Jon Johanning wrote:

>I had been meaning for some time to pose the question of what MP3 might do
>for CM to the computer experts on the list (I know you're there!). I keep
>hearing about it in connection with popular music, but little so far about
>classical music and MP3. Is the fidelity not quite good enough yet?

The fidelity can be well up to it.  To help my wife put together a
compilation disc for a well-known 'classical' company, I transferred all
the tracks she might have wanted into MP3 format (at a high bit-rate) so
she could just point-and-click with the Windows Media Player to experiment
with sequencing, delays, etc.  Then, we compiled a playlist, put all the
files onto a Linux notebook machine with an MP3 program, and demo-ed it to
the boss of the company in a studio.  He didn't know he wasn't listening
to a CD.  However, we shall, of course, re-do the whole thing on a Sadie
editor without digital compression now.

The files for the two-CD set plus several others we didn't use take up
353MB, around one quarter the space (and network bandwidth -- we did this
over a slow Ethernet in the house) of the original uncompressed disk
tracks.

So, MP3 can be a useful tool.  But I don't think purchases of MP3 files
will replace DVD or CD sales because the practice of music-carrier
ownership and all that goes with it (printed booklets, nice cover pictures,
use it in the car or the kitchen, etc.) is hard to shift.  And computers
are (generally) so noisy!  At least the average CD player doesn't have a
whirring great cooling fan inside.

Furthermore, if you download an MP3 file but your disk crashes, you lose
the music.  On the other hand, a CD or DVD that's not in use is safely
stored on your shelf for many years.  I wouldn't like to try recovering
a forty-year-old hard disk, either.

Yours,

John Hayward-Warburton
[log in to unmask] http://www.billabong.demon.co.uk