The Listening Future: CDs, MP3s, and DSD

[goldentone]

I guess it was about 10 years ago when I first read about SACDs, and I was very excited about the quality of the sound that was promised with multi-channel surround sound.  But here we are 2008 and we go into a music store and still find the trusty 16-bit CD everywhere. 

But the emergence and now ubiquity of MP3s have really affected the playing field.  At the click of a button we can be listening to a 256kbps MP3 whose sound quality eclispes our 16-bit CDs and which we can then burn onto CD.  Is the CD in danger of extinction?

Is it now time for the SACD to come to the fore?  What does this decade-long lag mean for DSD, the latest and greatest?  What will be the major medium in 5 or 10 years from now?

I am interested in your thoughts.
   

[furtwaengler]

256kbps mp3's eclipse the sound of 16-bit CD's? Really? I always thought it was an inferior format, but I could just be going on what I read, and then I not very trusting.

But then still I have spent the night listening to the highly addictive Xenakis linked below on real player's Rhapsody and the sound is very good.

https://www.rhapsody.com/iannisxenakis/xenakisevryalihermamistsardikthaspalimpsest

Man alive, Dikthas is a cool piece! And Palimpsest doubly so!!

[richard black]

256kbps MP3 cannot possibly eclipse CD for sound quality because MP3s are pretty much invariably made from CDs via a process which intrinsically loses quality.

As for DSD, it's awfully inefficient as a sound carrier, though with the costs of data storage falling as they are that may not matter much. In the end there's quite a good case to be made for CD's quality being good enough on the grounds that very few recordings actually exploit it fully in the first place, in technical terms.

[goldentone]

256kbps MP3 cannot possibly eclipse CD for sound quality because MP3s are pretty much invariably made from CDs via a process which intrinsically loses quality.

As for DSD, it's awfully inefficient as a sound carrier, though with the costs of data storage falling as they are that may not matter much. In the end there's quite a good case to be made for CD's quality being good enough on the grounds that very few recordings actually exploit it fully in the first place, in technical terms.

I looked up the CD bitrate, and it's 1411 kbps, which is quite a leap indeed from 256.  I really did believe the 256 mp3 was better quality than CD, which claim I have seen before.  Last night I downloaded a 256 mp3 of a Liszt piece and performance that I also have on CD.  I listened to both through my computer, and they both seemed identical in quality.

Thanks for the post.

[goldentone]

256kbps mp3's eclipse the sound of 16-bit CD's? Really? I always thought it was an inferior format, but I could just be going on what I read, and then I not very trusting.

But then still I have spent the night listening to the highly addictive Xenakis linked below on real player's Rhapsody and the sound is very good.

https://www.rhapsody.com/iannisxenakis/xenakisevryalihermamistsardikthaspalimpsest

Man alive, Dikthas is a cool piece! And Palimpsest doubly so!!

Yeah, the Rhapsody sounds great.