Poll: MP3 Compression Bit Rate?

[R3MF]

Originally posted by: d2arcturus
VBR

Hope everyone uses EAC and LAME, cause if you dont! :shakesfist;

exactly what i use.

192 VBR with Exact Audio Copy using LAME as the back-end for re-encoding.

 

[Dubb]

Originally posted by: DaveSimmons

Originally posted by: Dubb

Originally posted by: DaveSimmons
Lossless FLAC format on my music server.

Since it's lossless I can transcode to any MP3 bitrate I want for a portable, and change my mind as often as I like without any lossy-to-lossy encoding quality drop.

For my Zen Xtra portable I transcoded the FLAC to 192 kbps average VBR (LAME -aps -extreme) using dbPowerAmp's mass conversion tool.

Winnar. I use q7 vorbis though, there are many other codecs than do much better than MP3 for the same filesize.

edit: on the same note, my flac 750GB raid 5 array just passed 550 GB used :shocked:

:thumbsup: I've ripped almost all of my CDs (roughly 1,000 so far) but that only took aroung 300 GB for the FLACs and another 100 GB for the MP3 copies.

I use human-powered mirroring so I have another set of drives in the closet with a second copy of the files. That seemed a little safer in case of something like a power supply explosion.

I've got all my albums done, and about half of my live/rare material on there. another 400 discs or so of live stuff (I go through it as I rip and thin out the stuff I don't want anymore) and I'll be done.

I went with Raid 5 because I wanted it all on one drive I'll probably do a full mirror in a year or so when 500 GB drives are $100 AR.

 

[imported_burningrave101]

I prefer 192K but as long as its better then 128K i'm usually happy because i'm not really an audiophile. I usually dont bother downloading MP3's higher then 192K because they just take up more hard drive space and take me longer to download on dial-up and i can't really tell the difference.

 

[albumleaf]

Anything below 192kbps sounds like sh!!t. I can't believe people can't hear the difference.

 

[Hacp]

Yawn...160 with VBR sounds pretty good IMO.

 

[Crescent13]

Originally posted by: FeuerFrei
I go for maximum bit rate. Quality is most important. I'm in no danger of filling my 20 gig mp3 player, so file size be damned!!

If you want max quality, then why are you still messing around with MP3's? I hate MP3's, so I go apple lossless all the way on my little 4 gig iPod.

 

[Elcs]

Originally posted by: pillage2001
320Kbps......Have too much space in the hdd anyway.

My reason for using 320kbps is its the highest bit rate setting I can get in MP3 format and even though the difference is minimal between 192 and 320, I have the space to use 320 even on my MP3 player.

Been looking at VBR though. Just ripped my entire collection using MusicMatch @ 100% VBR. Shaved around 20% off the size of 320kbps Id estimate.

 

[FeuerFrei]

Originally posted by: Crescent13

Originally posted by: FeuerFrei
I go for maximum bit rate. Quality is most important. I'm in no danger of filling my 20 gig mp3 player, so file size be damned!!

If you want max quality, then why are you still messing around with MP3's? I hate MP3's, so I go apple lossless all the way on my little 4 gig iPod.

I'm still messing around w/ mp3s because that's the format I download songs in. As far as encoding goes, you're right, if I need maximum quality a lossless format is obviously superior.

Frankly there is little difference between CD quality and 320kbps mp3. CDs have more midrange frequencies IMO, but as I said in the last sentence I have a difficult time noticing a difference. I've even played a cd and mp3 version of the same track simultaneously for comparison. It's kind of fun when you get the echo effect going, btw.

I'm ready for multichannel digital file formats. Anyone got recommendations??

 

[0roo0roo]

highest vbr setting. i can't tell at 192 so ~256vbr i'm happy

 

[Oyeve]

Originally posted by: albumleaf
Anything below 192kbps sounds like sh!!t. I can't believe people can't hear the difference.

I hear ya (no pun). I hear a HUGE difference from 128 to 192. I have overly sensitive ears even tho I am almost 40. I am one of those who can hear sheet music being flipped over in classical music. Its annoying that I can hear so damn well. Its a distraction especially when I hear flaws in music, like "Don't stand so close to me", several seconds into the song I can hear when Andy Summers turns on the guitar amp. I hear it on the original vinly from 1979, I hear it on the first cd pressing and even tho they tried to cover it up on the remastered version of Zenyatta Mondatta I still hear it! ARG! Sometimes if its a great song in all aspects, such as great production, minor flaws etc...I rip a clean WAV and pop that in my ipod. I have over 10,000 cds and vinlys that there is no portable device (yet) that will take all my music. That is why I have over a terabyte of storage on my main computer (even that is not enough). Most of the stuff on my PC is music I ripped from CDs and vinly. I am going to add 2 500gb HDs very soon. Maybe 2 terabytes will hold all my music. I have been converting my vinly records to MP3s for years. Its been an on-going project of mine as I have so many obscure vinlys and remixes that will never see the light of day on CD. Plus, I had to redo so many MP3s as the LAME codec just keeps getting better. Keeps me busy.

 

[klah]

Originally posted by: Goi

Originally posted by: klah
LAME -> alt.preset.standard

same, but I use extreme

I use extreme for jazz/classical.

 

[svi]

Anything below 192kbps sounds like sh!!t. I can't believe people can't hear the difference.

Same. Even when I didn't have decent audio equipment I could hear a difference, and I made an effort to download high-bitrate stuff on DIALUP. Downloading 128kbps on broadband is just disgusting.

Why rip twice? FB2K and Winamp can both do transcoding easily and effectively.

Because transcoding audibly reduces quality. If I didn't mind the lossy->lossy transition, I wouldn't encode at such high bitrates to begin with.

I'm ready for multichannel digital file formats. Anyone got recommendations??

You mean >stereo? I wouldn't worry about it too much. Surround sound audio (actual surround sound audio, like DVD-A and such, not stereo audio being upmixed) is rare and just not that worth it. It's not that exciting to hear a clarinet or acid beat or whatever coming from exactly 7 o'clock. Distracting, really, which is probably why people don't bother with binaural music recordings.

 

[Jeff7]

Had used 320kbps MP3, but then I discovered FLAC, so I re-ripped my CDs to that.

For my laptop, which has less hard drive space, I use 160kbps.


Also, since FLAC has native ReplayGain support, the remaining MP3 files (albums I can no longer find) were either really loud or really quiet. So, I researched ReplayGain a bit. Fortunately, someone wrote MP3Gain, which adds a little bit of info to the ID3V2 tag, just a decibel level. A properly equipped player (I still use Winamp) sees this, and automatically adjusts the output level. Quite nice, so you can leave the volume slider alone throughout multiple albums.

 

[Cerb]

Originally posted by: svi

Anything below 192kbps sounds like sh!!t. I can't believe people can't hear the difference.

Same. Even when I didn't have decent audio equipment I could hear a difference, and I made an effort to download high-bitrate stuff on DIALUP. Downloading 128kbps on broadband is just disgusting.

Why rip twice? FB2K and Winamp can both do transcoding easily and effectively.

Because transcoding audibly reduces quality. If I didn't mind the lossy->lossy transition, I wouldn't encode at such high bitrates to begin with.

No, transcoding does not reduce quality. FLAC is lossless. If you rip and encode to FLAC, then transcode to Ogg q8, you have the same result as if you encoded it to Ogg q8 when you did the CD ripping. That's why FLAC rocks, see. You need extra steps to make a CDDB-able copy, but you'll never again need to rip the CD for any listening or tagging purposes.

 

[Cerb]

Originally posted by: Jeff7Also, since FLAC has native ReplayGain support, the remaining MP3 files (albums I can no longer find) were either really loud or really quiet. So, I researched ReplayGain a bit. Fortunately, someone wrote MP3Gain, which adds a little bit of info to the ID3V2 tag, just a decibel level. A properly equipped player (I still use Winamp) sees this, and automatically adjusts the output level. Quite nice, so you can leave the volume slider alone throughout multiple albums.

Actually, MP3Gain adjusts the audio itself (but it is lossless). You end up with a MP3 file that is RGed, but has the necessary info to turned back into the original with no loss.

 

[EglsFly]

Well, I had been using 128K CBR for a compromise between quality and space. I had chosen this because I use MP3 for my car audio player (Alpine CDA-9847) with 700MB CDR discs, and my portable MP3 Player (512MB Creative MuVo N200).

After reading everbody's responses, I am thinking perhaps I should rip to VBR instead?
Although I am not sure if the MuVo supports it?
I use EAC with LAME, I noticed that EAC has different options for VBR.
Such as VBR 128K, VBR 160K, etc...
How do these differ if its variable anyways?

 

[svi]

No, transcoding does not reduce quality. FLAC is lossless. If you rip and encode to FLAC, then transcode to Ogg q8, you have the same result as if you encoded it to Ogg q8 when you did the CD ripping. That's why FLAC rocks, see. You need extra steps to make a CDDB-able copy, but you'll never again need to rip the CD for any listening or tagging purposes.

When did I say I bothered to rip to FLAC most of the time? Never. You see, if I say I rip to Ogg Vorbis and mp3, and you say that I should try transcoding.. well, I'm sure you can figure out the rest.

And why don't I rip to this oh-so-wonderful lossless format? Well, see, I have no real interest in wasting a few extra minutes ripping to FLAC and then transcoding to both mp3 and Ogg Vorbis for everything I own. I have a lot more music than I do HDD space, so just using FLAC instead of Ogg is simply not an option. As for the "not having to touch the CD again" thing, with VERY few exceptions (all of which I keep in FLAC and mp3 format instead of Ogg and mp3 format, as I stated in the post you failed to fully read), Ogg Vorbis and LAME mp3 cover every case I need.

 

[KoolDrew]

Originally posted by: d2arcturus
VBR

Hope everyone uses EAC and LAME, cause if you dont! :shakesfist;

:thumbsup:

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: Cerb

Originally posted by: Jeff7Also, since FLAC has native ReplayGain support, the remaining MP3 files (albums I can no longer find) were either really loud or really quiet. So, I researched ReplayGain a bit. Fortunately, someone wrote MP3Gain, which adds a little bit of info to the ID3V2 tag, just a decibel level. A properly equipped player (I still use Winamp) sees this, and automatically adjusts the output level. Quite nice, so you can leave the volume slider alone throughout multiple albums.

Actually, MP3Gain adjusts the audio itself (but it is lossless). You end up with a MP3 file that is RGed, but has the necessary info to turned back into the original with no loss.

Interesting; I guess I misread the writeup of Replaygain. I thought it stored just a bit of information in the ID3V2 tags, sort of like a +/- dB indicator. Interesting that it can adjust volume without quality loss.
Either way, nifty stuff. Replaygain is definitely nice - many of my older CDs are very quiet, so you turn up the volume to hear them, and are then blasted by new discs recorded at high volume.

 

[Nek802]

is there a guide explaining and comparing all these different types of music files from LAME, EAC, FLAC and all the other stuff?

cause all I know is MP3 and wma files...

BTW I use 192kbs mp3

 

[BFG10K]

Lossless WMA with VBR.

 

[0roo0roo]

Originally posted by: EglsFly
Well, I had been using 128K CBR for a compromise between quality and space. I had chosen this because I use MP3 for my car audio player (Alpine CDA-9847) with 700MB CDR discs, and my portable MP3 Player (512MB Creative MuVo N200).

After reading everbody's responses, I am thinking perhaps I should rip to VBR instead?
Although I am not sure if the MuVo supports it?
I use EAC with LAME, I noticed that EAC has different options for VBR.
Such as VBR 128K, VBR 160K, etc...
How do these differ if its variable anyways?

muvo supports vbr. any player worth buying supports vbr and higher bitrates. as for how they differ, the stated bitrate is the average it tries to achieve. thats how it differs. here are the presets http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=28124
http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/1912fine tuned settings that simplify choices. i waver between extreme and insane..depending whether the music deserves the space.

 

[Cerb]

Originally posted by: Jeff7

Originally posted by: Cerb

Originally posted by: Jeff7Also, since FLAC has native ReplayGain support, the remaining MP3 files (albums I can no longer find) were either really loud or really quiet. So, I researched ReplayGain a bit. Fortunately, someone wrote MP3Gain, which adds a little bit of info to the ID3V2 tag, just a decibel level. A properly equipped player (I still use Winamp) sees this, and automatically adjusts the output level. Quite nice, so you can leave the volume slider alone throughout multiple albums.

Actually, MP3Gain adjusts the audio itself (but it is lossless). You end up with a MP3 file that is RGed, but has the necessary info to turned back into the original with no loss.

Interesting; I guess I misread the writeup of Replaygain. I thought it stored just a bit of information in the ID3V2 tags, sort of like a +/- dB indicator. Interesting that it can adjust volume without quality loss.
Either way, nifty stuff. Replaygain is definitely nice - many of my older CDs are very quiet, so you turn up the volume to hear them, and are then blasted by new discs recorded at high volume.

No, not misreading the RG stuff, but the MP3Gain stuff. From the MP3Gain main page:

There is no quality lost in the change because the program adjusts the mp3 file directly, without decoding and re-encoding.

Tags, from FAQ:
Store analysis and undo information inside the mp3 itself.

Requiring a player that can do RG for it to do its job would be pointless--those exist (Winamp with certain plugins, and FB2K, if not others). MP3Gain adjusts the MP3 to be like a properly normalized file using ReplayGain, and then offers the info to turn it back into the original. Kind of amazing that it can actually work, IMO.

 

[BOLt]

Originally posted by: DaveSimmons

Originally posted by: Bona Fide
I use 320kbps for all mp3's I get from online or wherever, but I've started to use Apple's Lossless Format for CD's. It sounds so crisp and it's as close to real as you can get. I'm thinking of converting my mp3's to AAF but idk if it'll work.

LOL, no. "Upconverting" can't magically restore information that has already been thrown away.

It doesn't work for camera images like they do on TV either. ("Can you enhance the detail on that license plate?" "Sure" (presses the magic add detail button))

Laff. Yeah, when I read his post there were alarm bells ringing in my head too.

I use 192Kbps, but I have so much music (and the collection is constantly growing thanks to BitComet for albums and LimeWire Pro for singles) that I might need to drop down the quality or buy a new HDD. I'm a poor college student, though, so I think it'll be the former option. :-\

 

[Sunner]

Originally posted by: ArtVandalay
ogg-vorbis at setting 6, which is equivalent in size to 192kb mp3, but sounds better.

Same.