Reply to "CD Players"

To add to Gary's post, the technical side of mp3 is that it is not "just" a file manager, it is a data compression system. It passes mucial data through an algorithm to remove musical information (data) that is theoretically below a psychoacoustic threshold. Yeah, I know, that's a big fancy word. What that all means is that the ear is not supposed to hear a difference in the music, even though a large portion of the data has been eliminated. The result is that an hours worth of music on a 800K CD becomes a much smaller mp3 file that can be easily downloaded via the internet (and as a side benefit it takes up less room on a strorage device). There were several compression systems competing with one another at one time, mp3 was popularized due to its association with Napster. It didn't hurt that mp3 software has been provided free of charge to the public.

At one time it was a big debate among audio professionals, how to compress musical info, which compression system is less audible, etc. MP3 turned all of the debate into a moot point.

Data compression should not be confused with dynamic range compression. The dynamic range of the music should not be disturbed by mp3, however dynamic range compression is normally a desirable thing with background/portable music.

Your acoustically psycho friend on the DTBB, George