Sound quality - 192KBPS and less

[nick_charles]

Originally Posted by Logistics

I can hear differences between 320kb VBR MP3's and WAV's.

320K VBR is not possible is it ? - V0 - the highest quality VBR centers around 245k, the only eay to get 320K is with CBR as far as I know.

As for telling the difference between 320K and WAV, that would make you extremely rare indeed. Did you test this with blind testing ?

[Nocturnal310]

You gotta try 320 kbps ..u ll never go back. (in lossy world of music)

[pez]

I can tell the difference sometimes between 192 and 256, but I can't tell the difference between 256, 320, and lossless. Even through either pair of my speakers, I can't tell the difference, but I still encode in 320 cbr mp3. If anything I would probably recommend a VBR format, such as mentioned by nick charles.

[richardu]

No one has mentioned that it also depends on your player. With WAV it is a simple digital feed to a DAC. With lossy encoding the player must produce the sound based on the digital stream (shaped noise etc.). I suspect that many of the differences people hear at higher bit rates may be due to how well the player is recreating the sound as it is on the encoding. At the end of the day the old advice still holds. Start with a low bit rate encoding, and keep increasing the bit rate until you cannot hear a difference.

[bigshot]

Originally Posted by future_jack

Hi,
Just wondering if there is much difference between 192 and up. I notice that I can hear the sound quality reduced at anything under 192 but not over. Is everybody the same or would you notice it more on a more high end setup?

It has less to do with the quality of the playback equipment, than it does the type of music being encoded and the encoder. Certain types of music, particularly complex massed strings, are difficult to encode at lower rates. I find that 192 AAC VBR is perfect for the types of music I listen to.

See ya
Steve

[Eric M]

Hard drive space is so cheap, I don't see any reason to not to use FLAC/AAL. Who cares if you can't hear the difference, it's comforting to know all the bits are there.

[bigshot]

No one is saying that music shouldn't be archived as a lossless file. It's always good to maintain a lossless backup of CDs you don't have handy any more. But for loading onto iPods for listening, 192 (and above) AAC is MUCH more efficient and works a LOT better than lossless.

As for the "peace of mind" one gets from "hearing" all the bits... well, if one can't hear it, one's ears don't care one way or the other. The only part of a person that cares is his OCD.

See ya
Steve

[Nihility]

when it comes down to 10,000 songs - i cant use lossless, i gotta use 320 kb/s AAC in order to fit it on my zune (80 gig), until they rate port players in TB's, ill be sticking to 320 kb/s

[Logistics]

Originally Posted by nick_charles

320K VBR is not possible is it ? - V0 - the highest quality VBR centers around 245k, the only eay to get 320K is with CBR as far as I know.

As for telling the difference between 320K and WAV, that would make you extremely rare indeed. Did you test this with blind testing ?

Hmm, I don't have any of my music encoded this way, anymore so now you have me wondering. In any case, I don't think I am rare at all. It's all based around circumstances. I was using an SbLive! with kX Project drivers plus ASIO or Kernel Streaming, depending on what I was working on at the time, and I had replaced the decoupling caps with films. Before the films, differences were not so discernable. When I don't use Kernel Streaming or ASIO I don't believe I was able to discern differences well at all. Now that my SbLive! has died from too much modding, I'm stuck with my on-board sound. I'll go take a ripped WAV and encode it the way I used to and let you know what I hear using Kernel Streaming in Winamp.

When I use Kernel Streaming on a ripped WAV vs no Kernel Streaming, the differences end up being sounds that you suddenly notice are there, thing which were no as pronounced before, and you go, "Oh, I don't remember that; kewl!"

Be right back!

Edit: Okay, this is the string I used in LAME 3.97: lame.exe -b 320 -F -k -m s --noath --priority 4 -q 0 -t -V 0

I don't know if this forces the MP3 to be 320 CBR or what, but with my on-board sound, I really don't hear a difference. It seemed like some details jumped out at me in the WAV that I had to listen for the next time around in the MP3, but it's so close... eh! And it's 29MB vs 6MB. I still don't really care and will continue to use WAV's since I'm nowhere near filling up even my modest 80GB drive, but I'll keep this in mind for other systems.

[Febs]

Originally Posted by Logistics

Edit: Okay, this is the string I used in LAME 3.97: lame.exe -b 320 -F -k -m s --noath --priority 4 -q 0 -t -V 0

Why on earth would you use some of those switches? For example, why would you use both -V 0 (which tells LAME to use use a variable bitrate) and then also use the - b 320 switch (which tells LAME to use a minimum bitrate of 320 kbps). If the lower bitrate is constrained at 320kbps, which is also the maximum bitrate, then the -V 0 preset cannot do its job.

Try this setting instead:

lame.exe -V 0

Originally Posted by Logistics

I'll go take a ripped WAV and encode it the way I used to and let you know what I hear using Kernel Streaming in Winamp.

I would be much more interested in seeing ABX test results that show that you can hear a difference in the first place.