MP3 that sounds better than CD?

[farleybrothers]

Hey there!

I'm new to this forum and I just wanted to share something weird (at least, to me) that I discovered. I bought this CD by Bill Frisell, called Richter 858, a few days ago through Amazon and it came with a free MP3 version of the album. So I downloaded the album and it sounds great. I decided to check the dynamic range and it turned out to be 14, which is pretty good, especially for an MP3. So I thought, "Surely, if the MP3 sounds this good, the CD should sound better." I got the CD today, ripped the WAV files to my computer and checked the DR: only 11! Really? And this is a jazz album!

Don't get me wrong, the music is great whether it's on CD or MP3, but I was surprised that the MP3 sounds somewhat better than the CD. I know MP3s are lossy but usually that makes the music sound worse, doesn't it? Has anyone else experienced this or am I missing something?

 

[Bruce B]

Obviously 2 different masterings/renderings.....

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

Yep. I'm not a big believer in the night and day difference between high quality MP3s and CD, but it is a reductive process. It can't be technically better. Could it sound better? I never cease to be amazed at what folks thing "sounds" better.

tim

 

[Vincent Kars]

Hi Tim
It can sound “better” indeed.
If a recording is harsh in the treble and the MP3 rolls the treble off, it will sound more agreeable hence “better”.
There is an example somewhere at Hydrogen that 'proves’ this point.
Much to the delight of the HA crowd of course (inverted audiophiles IMHO)
Won’t happen with high bitrate MP3 but a low one can do this.

Vincent

 

[amirm]

We had the same experience Vincent. We were testing MP3 at 64 kbps which has half the bandwidth of CD (or thereabouts). We compared it to our codec which had full response. Everyone loved ours except one female tester. I interviewed her and she said she liked that the MP3 had less highs.

 

[JackD201]

Hi Tim
It can sound “better” indeed.
If a recording is harsh in the treble and the MP3 rolls the treble off, it will sound more agreeable hence “better”.
There is an example somewhere at Hydrogen that 'proves’ this point.
Much to the delight of the HA crowd of course (inverted audiophiles IMHO)
Won’t happen with high bitrate MP3 but a low one can do this.

Vincent

Hahahaha. This made my day!

 

[rbbert]

I think Bruce hit it on the head; different masterings, and in that case (assuming at least a 256k MP3) the better mastering will usually sound better. This happened with another Bruce, Bruce Hornsby, who released a bunch of free 320k VBR MP3's of his live concerts, and then put out a CD release (Bride of the Noisemakers) which included some of the same performances released as free MP3's but now subjected to "wonderful" "modern" mastering techniques which (surprise) managed to suck the life out of those recordings.

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

Hi Tim
It can sound “better” indeed.
If a recording is harsh in the treble and the MP3 rolls the treble off, it will sound more agreeable hence “better”.
There is an example somewhere at Hydrogen that 'proves’ this point.
Much to the delight of the HA crowd of course (inverted audiophiles IMHO)
Won’t happen with high bitrate MP3 but a low one can do this.

Vincent

That would make a low bit-rate MP3 the shortest and least expesive path to higher "musicality" ever discovered. Back when I was into testing such things (God only knows why), I was almost never able to reliably differentiate between full resollution and 320kbps. These days? A well-done 256k VBR seems to be the threshold. And that's a simple download from iTunes. Makes everything a whole lot easier, I must say.

Tim