Well, I have a
little authority in this area (2 classes shy of BS in recording (pun intended)). I'm having trouble telling which of those graphs pertains to which file. I'm assuming the bottom is the older form of mp3 compression. You'll note that it appears that there is a band-stop filter on that file at just above 15kHz. The whole 10kHz-20kHz is the top octave of human hearing according to text books. Realisticly, I only know a few people who can really hear 20kHz. (I can, but it has to be pretty quiet). That horrible noise your tv makes is in the neighboorhood of 15-16k. This octave provides definitoin and "sparkle" to the music you hear. That's why mp3's often sound "dull" There is an obvious improvment in the new format (again assuming I'm reading the graphs right), but still, there is a noticable difference. Until I get a chance to listen to some of them in some Grados
I'm going to reserve judgement.
As to the service itself, I'm excited. I've been watching for about three years to see who was going to bring a new business model to the industry on this kind of scale. I think that it will be a great thing.