Rachael, I wasn't being condescending.

Mac, that's all she referenced, streaming Pandora. Pandora's site says consumer stuff only receives it at 128K. At that bitrate, you don't need a good spec amp. How many times have we including you, suggested to people if you want good answers provide complete info in your questions? I've read her posts before, she knows the difference between mixing good audio in a home studio and streaming MP3's. If she's only talking about one and not the other so?? Sorry Rachael, I'm not deliberately talking past you here, this is for Mac. And how many times Mac have you said if on a budget pick up a good name 70-80's era stereo receiver at a yard sale? Or Goodwill like Scott said. Even a 2000 era cheapo Panasonic/Awia/Sony low end consumer home theater receiver is fine for this. And if a person can't hear the difference between an uncompressed wav file and an MP3 anyway then you still don't need a high spec amp do you? Therefore, my answer was complete, correct and not condescending. Just the facts, ma'am.

This brings up another point that we all should consider when thinking about new equipment. There's ear testing websites and we already have home studio setups. Test ourselves if we really can hear these differences or not. I admit I can some of the time. Other times not so much. It mainly depends on the freq range in the source material. Higher freq's are what starts to break up in compressed files and higher freq's are what older folks start to lose first. I can hear cymbals breaking up on some MP3's but mainly on small group stuff like trios where the drums are hot. But, on bigger band higher engergy stuff like traditional big band or TOP things, it's pretty hard to really hear that. For me it's becomming marginal as to whether it's worth it or not. I've been using an Alesis RA100 amp for years and I'm pretty sure that's as good as I will ever need for this stuff at home. You can buy one of those for $100 used all day long now. When I mix stuff after I get it to where I think it should be I deliberately boost the higher freq's above 9K a few db to allow for people with better hearing because my own hearing rolls off about there. I'll never know if that is appropriate or not but I think it is.

Bob

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