Question for anti-mp3 traders

What do you have against mp3s? I know the obvious kazaa/whatever trading issues, but as far as the file type itself?
I've recently had to start ripping my shows to CDs and deleting them off my computer (to make room for new shows =p). But I prefer to have music just a couple clicks away on my computer.
Most times when I want a random show that I havn't heard yet, I'll just go to the archive's streamable section and stream the mp3 version of a show.

But my question is, will live music BT's ever go mp3? Would make the downloading process much quicker (even the fastest torrents can take up to an hour or more - guess I'm just impatient )
I know the lossless files are better quality, but I've never been able to hear any difference between them and mp3s.

[I nick1257 I]

By trading lossless it keeps the pool of shows pure.. then if you get a show you can convert it to MP3 for your liking... and not trade it.

yeah, I can understand the file getting corrupted as it goes through more hands, but think there will ever be another verstion of that archive, where we can just stream shows from a database?

[kuba]

I suppose this thread will end up as a serious flamewar.

[I nick1257 I]

archive.org has mp3 shows for downloading if your in to the jam scene... you can also stream shows...

Originally Posted by I nick1257 I

archive.org has mp3 shows for downloading if your in to the jam scene... you can also stream shows...

yeah - but their selection can be kinda limited -- heh, streaming a Dead show from 72 atm. Think I mostly just got annoyed at seeing shows that I really wanted to hear, with only one slow seed, hehe

[greenheatherc]

Originally Posted by Canten

What do you have against mp3s? I know the obvious kazaa/whatever trading issues, but as far as the file type itself?
I've recently had to start ripping my shows to CDs and deleting them off my computer (to make room for new shows =p). But I prefer to have music just a couple clicks away on my computer.
Most times when I want a random show that I havn't heard yet, I'll just go to the archive's streamable section and stream the mp3 version of a show.

But my question is, will live music BT's ever go mp3? Would make the downloading process much quicker (even the fastest torrents can take up to an hour or more - guess I'm just impatient )
I know the lossless files are better quality, but I've never been able to hear any difference between them and mp3s.

If you really want a complete answer to your question you should try posting it over in technobabble. There is a huge difference in a lossless vs. lossy file which can be both seen in a FA and heard on any decent stereo.

[The Wicker Man]

If you biggest worry is speed and time then the Traders Den is not for you. There are other sites that may cater to what you are into. Here quality is of the upmost importance and lineage (source). Not everyone feels that way, and is the reason there are many trading sites out there.

I prefer quality as it can be heard on a high end system, and most audiophiles are very careful about keep source and lineage intact where as someone who doesn't care about/quality and source would dilute the trading pool. I encode to mp3 to listen on my ipod etc, but delete them right away to make sure they don't get out.

I really just comes down to a matter of respecting the trade. What you do for your own personal use is fine, just don't let them circulate.

[CATyler610]

I don't know if you were around the Live Music Archive when they first put out the notion of hosting mp3s for streaming but it was a major bitching session. Some traders even pulled their shows off the Archive even though they could opt out of the streaming of their shows as mp3s.
What you have to ask yourself is wouldn't I rather have the best possible quality show rather than one that has had data from the digital copy dropped out for compression? I mean, I have a Digital Audio Player that I convert shows to mp3 for but I download everything lossless, burn it to my own archive and translate the files to mp3 myself for short term listening in my car and such. When I want to listen to quality shows at a loud volume, I pull out the cds.

[Hippycat]

And quality issues aside, why should time, as in speed, really be a factor?

Just keep up with the downloads that are new or flowing nicely and in only a couple of weeks, let alone months, anybody should have a reasonably sized collection of decent variety. In a year of downloading that's going to be more music than you can listen to in the rest of your life time.

If you're just collecting for collecting sakes (um, me thinks lots of people just want to have everything ~ and there's nothing wrong with that ) then again, who cares how fast you get it?

[SIBLY]

I don’t think people understand the lossy-vs-lossless idea. Because they think they cannot hear the difference. I like to use this analogy.

Imagine you scan a picture. Then you crop part of it. Yeah, the file is smaller, but you lost part of the original. Even if you enlarge it back to the original size, the missing parts are never recovered.

Now take it a step further. You crop it, enlarge it. Crop it. Enlarge it. You keep losing parts of the picture, even though you get it back to the original size.

Now change crop to convert to mp3, and change enlarge to convert to wav (or burn to cdr), and you get the idea. Sure, you have the song on cdr, but it is not the original. Data is lost. Forever. And that is the lineage of traded mp3 files, I am afraid.

It’s all about maintaining quality, my friend.

[tmpecus]

how many times must we go over this?

[lucasweb]

This kind of thread is about as stale as a "What Happened to STG?" thread

[feralicious]

If you're finding that many shows and getting them all that much faster how are you ever going to listen to them all?

Even downloading lossless I get more shows than I can keep up with. I really should stop so I can organize, archive and um, listen to them. But I can't. Can't stop. Must download.

[tmpecus]

Originally Posted by lucasweb

This kind of thread is about as stale as a "What Happened to STG?" thread

what did happen to stg?