Why do some downloaded music files sound like crap?

bif

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Fri Sep-18-09 11:59 AM
Original message

Why do some downloaded music files sound like crap?

I've noticed lately, when I download music files, they sound okay as mp3 files. But when I burn a cd, about one out of ten sound garbled. Is it because I'm burning them from iTunes or are they corrupted?

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HopeHoops

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Fri Sep-18-09 12:07 PM
Response to Original message

1. Because the band sucks?

:shrug:

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MajorChode

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Sun Sep-20-09 11:33 AM
Response to Reply #1

9. I think you might be on to something

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guitar man

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Fri Sep-18-09 01:02 PM
Response to Original message

2. it depends

It could be what you're using to convert them back to cda or they could be getting otherwise corrupted along the way somewhere. Also, how fast are you running your drive when you're burning them? Try slowing your burner down to 8 to 12x when burning audio and see if that helps

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bif

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Fri Sep-18-09 02:10 PM
Response to Reply #2

4. I'm using Toast to burn

And I'm using the "Best" setting for the speed.

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guitar man

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Fri Sep-18-09 02:59 PM
Response to Reply #4

5. if yo have the option to selec a burn speed

12x is good. Also, if it has any options for "normalization, compression, limiting" or anything else like that, be sure to turn it off

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bif

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Sun Sep-20-09 09:32 AM
Response to Reply #5

6. Thanks!

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hobbit709

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Fri Sep-18-09 01:11 PM
Response to Original message

3. Sometimes it's the DRM embedded within the file.

Edited on Fri Sep-18-09 01:12 PM by hobbit709

If you try to burn it to an Audio CD it purposely degrades the sound.

Also the bit rate may be too low to give good audio.

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gmoney

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Sun Sep-20-09 10:00 AM
Response to Reply #3

7. Yes, check the bit rate...

if you're downloading sample tracks from band sites, they may be deliberately reducing the bitrate to AM radio quality so you can hear what the songs are like, but still need to pay for full quality.

I'm sure if you're downloading from "other" sites, people ripping files may not know what they're doing, or compress them tremendously for bandwidth purposes.

iTunes does a nice job burning audio CDs, IMHO, and they make it easy to print a little cover insert for a jewel box.

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Deja Q

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Sun Sep-20-09 10:40 AM
Response to Original message

8. Compression strips definition out of the audio - depending on computer hardware,

and the hardware of other stereo systems, you WILL notice quite a difference. Even then, high end sound cards that can 'tweak' compressed audio can only do so much to begin with...

Also, CDs use uncompressed music. (Hence 30MB files compared to your 128kbps-MP3 that's 3MB in size). Re-compressing an decompressed file won't make things any better either, but I digress.

I use iTunes pro -- while AAC at comparable bitrate is superior to MP3 to begin with, 256kbps AAC beats the living snot out of 128kbps...

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bif

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Sun Sep-20-09 01:00 PM
Response to Reply #8

10. This is beyond sounding lousy

And sounding flat due to compression. It sounds garbled almost beyond recognition. It's virtually unplayable.

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asdjrocky

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Sun Sep-20-09 01:05 PM
Response to Original message

11. Check the bps rate. 160 is okay, but 192 is best.

In my opinion 320bps is just a waste of space.

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