Yes, I have...it SOUNDS like you and I are on the same NOTE...from what I have heard, these mp3 little toys just don't have the quality...I'm sure there are some machines that do. But I haven't heard them,you know what? I still prefer the sound of a record album played on my turntable,{Dual,with Moving Coil cartridge stylus} to cds! The digital age is awesome, but somethings are still better in analog.For live,bootleg recording, you can't beat the DAT recorders...I'm not impressed with the"compressed" high volume music files, I'm old school, GIVE ME QUALITY OR GIVE ME DEATH!...s-dog
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MP3 probably approaches true CD quality at 240 to 320 kbps encoding, but then, owing to the large file sizes at this level of encoding, you're better off with audio CDs.
People are working on it, though. I mentioned the compression codec called Ogg Vorbis which a lot of folks are excited about, supposedly you can get the fidelity of 192, 224, 256 bit rate MP3s at much lower bit rates (i.e., smaller files) with Ogg. The problem is, only a few machines support it right now because it takes more battery power to run it, and a selling point with a lot of folks who buy digital audio players is how long the battery will hold a charge.
Also, I've heard some rumblings through the grapevine, take it for what it's worth, that on official release CDs, the record companies are (a.) already compressing the files a lot more than they used to and (b.) are planning at some point down the road to outright go to MP3s.