Last night while sorting my library I noticed that all my purchased music was encoded in stereo whereas the tracks picked up through DJ communities / shares utilize dual and joint stereo formats. After researching the 3 respectively I’ve come to understand the differences (I think), but thought I’d gain some extra and perhaps even expert insight here as to which are best to play out with? Many established laptop DJs make it a rule of thumb to only perform with trusted 320 kbps MP3s, is there a similar preference concerning dual stereo, joint stereo, and stereo encoding?
In a word, no. 320 refers only to the bitrate, it has nothing to do with dynamic range or anything else that goes into making a track hit right or sound good.
transcode is the proper term, and for those who don’t know how to pick thru them with frequency analyzers they can be a nightmare, i highly recommend everyone going and downloading spek(http://spek-project.org/) and checking that your files are real, as for joint stereo vs regular stereo i have noticed that aswell, and almost every webstore sells in stereo that i know except for digital tunes does joint stereo for some reason, but i think technically there not that dif, joint stereo is just designed to save space by only making a second channel rather then duplicating it, but only where the values are not identicle, so if 320 mp3 isnt capuring enough data in the first place (wich some believe) then i guess joint stereo could be better cause its not waisting space on 2 identicle channels, but its not like the files r any more dynamic or anything so i dont get it
Ah, I knew one of these were coming. The title of my post wasn’t literal, and meant more to grab attention in efforts to have potential repliers read its actual subject matter. That said, I’m very appreciative for your timely response.
Yeah, I realized joint wasn’t necessarily a downgrade from stereo, but more so an exploit in the encoding process. Its just sort of troubling and perhaps telling for my library that the more prominent digital music retailers don’t utilize joint or dual. All the music I’ve acquired over the last 1 ½ years since I began taking mixing more seriously have been purchased to ensure quality control and perhaps make me a better person. Unfortunately many of the obscure tracks that distinguish my selection and craft my sound were previously acquired through more dubious means ( -_-)
Spek was recommended to me in the DDJT forum as well, so I’ll most definitely look further into it. Thanks for the info and insight, you’re awesome ! !