"JoeSpareBedroom" wrote in message
...


That's why I included the words "that he's applied". Although we have
different purposes in mind when we rip a CD, we both begin use Windows
Media Player as our starting point, with options set to do the least
damage to the files. Even if it's doing a little compression in that
process, my ears still tell me the results are better than some of what he
downloads or shares with friends.


I recently set up a music system using a pair of SL3 Martin-Logan's that
have been stored away since we moved into this house because I didn't have a
good room to set them up properly in. I decided to do the surround thing as
well and bought a new Denon receiver/amp, some Mirage surrounds and, believe
it or not, a decent sounding Bose center channel speaker.

Immediately ran into the problem I discovered the last time I used these
speakers. Many of the CDs that sound ok on a couple of other systems we
have using conventional speaker drivers sound terrible on the
electrostatics. But, the "good" ones sound spectacular, showing off the
acoustically transparent nature of this type of speaker.

Then, to my surprise, I found a royalty free, MP3 version Sousa's "Stars
and Stripes Forever" somewhere on the 'net. It was reported to be a high
quality file, recorded at a higher than normal bit rate, (don't remember
what it was). Anyway, I burned it to a CD and it sounds excellent. Lots
of dynamic range and you can clearly hear every instrument being played.
In terms of fidelity, it's better than half the commercially produced CDs I
have.

Eisboch