I don't have a problem with MP3 because....

[Rust]

.....I never had a problem with cassettes. Comments in another section got me thinking, an admittedly dangerous pastime but I didn't want to hijack that thread.

My original collection of music was all LPs. Didn't have my own table but I had LPs. Traveling to far places courtesy of my Uncle cassettes were portable and robust, so the decision between nothing and cassettes was quite simple. In about '72 I upgraded to what would be the start of a home system for whenever I had a home, a Teac A-350. In about '78 that was upgraded to a Teac A-800, built like a tank and still working fine 38 years later. The original A-350 led to amplifiers, preamplifiers, turntables, tuners, speakers, wires and eventually to CDs (due to the disappearance of other formats). And currently four turntables.

So lets see, mp3. Robust and portable. Reviled by many, embraced by millions more. Hand in hand with computer based digital files much to the consternation of the music industry. Yet sparking the development of better personal audio devices, an expansion of the headphone market and in ear devices (note: I do not like the term IED, bad connotations), headphone amplifiers et al. Might be a parallel in there somewhere.

The high end exists at the very tip of a pyramid. Too often those at the tip of that pyramid are dismissive and exclusionary (of course not referring to any of you here). But that tip might not be so high nor innovations so many without the rest of the pyramid. So while mp3 may be a poor format, what the format and it's users are leading to is another cycle of expansion and innovation. Won't happen overnight, nothing ever does Might even contribute to a revival of vinyl, you can never tell..

[Steve Lefkowicz]

Though I much prefer my LPs, and my music server is pretty much all full resolution FLAC or Apple Lossless files from CD, 24/96, 24/192 or DSD files, my iPod Classic is all MP3 or Apple compressed files at 320 mbps. I play the Classic through an old Headroom Total Bithead into my Beyerdynamic DT770 Pro headphones. Though I do prefer my Questyle QP1 with full/high resolution files, I still use the iPod classic quite a bit. Even in MP3 at 320, it sounds pretty nice.

[MylesBAstor]

In part it comes down to what I intimated here:

http://www.audionirvana.org/forum/th...cal-connection

In other words, which plane of music are you listening on? As I said, for the better part of two and a half years, my music fix came via a Sony Walkman. Loved my music but prefer my audio system.

[Rust]

In other words, which plane of music are you listening on? As I said, for the better part of two and a half years, my music fix came via a Sony Walkman. Loved my music but prefer my audio system

From little acorns mighty oaks. The lowly cassette and a proto boom box ultimately led to my current system. Love my music first but prefer to listen on my system too. I want to be enveloped in the sound field of my music, to let it wash over me and soak in. To dissipate the worries of a day.

But to expound on the ultimate truth of music, I'll paraphrase the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers (for those of a certain age and predilection) "Music will get you through times of no equipment better than equipment will get you through times of no music". From more interesting times.

[JackD201]

There's MP3 and there's MP3. At 192 MP3s are quite ok. At 320 they are hard to tell apart from RB. 128 and below is just awful IME.

[Steve Lefkowicz]

There's MP3 and there's MP3. At 192 MP3s are quite ok. At 320 they are hard to tell apart from RB. 128 and below is just awful IME.

We taught this lesson to our son when he was 12 and got his first iPod. Instead of iTunes downloads or grabbing audio tracks from youtube like his friends, I told him to let me know what he wanted, and we'd buy the CD and rip it to his iPod at 320. Along with a pair of inexpensive but nice sounding Sennheiser HD201 headphones, it didn't take long for his friends to figure out that his iPod sounded better than theirs. It was especially fun when we'd drive them somewhere in our car, and ran an AUX cable to the back seat so they could swap their iPods out for music. We often heard comments like "Hey, how come yours sounds better than mine..."
He's 22 now, and still uses an iPod Classic as his primary source, either into better Sennheiser headphones (recently upgraded to HD280) or through a docking station into his audio system. It is a 160 GB and about 90% 320 mbps Apple compressed or MP3 files.

[Johnny Vinyl]

I don't have a problem with 256/320 MP3's either, even 192 is passable on a portable. And, as Jack said, 320's sound as good as my RBCD converted FLAC files.