> What are these artifacts you talk about? Splash cymbals in particular sound terrible (or noticeably degraded) on low bitrate stereo MP3s (ie 128kbit/s). Som

> What are these artifacts you talk about? Splash cymbals in particular sound terrible (or noticeably degraded) on low bitrate stereo MP3s (ie 128kbit/s). Some early encoders actually did a lowpass filter to eliminate frequencies above 16kHz, to mask the 'watery' high-frequency warble (see [1]). Note how even the Fraunhofer codec differs a lot at high-frequencies in the charts on that link. Some of it is still noticeable even in lower bitrate AAC. I've got U2's Pop album on CD from 1997 (coincidentally the first album to be leaked as MP3 [2]), and even at 128kbps iTunes AAC the cymbals just don't sound right on 'Gone'. They're watery, like an audio version of a badly compressed JPG. I keep meaning to re-rip it at higher bitrate. [1] http://archive.arstechnica.com/wankerdesk/1q00/mp3/mp3-3.html http://archive.arstechnica.com/wankerdesk/1q00/mp3/mp3-3.htm... [2] http://pitchfork.com/thepitch/652-a-history-of-digital-album-leaks-1993-2015/ http://pitchfork.com/thepitch/652-a-history-of-digital-album...