Re: [TANGO-L] Tandas at the speed of a mouse click

[Kos.Zahariev @EC.GC.CA]

 >
 >On 11 Jan 2005 at 16:19, Stephen Brown wrote:
 >
 >> A little more about MP3 sound quality:
 >> Many claim that in a noisy room and the typical sound system at
 >> milongas and the mediocre sound quality of the original recordings,
 >> the loss from MP3 files won't be that noticeable.  A few claim that
 >> there is no audible loss in sound quality.  I wonder what kind hearing
 >> people who make such statements have.  I find the difference to be
 >> quite noticeable.  In comparison, to the original CDs, MP3 files of
 >> tango music sound suffer from a loss in dynamics, sparkle and
 >> dimensionality.  You can still hear the bump, bump, bump of the
 >> rhythm, but what much else of what gives music life is lost.
 >
 >mp3 is based on psychoacoustics ...
 >... which presumes that hearing (and sound) is flawless.
 >[appearantly people with perfect hearing have no problems, but those
 >with limited hearing (the majority) do have!]
 >neither one is right for old tango music.
 >
 >Christian


Also, from http://www.mp3-converter.com/mp3codec/imperceptible.htm :

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Who Defines "Imperceptible?"

Before moving away from the topic of perceptual codecs, there's an important
point to be made about the category as a whole: They all make baseline
assumptions about the limitations of human perception, and about how closely
the end result will be listened to. The fact of the matter is that all that
stuff being stripped out adds up to something. While no recording format,
whether it be vinyl, reel-to-reel, compact disk, or wax cylinder, can capture
all of the overtones and subtle nuances of a live performance, nor can any
playback equipment on the face of the earth reproduce the quality of a live
performance.

All compression formats-especially perceptual codecs are capable
of robbing the signal of subtleties. While certain frequencies may not be
distinctly perceptible, their cumulative effect contributes to the overall
"presence" and ambience of recorded music. Once a signal has been encoded,
some of the "magic" of the original signal has been stripped away, and cannot
be retrieved no matter how hard you listen or how good your playback
equipment. As a result, MP3 files are sometimes described as sounding "hollow"
in comparison to their uncompressed cousins. Of course, the higher the quality
of the encoding, the less magic lost. You have to strike your own
compromises.

[...]

In a perfect world, we would all have unlimited storage and unlimited
bandwidth. In such a world, the MP3 format may never have come to exist-it
would have had no reason to. If necessity is the mother of invention, the
invention would never have happened. Compression techniques and the perceptual
codec represent a compromise we can live with until storage and bandwidth
limitations vanish for good.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------


Currently the only reason, as a tango DJ, to persist with mp3 on a laptop is
because specialized DJ programs (that are cheap and/or free) still do not
handle much else, as far as I know.

I decided in January 2003 that I prefer lossless compression to using a
specialized DJ program, so I have been DJing from a laptop with
losslessly-compressed tangos (ape = "Monkey's audio") ever since, using an
external "audiophile" soundcard (and a good amp and large speakers). Works.

Best regards,
                  Konstantin