[MP3junk1E]

I'm pretty sure I read something about this when I first joined last year, but I can't recall what the deal was.

I suppose MP3 192 means the source data is MP3 192 and there's no point in trying to encode the music at a higher bit rate.

But I don't know what the difference is between E and EEX. Can someone please explain it?

[Cornutopian]

Originally Posted by MP3junk1E

I'm pretty sure I read something about this when I first joined last year, but I can't recall what the deal was.

I suppose MP3 192 means the source data is MP3 192 and there's no point in trying to encode the music at a higher bit rate.

But I don't know what the difference is between E and EEX. Can someone please explain it?

Actually it is OE and OEEX

OE is "Online Encoding" which means that you can order it in a variety of formats and bitrates. OEEX is "Online Encoding Exclusive" which means that they have uncompressed copies available so you can do even more formats including stuff like WAV and CD-DA if you are willing to pay for no compression.

[RedSmurf]

Originally Posted by Cornutopian

Actually it is OE and OEEX

OE is "Online Encoding" which means that you can order it in a variety of formats and bitrates. OEEX is "Online Encoding Exclusive" which means that they have uncompressed copies available so you can do even more formats including stuff like WAV and CD-DA if you are willing to pay for no compression.

More accurately, OE means they have the files in 384kbps MP3 format, which is why you can't choose any of the lossless formats as an option (you would get a lossless transcoding of that 384kbps source material, which you can make yourself by downloading the 384kbps MP3 and decoding it). OEEX means they have the files in some lossless format, which means you can get the whole range from ultra-compressed MP3 to a bit-wise copy of what was on the original CD.

It's quite pointless to pay the full price for an uncompressed file like WAV because you can get exactly the same WAV file by downloading one of the lossless formats and decompressing it yourself. This will cost you about half as much.

[Cornutopian]

Originally Posted by RedSmurf

It's quite pointless to pay the full price for an uncompressed file like WAV because you can get exactly the same WAV file by downloading one of the lossless formats and decompressing it yourself. This will cost you about half as much.

But, of course, they hope you either don't know that, or are too lazy to uncompress the files on your end.

[Mikity]

Originally Posted by RedSmurf

More accurately, OE means they have the files in 384kbps MP3 format, which is why you can't choose any of the lossless formats as an option (you would get a lossless transcoding of that 384kbps source material, which you can make yourself by downloading the 384kbps MP3 and decoding it).

Oh, really? So if I download an OE MP3 at say 192 kb/s then it is actually being transcoded? Lossy to lossy is not good, although 384 kb/s is a pretty high bitrate too.... (I thought the MP3 spec only went to 320?)

[RedSmurf]

Originally Posted by Mikity

Oh, really? So if I download an OE MP3 at say 192 kb/s then it is actually being transcoded? Lossy to lossy is not good, although 384 kb/s is a pretty high bitrate too.... (I thought the MP3 spec only went to 320?)

Yes, the 384kbps files are not standard, but can be decoded by many programs (I think AOM3 warns you about this when downloading in this format). And it's acceptable to transcode from 384kbps because there's hardly any distortion at that bitrate.