Oh don't get me wrong, I *love* MP3s... when they're done properly! =:o}
The format got a bad name in its early years because lots of people were writing buggy and badly designed MP3 encoders, but with decent software in teh right hands it's every bit as capable of audiophile quality as FLAC or anything else. The trouble is, the world is awash with MP3 files created by people who didn't know what they were doing, and/or whose chief priority was minimising the file size rather than creating something that was free of glitches and artefacts, within a *reasonable* file size. =:o\
Cassette tapes were, by any objective measure, pretty terrible for sound quality. You had to invest in a decent dual-capstan machine to get rid of the wobbliness caused by the low tape speed; You also needed to keep the heads clean, and if playing tapes made on some other machine you had to either hope, or do some tinkering to ensure, that your head was set at the correct azimuth angle with respect to the recording. You had to be careful about choosing your tape stock, and be aware of its limitations... But we used them 'cos they were cheap and convenient.
Doing better than "bog standard" in the analog days required serious money and effort. With MP3, you only need the effort. =:o}
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The format got a bad name in its early years because lots of people were writing buggy and badly designed MP3 encoders, but with decent software in teh right hands it's every bit as capable of audiophile quality as FLAC or anything else. The trouble is, the world is awash with MP3 files created by people who didn't know what they were doing, and/or whose chief priority was minimising the file size rather than creating something that was free of glitches and artefacts, within a *reasonable* file size. =:o\
Cassette tapes were, by any objective measure, pretty terrible for sound quality. You had to invest in a decent dual-capstan machine to get rid of the wobbliness caused by the low tape speed; You also needed to keep the heads clean, and if playing tapes made on some other machine you had to either hope, or do some tinkering to ensure, that your head was set at the correct azimuth angle with respect to the recording. You had to be careful about choosing your tape stock, and be aware of its limitations... But we used them 'cos they were cheap and convenient.
Doing better than "bog standard" in the analog days required serious money and effort. With MP3, you only need the effort. =:o}