I am saying this as someone who happily buys and plays MP3 files, i tend to follwo a loose rule of music i really love i buy lossless, music thats trendy for a bit or say a bit more commercial ill just stick with MP3.
As you say though, probably best not to get embroiled in an audiophile debate, Reticuli will be along to give us war and peace any time now 
It was for comparison purposes, nothing moreā¦ im not here to project about what is or isnt better between analogue and digital, its just an interesting direct comparison to make.
The issue is that they donāt render stems for mono files, they have to be stereo, so it skips them.
Thanks for the suggestion but Iām only using stereo MP3s. I specifically checked some of the ones that stems isnāt working for and confirmed all are stereo.
I agree that such comparisons can be indeed very interesting. I posted that to point out why it can be tricky to draw conclusions when comparing vinyl with digital audio. It could be an option to record a vinyl to wav, and also convert it to mp3. That would eliminate a lot of variables for a fairer test.
That is why they skip, couple of things to try though. Are they really stereo? Have you tried playing the file and then swapping the balance to see each channel is playing a different (often modest) output? If the MP3 you have has been ripped from an original mono file, it wonāt make it stereo (a couple of my recent vinyl rips havenāt worked, but havenāt dug much further).
Also, have you gone back to the files and tried to individually stem them? Worth doing it after a full system reset, just to ensure everything is clean in the system. If that still doesnāt work, raise a bug report and send one of the files over to Denon.
Iām wondering what price people would have been prepared to payā¦ some clearly think everything should be free, but at the other end of the scale, Iām sure some people would have gone ahead with stems functionality even if the $10 price tag was several times that amount on models other than the Prine 4 Plus, which was destined to have the feature intrinsically.
I donāt look any Demo songs in this update!! why?
Thatās interesting. I just enabled the toggle to verify this on my Prime 4 and they are indeed not available. The manual still mentions it though (page 66) so I suppose it is not an intended change.
The files Iām using Iāve not ripped but are from my former CD Pool subscription or bought from legit sources (e.g. Amazon). Iāve checked sources for some that work vs some that donāt and thereās no pattern there (i.e. some from a given source work and some donāt).
I canāt spot any discernible difference in L vs R channels if Iām honest, but that goes for the ones that do work as well! Unless itās really obvious (such as that part at the start of CRWās āI feel loveā where thereās a cool panning between L & R in the intro) it probably gets past my ears which have suffered over 32 years of DJing!
Iāve tried both individually dragging/dropping and via right click without luck. Iāve restarted Engine, Iāve rebooted the laptop several times, and no luck. Iāll likely try the bug report route then and see what comes back.
Canāt think what the issue would be. I loaded a playlist of 251 video files (mp4) and they all scanned first time with no issues at all. Obviously I canāt check them for playback as the Prime Go+ isnāt supported but the stems all seem to be scanned and present.
A few good sources for checking files:
Windows: https://mp3val.sourceforge.net/
Mac: triq.net - MP3 Scan + Repair App
Thereās a few more too like the one suggested above. These will look for any issues and repair them, preserving the date etc.
Thats quite beyond my point, But if you played on a load club or venue system, you can always notice some nuisances in the audio even from a 320bit mp3.
I can vouch for that, and its more about the original audio file bit rate, ie 32-24-16 + sample rates. This is more in how software analysisās the files and then separates them into stems. The more bits and sample rate, the more detail in the audio.
Its fine to have fun with it and indeed I use 320bit Mp3ās on occasion, when I donāt have the high quality Wav 24bit 44.4 or Aiff equivalent, its ok and the sound passes quickly you probably wouldnāt beable to tell. But if i play a HQ file ad the same mp3 if the same track in a mix, you can hear the difference in clarity and various frequencies. is a fact.
Remember why mp3ās where invented? (not having a go, by the way,).
Was for the dial-up generation and portability of music played normally into ones ears via headphones, For gigs DJā (not playing vinyl) used cdās Mp3ās are good for small storage space and quick file transfer back in the day.
But this is 2024, lightning fast transfers, and Large storage space.
So no need to use mp3ās at all anymore,
Actually I only used mp3ās for my old ipod lol 
however for a good sound m, clean and punching in all frequencies is what I like, also coming from a Sound engineering and post production perspective.
A good mp3 file can actually sound very transparent. It will definitely wonāt be always noticeable. If anything, that would be pretty rare. On stage, differences are harder to tell than in a well treated room with decent speakers by the way.
I still prefer FLAC myself, because multiple stages of processing can eventually lead to artifacts. For instance, recording a podcast with mp3 files as a source, then uploading it on a platform that transcodes the audio, while the end listener uses a blutooth connection.
It is also an incorrect assumption that higher bitrates or samplerates will always lead to better results. 44.1kHz is enough for audio reproduction, it can reproduce frequencies up to 22.05kHz. 16 bit means a dynamic range of 96dB. A silent room can be maybe 30dB SPL. That means the loudest parts of the audio will be 126dB SPL in that example to exceed that range, which is not at all a comfortable level to listen at and will inevitable lead to hearing damage.
I highly recommend you to check this video, it explains it in a very clear way with concrete examples.
We shouldnāt expect Algoriddim or Virtual DJ quality stems on Prime if it canāt even do regular stuff great. Theyāve gone the low processing overhead route to give features over sound quality on these budget systems on chip solutions inside. Fun to use, but itās entertainment purposes stuff, not audiophile playback.
That reminds meā¦ I need to check drive sharing on 4.2.0. Iāve only tried out streaming and one drive per player, both went without a problem. Hopefully the drive sharing is faster and less glitchy, too.
Have I already mentioned in this thread I really hate the interface changes after 3.4.0? Iām sure the all-in-one console folks still love it, but really lousy for my SC5000s & SC5000Ms. Need a legacy interface mode or something.
Thanksā¦I ran 5 sample MP3s that wonāt work with stems through MP3Val and all came back with result āOKā.
Certainly can be. Lossless on Prime generally sounds closer to MP3 on old Pioneer, old Denon, and Gemini MDJs, and is probably even inferior to ADJs if youāre comparing keylock off. Measurements back it up. YMMV depending on how much is going on in your music, as some sparsely mixed and very clean-sounding tunes donāt seem that noticeably affected. Threshold phenomena? On the plus side, thereās not much point on Prime to not doing crazy keylock stuff unless you happen to be able to just turn keylock off completely, in which case the sound quality improves slightly. Also, if MP3s on other gear or your computer is good enough for you, then just sticking to lossless on Prime should also sound nice enough for everything you play. So, thereās a route to your bliss. Considering thereās stems play on the pads; Iām hoping key play on pads is coming.
Here I am again:
Do you use or have you used Lexicon on your database?
