Audio Quality

YouTube uses lossy compression, and a pretty low bitrate one. Not only that, but what the users often upload is already lossy, and YouTube converts that, so you're getting lossy compression on lossy files which makes things worse.

HD quality video uses a higher bitrate compression (720p and 1080p) so watch things in that.

The best way to get audio is to buy it. CDs and lossless downloads are better than stuff from Amazon and iTunes, too.

If an artist offers a free download and I take it, even if it's a low bitrate file it sounds noticeably better than a direct YouTube rip. And I'm usually skeptical of anyone who can tell the differences between bitrates. It's that bad.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Head Injury 

YouTube uses lossy compression, and a pretty low bitrate one. Not only that, but what the users often upload is already lossy, and YouTube converts that, so you're getting lossy compression on lossy files which makes things worse.

 

HD quality video uses a higher bitrate compression (720p and 1080p) so watch things in that.

 

The best way to get audio is to buy it. CDs and lossless downloads are better than stuff from Amazon and iTunes, too.

 

If an artist offers a free download and I take it, even if it's a low bitrate file it sounds noticeably better than a direct YouTube rip. And I'm usually skeptical of anyone who can tell the differences between bitrates. It's that bad.

When on YouTube, I always listen to music in 1080 and 720. 360 sounds really bad and 240 has this weird muffled sound to it. 24 Kbps? 

Quote:

Originally Posted by ExeQte 

Pretty sure that the video quality doesn't change the actual sound quality..

Having said that, below 360 pixels can sometimes deliver a damaged sound in a way.

Pretty sure it's encoded at a high bitrate for 720p and up. Many music artists recommend listeners use HD.

Here you go. 152 kbps probably won't make much or any audible difference over 128 kbps. The max bitrate you can get from youtube-to-mp3 and similar sites is 128 kbps, as far as I know.

It might be variable bitrate though. 152 kbps is pretty nonstandard.

youtube sound quality sucks,its sounds like the audio has been recorded in the toilet..

Quote:

Originally Posted by raymond555 

youtube sound quality sucks,its sounds like the audio has been recorded in the toilet..

Hahaha, yes. Totally agree with that statement. 

If youtube sounds bad, that's because the original uncompressed audio (that got uploaded) already sounds similarly bad. AAC-LC acheives MP3 quality at roughly half (to 70%) its bitrate. 152kbps AAC is at least as good as 192kbps MP3 files, conservatively speaking.

Yeah it's vbr and it averages at about 150kbps, spikes to about 200kbps or so for 720p and up.

Sounds pretty good as long as the original audio from the video was good, ie, not 128kbps.

If you listen to dubstep then you can just torrent the music. There are tons of good vinyl rips floating around. also most dubstep labels release a web version of their music in addition to the vinyl so this should be a non-issue.

Quote:

Originally Posted by kingpage 

If youtube sounds bad, that's because the original uncompressed audio (that got uploaded) already sounds similarly bad. AAC-LC acheives MP3 quality at roughly half (to 70%) its bitrate. 152kbps AAC is at least as good as 192kbps MP3 files, conservatively speaking.

Depending on the encoder I'd argue that AAC-LC is even better than that.  The latest Quicktime AAC encoder is transparent with --tvbr 60 --highest.  Settings that generate files that average ~128kbit/sec.  And this is coming from someone who previously successfully ABX's LAME V2 from the source several year ago in listening tests, but couldn't with V1.

Quote:

Originally Posted by kingpage 

If youtube sounds bad, that's because the original uncompressed audio (that got uploaded) already sounds similarly bad. AAC-LC acheives MP3 quality at roughly half (to 70%) its bitrate. 152kbps AAC is at least as good as 192kbps MP3 files, conservatively speaking.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stereodude 

Depending on the encoder I'd argue that AAC-LC is even better than that.  The latest Quicktime AAC encoder is transparent with --tvbr 60 --highest.  Settings that generate files that average ~128kbit/sec.  And this is coming from someone who previously successfully ABX's LAME V2 from the source several year ago in listening tests, but couldn't with V1.

The problem isn't the bitrate or perceived bitrate. The problem is converting a lossy file to a lossy file. That always results in nothing but additional quality loss. You can take a 128 kbps MP3 and convert it to a 320 kbps AAC, and it'll sound worse.

Basically, HD videos mean less loss and nothing more. Unless the uploaded audio was lossless to begin with. Most video files aren't going to use lossless audio codecs.