4/19    Which way produce better sound quality: software decoding
        mp3 to regular audio format and play it with cd player OR
        play mp3 file with mp3 player?
        \_ Anybody can tell me if the software can restore the missing
           data in mp3 because of compression to the digital waveforms
           very close to the original recording.
           \_ I guess when you compress the data using mp3, once the
              data is lost, there is no way you can recover the original
              bits no matter how smart your software is. Not sure though!
              \_ Yes, MP3 is lossy.
                \_ No, use the new .phil format for music files!  Convert all
                   your mp3s to .phil today!
                   \_ admittedly, "phil files" has a nice ring to it.
        \_ Assuming you are just comparing the MP3 player vs. the CD player
           (e.g., using the same headphones), it will depend on the quality
           of the digital-analog converters in the MP3 player vs. cd player.
           If it's a cheap portable CD player, I doubt the sound quality
           will be very different one way or another.
        \_ I am not familiar with the mpeg2 algorithms, but is it really the
           best data shrinking mechanism out there? Or it's just a bunch of
           mpeg jerk using their power to make money?
           \_ There is no "best data shrinking mechanism" for all types of
              data.  Lossy compression (such as MPEG) isn't appropriate for
              some data types.  Generally different data types are best paired
              with different compression algorithms.  Even restricting
              the domain to video doesn't sufficiently narrow the scope;
              MPEG2 video can produce better picture quality than MPEG4 video
              at high-bitrates.  MPEG4, on the other hand, is tailored for
              relatively low-bitrate video.  What were you asking, again,
              and what does it have to do with MP3?
        \_ depends on how you record to the CD, and the media quality. I
           did a blind test of this and people could hear the difference
           between the CD-R and original source CD without recoding!
        \_ decoding an mp3 offline for conversion to pcm audio (and later
           burning to an audio cd) would allow you to apply smoothing and
           other audio processing techniques to the decoded audio correct
           for (de)compression artifacts prior to burning to the CD.  It
           is possible to do this on the fly in a portable mp3 player, but
           I don't think many if any do anything more than DA conversion.
           I think you'll be more limited by how good/bad your headphones
           are or what shape your ears are in.  (and of course, there is
           less one can do about bad pops and skips, but one has more of a
           chance correcting that offline) -jon
        \_ Somehow, this whole line of discussion seems much sillier while
           listening to an SACD.  MP3s -- how quaint.