just bought a few mp3s off amazon because they gave me a $5 credit for spending, oh, about $400 on books for the semester.
first, they trick me to download this unnecessary downloader utility. then, i check the tags, and the bitrate is 256?
seriously? they charge money for this? what the difference in size for a 3-4 min song, 3 mb? the formatting on an ipod is 30x that
correct me if I’m wrong, but in this day and age is there really a difference in cost to either the record label or amazon to compress a raw master or .wav into 320 mp3?
and they wonder why there’s piracy. well, anyway didn’t waste any actual money.
Yes there is a difference. The space requirements are different (256 vs 320 is about 2/3 the size) and server space cost money plain and simple. It is one of the reasons beatport is much more expensive than amazon.
But anyway - you couldn’t even tell the difference between 320 and 256 for the most part anyhow. Just like the whole gigaherz wars in computers with faster and faster chips, most people will never use the full potential of an uncompressed wav file or even a 320kbps mp3 and will never hear the difference.
The downloader utility is kinda handy if you use iTunes. I don’t think you can complain about being ‘tricked’ into downloading that. And it’s ~256 variable bit rate, not just flat 256. The quality is fine. All iTunes store tunes are 256k, although they are aac which is apparently a better algorithm.
Download illegal 128 pirates end of, usually the ones recorded off tv/radio are the best, im very happy with the promotions companys that send me files , but yeah I wouldnt say there is too much difference in 256 vbr compaired to 320 sbr
Amazon has very frugal back-end operations. I think they used to have 320k long time ago and it changed and changed… and changed. I’m seeing everything between 226 and 270 nowadays with VBR added.
As for the quality, as said, it’s tough to hear any differences. If someone really wants best quality DJ material, WAV is the way to go (wish we had 24-bit WAV by now but I could wait or use my own productions as 24-bit WAV…)
PS: I would prefer 256 AAC but there are some older CDJs out there who don’t understand AAC…
the signal to noise ratio of even the best power amps would destroy any advantage and you laptop would be working its drives harder to pull the 24bit info off the platters.
stereo data is lost in clubs as they all mono sum and all the hard surfaces and multiple speakers mean that your audio is sitting in a swamp of reflections.
If you want to improve audio in clubs you’d be better off using balanced connections instead of rca phono’s.
A sober punter cant tell the difference between a 192kbps mp3 and a full def wav, and a drunk punter can barely tell what genre they’re listening to.
I think today’s 7200rpm drives could easily serve pages via VM to the application. Disk I/O is not an issue. With SSD even a tiny blimp concerning performance issues.
I don’t know of any distributions that release mono-mixed music but it’s a no-brainer to turn on mono mode in various DJ apps, Ableton Live, heck even with various sound mixers as part of the driver installation. Doubt many do that, anyway.
As for bad club systems, can’t talk about that, yes with those systems even 192kpbs VBR would be good enough. Most can’t go in and whack around the mixer to amp cables, if the club uses RCA and a DJ starts to mock with the cables replacing them with balanced XLRs, I doubt he or she is allowed to play there next time.
Anyway, there’s the notion of S/N an the notion of dynamics. With a good system I do think anyone could hear the difference between 16-bit and 24-bit.
end of, usually the ones recorded off tv/radio are the best, im very happy with the promotions companys that send me files 
, but yeah I wouldnt say there is too much difference in 256 vbr compaired to 320 sbr