TAXI.com

Hi,I have a question for anyone who knows about the difference between the two.( Real Player--- Windows Media Player).My question is why does a .mp3 (192kbps) file play flawlessly on Real Player, but on Windows Media Player it ( the piano in this case ) gets a buzzing distortion? At first I thought it was the speakers on the computer system, so I went out and just bought some Altec Lansing speakers--- no difference, How can the same file play so differently?Thanks!

I have a simple answer: iTunesYou can't go wrong for mp3s. Encoding, organizing, playing............ the only game in town IMO!As for the buzzing, I'll refer you to my first answer. Sorry for the tongue in cheek answer but iTunes really will solve your problems with mp3s!Mazz

I agree that iTunes is great for organizing, but IMHO Quicktime sounds better when playing mp3's. I don't know why, I can't prove it, but on my Mac system the same file played through both will sound better and less thin with QT -- not nearly as noticeable since iTunes 7, but still somewhat better.aubbtw-- in my world, Real Audio is the devil (though his name still isn't Lucifer)

Aub, that's funny, I thought my ears were deceiving me, I always use Quicktime because it just seems to sound better. Quote:I agree that iTunes is great for organizing, but IMHO Quicktime sounds better when playing mp3's. I don't know why, I can't prove it, but on my Mac system the same file played through both will sound better and less thin with QT -- not nearly as noticeable since iTunes 7, but still somewhat better.ps - the devil downloads cracked software

Quote:I agree that iTunes is great for organizing, but IMHO Quicktime sounds better when playing mp3's. I don't know why, I can't prove it, but on my Mac system the same file played through both will sound better and less thin with QT -- not nearly as noticeable since iTunes 7, but still somewhat better.aubbtw-- in my world, Real Audio is the devil (though his name still isn't Lucifer)Not to get too technical here but itunes actually uses the same QT engine for playback, the difference is that iTunes adds some bells and whistles that change the sound a bit (the "Sound Enhancer", "sound check" and the equalizer). The bare QT player will not process the sound as itunes does and that is why it sounds "better", because there is no processing that you didn't intend to have, it will simply play the mp3 and wav as it was recorded. You can turn off those sound features on itunes and it will sound closer to how it sounds in QT.The opposite is true in the Real Player vs. Windows Media debate: since they use different playback engines and the conversion from mp3 is done in different ways, they will never sound the same. I agree with everyone else in that front, neither one is my choice when playing mp3. If you prefer not to have iTunes on your machine, download the Quick Time player, it is free just like the other two.Antonio

What player do the Taxi screeners use? Or the people who they forward things to?Media Player is a very popular player- if an mp3 crackles there, it won't get a fair listen.

Thanks for everyone's advice... I had no idea that there was so much difference.. I am going to try all of them. I was also wondering about what the screener's used when listening. I think there was a thread about this on the forum about a month or so ago-- but I don't recall a definitive answer.

Most of the time the screeners download the track and use quicktime, but sometimes they use Itunes if they need to stream a file for some reason, but this doesn't happen that often.

Thanks TAXIjon for the info--- QuickTime it is..Before sending a song in- (to me ) it makes sense to listen to the music the way the screeners will be listening.