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Rockbox General => Rockbox General Discussion => Topic started by: davespagnol on May 14, 2020, 03:25:27 PM

Title: MP3 downloads vs your own rips.
Post by: davespagnol on May 14, 2020, 03:25:27 PM
Sometimes, when you buy CDs on line, they let you download the mp3 versions free. A week ago I ordered Aliens by Horslips (one of 3 of their Studio albums missing from my LP collection), from Amazon, and downloaded the mp3's to listen before it arrived. I loaded them into my Rockboxed Sansa Fuze+ and had a listen. I was beginning to regret buying the CD, clearly not one of their best, and awful recording quality. But when I got the CD a week later, I ripped it myself (to flac rather than mp3) and listened to it again. The difference was astounding. It IS a great CD, and the recording quality is just fine.

Now I understand that the mp3s you download after buying the CD, are the same as if you just bought them instead of the CD. They probably issue them to discourage people from doing their own rips, but still have versions for your personal stereo or phone. Well, I don't think I'll be buying too many mp3's on line, put it that way.

It's not that mp3 is a bad format. You can do better, but the ones I made myself over the years before discovering ogg and flac formats are listenable enough. So why sell really bad rips? I guess that with all the autotuned vocals and disco music out these days, they don't expect people to care about sound quality any more.
Title: Re: MP3 downloads vs your own rips.
Post by: darkcity on June 02, 2020, 06:10:18 PM
It sounds like they botched the conversion process from lossless to MP3. What bitrate are the supplied MP3s? What record company was it? I buy digital music from Bandcamp and they (or rather the artist) supply MP3 320kbps and FLAC - both of which I've not had any problems with sound wise.
Title: Re: MP3 downloads vs your own rips.
Post by: davespagnol on June 16, 2020, 06:45:22 PM
It sounds like they botched the conversion process from lossless to MP3. What bitrate are the supplied MP3s? What record company was it? I buy digital music from Bandcamp and they (or rather the artist) supply MP3 320kbps and FLAC - both of which I've not had any problems with sound wise.

It was from Amazon. That's all I really can tell you. Had I just got the MP3s, I'd have been horrified.