Craig Latta wrote:

> Hi--
>
>         stp writes:
>
> > MP3 sounds marginally better than RealAudio compression. Anyone
> > with working ears and headphones costing more than $3 can easily
> > tell the difference between MPs and even a cheaps**t sound card.
>
>         Hmm. I think MP3 at 128kbps or higher sounds very much better than RealAudio. The "no loss of quality" claim isn't completely silly (only mostly)... If the source has already been severely compressed spectrally (or just doesn't have any very low or high frequencies) then it compresses very well. :)

Well, perhaps I was a bit too negative, but especially at the dawn of the era of 24-bit 96 kHZ audio, it's depressing to hear so much hype about MP3. Most of what I've found on the net is heavily dynamically and spectrally compressed. As far as I'm concerned, the old maxim still applies:
    You can have 3 things in a compression scheme:
        good compression ratio (better than 1.5:1)
        real-time unpack (on standard HW)
        artifact-free compression (to good ears)
            (pick any *TWO*)

--
stp

Stephen Travis Pope | stp at create.ucsb.edu | http://www.create.ucsb.edu/~stp