SACD - Dying already?

>> The average consumer wants convenience and my best guess is that digital satellite radio, MP3's, iPods, and the like are the mass-market future.

Apple's iTunes uses AAC audio, which blows away MP3s. I've compared identical tunes from original CDs and a CD-R burned from an AAC file -- it's VERY hard to hear any difference. Also, playing digital music from a hard drive eliminates jitter.

Uh oh, Radknee...the SACD crowd will put a contract on you.

By the way, I was at a graduation party two weeks ago and the DJ was using an MP3 file to play music. Apart from the inability to mix songs, everything she played sounded harsh with no bass to speak of. Lots of people (none audiophiles) were complaining about it. I've not got much experince with MP3s but if this is how they sound, God help us.

>> Uh oh, Radknee...the SACD crowd will put a contract on you
I support SACD, own an SACD player, and buy SACDs :-)

>>everything she played sounded harsh with no bass to speak of
Like I said, Apple's AAC files are almost indistinguishable from CD -- unlike MP3s.

Then again, if these MP3s were downloaded illegally via file sharing, got knows the quality that went into the original encoding.

BTW, Wilson audio did a test at CES (you can read this in TAS) where they setup 2 systems -- one with their speakers, and one with another manufacturer's speakers. The system with the other manufacturer's speakers was using state-of-the-art digital gear and amplification. Everyone listening to the 2 systems thought the Wilson system superior -- surprise, the digital front end for the Wilson system was an Apple iPod ;-)

Co-incidently, I just got a CD today with 10 iTunes. A friend made it from her home computer and contains just some pop songs. They sound pretty darn good! However, Janie says the selection from Apple is pretty limited. Anyone have any other legal downloading services they use and like?

Both AAC and MP3 can sound very good or very bad depending on the bit rate. You can't just say one is better than the other. In my experience, ripping a CD to 320kbs MP3 VBR sounded indistinguishable from a CD. At 128kbs, both formats sounded harsh.