For all of you that were curious as to what a 128kbps AAC file from the iTunes music store sounds like.

[notfred]

wav file is now available, see the original post for info.

 

[notfred]

morning bump

 

[brunswickite]

that doesnt sound too bad

 

[jonmullen]

yah I cant tell a difference between the mp3 and the wav

 

I don't think it sounds very good. You may want to use another sample, one with more lows. As it is, this sample sounds very tin-y and thin. I can grab one if you want some help.

 

[luv2chill]

For the person who asked, the song is "Lightning Crashes" by Live (on the "Throwing Copper album)

When I first downloaded the clip I heard the weird background "flange" sound in the background and thought it was an encoding artifact (like in 128kbps mp3s). But then I pulled out the CD and listented to the CDDA of this track and it exhibited the same flange sound, so that's in the source.

It didn't sound much worse than the CDDA IMHO. It would be good to hear a more complex passage of music (that's usually where lossy compression can't cope).

However, this is on an m-audio revo sound card and logitech ZX560 speakers so it's not like I'm using really high quality stuff.

l2c

 

[notfred]

I thought i'd bump this after a threda in Software reminded me of it... not too many people saw it the first time.

I'm still willing to buy one more song if people want to hear it.