, you can set the quality in MMJ to the same as anyother homemade net nerd bullshit. If there was any loss only a dog would hear it! Fuck those audio gimps man (**meaning hydrogenaudio people**), most normal people dont even notice the difference between 56 and 128 or even 196 (I cant count but you know what I mean)."

What about "Fuck normal people (esp. the ones cannot notice the difference between 56kbps and 196)"?

I love HA because of this. It's how I want the real world and normal people to actually be. Every problem of today's world could eventually be traced back to the mediocrity and the normal people.

LOL...

Exactly.

To elaborate further...

1) Different CD players sound different because they have different Digital->Analog converters.

2) CRC in MP3 is a bad thing. It only (theoretically) allows to better check for corruption, but with the side effect of stealing bits from the music, thus lowering quality.

...

I know the above is common knowledge to the veterans here. Just pointing it out to the newcomers.