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I can "rip" a song from an old audio CD and make it into an MP3 file. I've done this, and copied it to my phone with Windows Explorer.
However if you (legally) download a song from Itunes or Rhapsody, there is something different about the mp3 file, is that right? If so, what is diff about it?
I know Itunes and Rhapsody do things so you can't make too many copies of the songs. But I'm not sure if each song is "marked" with something.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by robertpasa
I know Itunes and Rhapsody do things so you can't make too many copies of the songs. But I'm not sure if each song is "marked" with something.
I-tunes recordings have been DRM free since 2009 (rhapsody too) although you can be your bottom dollar the songs contain metadata as to who purchased it. And most likely watermarked as well.
If you rip your own music, you can choose your own data rate which directly translates to audio quality i.e. 128, 192, 256 or the highest rate, 320kbps. For many people 256kbps sounds like the original CD (which uses the .wav format).
But the lower the data rate, the more important the MP3 (or AAC) encoder becomes. This is the piece of software that decides what parts of the music to keep & which to throw away.* This throwing-away process is what allows an MP3 file to become smaller than a CD's .wav file and in turn allows you to fit more music on your hard drive/MP3 player/etc. But the tradeoff is reduced sound quality. Anyhoo, many people feel the LAME encoder is the best. This is why I use dbpoweramp which includes that encoder to rip my own CDs, which also allows you to choose the ripping speed which improves accuracy.
DEcoders i.e. the playback software on the other hand are all pretty much the same.
FYI: the first casualty of too-low data rates are the higher frequencies. This results in a swishing, watery sound that becomes progressivley worse until you get under say, 96kbps, then to me it becomes plain awful. So for me, 192kbps is the absolute lowest I would ever use for music I cared about.
* MP3, AAC, .ram (Real Audio) etc are all part of the "perceptual coding" category of audio formats. This means, depending on the data rate, only the parts of the music the average human ear can hear are kept. That's why many in the audio hobby refer to these as "lossy" formats. OTOH, CD's .wav format is lossless.
It would because ACC at 192 is better than MP3 at 192. MP3 is not as efficient. Having said that most people wouldn't be able to tell the difference especially if they are playing it on a crappy system.
But the lower the data rate, the more important the MP3 (or AAC) encoder becomes.
When you get into really low bitrates the gap widens considerably. Here's WMA at 20kbps mono track. If you tried doing this with MP3 it would be garbage. You might ask why? It streams over 56K which was till very popular when it was originally uploaded...
Free music, 3 CD's if you want it. It's beerware. If you are ever in a bar and happen to see them play buy them a beer. The zip files are the whole CD's, individual tracks can be found in the folders.
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So for me, 192kbps is the absolute lowest I would ever use for music I cared about.
The zip files are the whole CD's, individual tracks can be found in the folders. 
