Question about mp3?

Question

I know this may sounds really dumb but, my friend had a cd that had like over 300 songs on it, and he said it was a MP3, how do you get those cd's to burn and how do you burn them? Do you need a special thing to burn them? Is it easier to just burn MP3 cd's and buy the stereo for your car or to buy like a ipod or something. Because my friend plugged her ipod into her car and it sounded like crap, it was muffled and really low. Some help please? Thanks

Answer 1

Ok, normally when you burn a regular blank CD in Windows Media Player, or iTunes, or whatever, it converts the files to a .cda file that most CD players can read. The limiting factor in a regular audio CD burnt this way is the total time of the tracks. Most CD's limit you to 70 or 80 minutes max. Because of this, you may be able to only fit up to fifteen to twenty songs total because of their length.

Now, an MP3 CD is a regular blank CD where the .mp3 files are burned directly to the CD, with no conversion done whatsoever. The limiting factor in an MP3 CD is the size of the tracks. The files will take up the same amount of space on the CD as it does on your computer. Most CD's hold up to 700 MB, and you figure a typical MP3 file at 192kbps is about 5 MB, and you find now you can fit more at least 140 songs on there (more if you use a lower bitrate when ripping songs. Low bitrate = less filesize, but less quality, high bitrate = bigger filesize, but better quality)

If you want to make an MP3 CD, you can use software such as Nero or Roxio (which cost money, I can't think of any free alternatives yet), or you can probably just copy in Windows Explorer and use the built in CD Burn Wizard. I'm not sure, but I'm 90% certain that that would work (and it's free).

As for iPods and sound quality... iPods themselves don't have the best sound quality compared to other players (such as Creative's Zen series, the iRiver players, or the iAudio X5 and other Cowon players), but it also depends, as I said before, on the bitrate. If your friend had the songs at 128 kbps, they will sound just fine on regular headphones, but if you try to make it louder (through car speakers, or otherwise) the quality will drop drastically.

Anyway... a typical harddrive MP3 player will run anywhere from $200 to $350 for a good quality one (I prefer the iAudio X5L myself, it has a super long battery life and lots of features). You'd also need to buy an adapter (either a tape deck converter or an FM transmitter) which can cost anywhere from $10 to $60.

Getting the new CD Player for your car would probably cost $60 at least (plus installation if you don't do it yourself), and then you can get 100 CDs for about $20 to $30.

It would be cheaper to get a new CD Player for the car and the CD's than it would be to get an MP3 player, but of course then you're limited to listening to the music in your car. The MP3 player would be a better investment if you listen to music everywhere you go, not just in your car, or if you want more freedom with where you can listen to music.

Well that was a bit of information but I hope it makes sense to you, good luck with whatever purchase you decide to make!

Answer 2

not dumb at all. First to burn mp3 CD's you just need a burning program that will put together an mp3 CD. The newer versions of nero will do it www.nero.com. It's just like putting together an audio CD but you can add 100's of songs instead of 12 to 18. now with car stereo's, most car cd units all support MP3 and they are cheap these days. So that would be your best bet. cause even if you want to hook up ipod you would need to get a new stereo that supports an Ipod. Unless your old stereo has a 3.5 (headphone) jack input. Still an Ipod can sound fine in a car but you do need to be carefull with the amount of output you have going out of the Ipod. Tell your friend next time she hooks up her Ipod to turn the volume down on it and to set the EQ to Flat. Hope this helps.

Answer 3

It must have compressed by converting the file to smaller size.