Hi Kent. I listened your files on Genelec 1030 studio monitors, and on this kind of recording, I couldn't hear any difference between mp3 and lossless compression. What quality of mp3 did you use ? I suppose 128 kb/s at least, and 44.1 kHz. Anyway, for this kind of program, I see no reason to go for lossless large files. I believe that the advantage of 24 bits on 16, or 96 kHz on 44.1, or lossless compression on mp3, is audible in the very subtle parts of the music program like the reverberation tails, the precise stereo positioning, etc. When you have a very good orchestra recording where you can hear every single instrument exactly at its right place, and you hear the air between them, and you have the feeling of the volume of the hall surrounding you, etc., well this can be lost in a less well compressed file, foreseen that you have equipment to transcribe this. But for a dry solo piano, mp3 is just fine, certainly on computer loudspeakers. That being said, there is some saturation at high volume on all your files. Maybe your gain meters are not well calibrated, was it at record time or at process time. What do you use as recording device (or software) ? The sound looks like quite natural though. What microphones did you use ? You put them close to the bridge ? Also, I'm sure there are cheap preamps around that reach a better signal to noise ratio, but this is not so important as the saturation thing. Best regards. Stéphane Collin. Apple Lossless files, which are relatively large and require Quicktime and/or iTunes, but are compressed without loss, and so have the full fidelity of the original recordings. Among those who can download and listen to these files, I'm interested in whether they sound better than the MP3 files.
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