I'm curious as to what people would think on this issue. Ok, say I'm driving home from work and I hear a new tune on the radio and it just sounds fantastic. It has a tight bass, punch, air, you can hear all of the parts. It's just an all around great mix. So later I set down later in my studio to mix one of my tunes. Do you think it would be acceptable to buy an MP3 of the radio tune over the internet and load it into Sonar to A/B my own song against? Or should I just go buy the CD and rip it as a WAV as this will be the best quality. Best case is to rip the CD I believe, but would the MP3 be good enough? (considering dynamics, frequency response, field of depth, etc..)

For the most psrt, yes. MP3s do mess with the EQ and dynamics, but not to the extent that they'd be unusable as references.

MP3's at higher bitrates are great for references.

I use them a lot, but a Wave version is always closer to the original mix before conversion.
 
That being said, I have been able to use them as a reference and had great results on tracks I mixed and mastered.
 
Lance

CJaysMusic
MP3's at higher bitrates are great for references.

Thank you all for your replies.
 
What do you find the lower rates degrade from the mix quality? They are good enough copies that people can be put into prison if they get caught putting them out for download (Napster). 

Most mp3's are pretty high quality these days.
 
The higher the bit rate, like 320, the less gets cut out of the frequencies on the high and low end.
 
Lance