[steviebee]

When I use 320 LAME in DBPA, yes it's CBR.

 

[Steve999]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Clincher09 /img/forum/go_quote.gif Ok, well I really don't have a specialized music setup, just a nice DAP and nice headphones, and I have lame but I don't know if WMP uses that to rip music. Basically would it just be a waste of my time to re-rip all of my CDs to 320 to maybe hear a subtle difference?

You're asking the right question now. Only you can answer it. You made a good choice to rip at 192 kbps to begin with. If you have some super-favorite recordings you could re-do them at a higher bitrate just as part of the hobby, but if you have a ton of recordings I personally wouldn't spend a lot of time on it, but it's a value judgment really, your call. I ripped a lot of stuff between 160 and 220 kbps, and it all sounds great. I used lame, itunes, some old thing called music match jukebox, etc. With the way prices on hard disk space have gone down, if I were doing it today, I'd rip a little higher, but I did most of it 4 or 5 or 6 years ago, and it sounds fine to me. 160 kbps is generally transparent for most people for most music. Based on what you're saying, since you haven't worried yourself over learning what artificacts sound like, on the off-chance you are one of the statistical few who could hear the difference, the chances that the actual difference between 192 kbps wma and 320 kbps lame mp3 would be concerning to you are relatively low.

This large double-blind test, for example, suggests that of 8 codecs tested at 192 kbps, all were transparent (indistinguishable) from the original samples:

Audio quality of encoders at 192 kbit/s - SoundExpert

In that test, 5 or above means transparent (inaudbile artificats). They use a controversial methodology to exaggerate differences that would otherwise be inaudible. But you get the idea, I think. Notice that wma at 192 kbps did quite well. Notice the big difference between wma at 160 kbps (not transparent but very good) and wma at 192 kbps (transparent).

Here's an enlightening thread from hydrogenaudio.org from a distressed person who discovered he could not tell the difference between lame 160 kbps and lossless on double-blind testing:

Help with listening tests - Hydrogenaudio Forums

As you can read, he is hardly alone. The watchword is indeed "subtle." The contributors to that thread know their stuff.

So, would I re-rip after having spent time on encoding in 192 kbps wma? Nope. If it were 128 kbps? Probably I would re-rip. But the ground between 128 kbps and 192 kbps is pretty substantial. At hydrogen they won't set up big tests above 128 kbps anymore because encoders have improved so much that now too few people can tell the difference so the tests are too difficult to administer. Can some small percentage of people tell the difference? Absolutely.

There are such things as what they call killer samples, which are snippets of challenging recordings, that result in tripping up encoders so you can hear differences, but these are fleeting instances and rarely occur in normal music, and would even more rarely be ascertained by a normal person.

 

[eightbitpotion]

I see a continuing trend among hi-fi enthusiasts- they keep trying blind-tests. I agree that blind-tests are the science of percentage, but ultimately I think of it as this: If the higher-quality can be grasped, why settle for less? I'd rather have too much quality and not need it than needing it and not having it. Also this dumb crap about how it sounds better through certain SOFTWARE players and different OSes is simply ignorance- if it's digital...It's either 0 or 1...aka it either works or it doesn't (that's how digital works), however I currently switched to foobar because of the crossfeed plugin and upconverter etc... If you're comparing it to 'portable players' then you're REALLY just comparing the DACs...not the operating system or media player. If I switched from a soundblaster live to a emu 1212...there would be a difference.

On a side-note, just because you can't 'hear' the difference doesn't mean that it doesn't affect your perception of the sound. Naturally I cannot tell you when the 40k kicks in, but does it change how you perceive a high-pitched instrumental sound? I think it really just comes down to two things- 1. if it doesn't bother you, why worry? and/OR 2. if you can rip higher than needed..... why not?

My two cents.

 

[paaj]

Quote:

Originally Posted by eightbitpotion /img/forum/go_quote.gif If the higher-quality can be grasped, why settle for less? I'd rather have too much quality and not need it than needing it and not having it.

x2
no point to intentionally degrade your music (hearable or not) in this hobby of ours...

 

[Publius]

I think this issue is a lot less clear cut than most people want to accept.

For some music containing problem samples, it is well-agreed that all (or almost all) listeners will be able to tell the difference between 320kbps and lossless. In that situation, there very well may be an audible difference between 192kbps and 320kbps, although neither one may be transparent.

At the other extreme, for very run-of-the-mill signals, something as low as 128kbps may provide adequate transparency.

What's important to take from this is that there are very few samples that have much of an audible difference between -V2 and 320, so you're really buying yourself much less of a margin of safety than you may realize.

 

[Sotiris]

try to listen a 192kbps song at high volume.u will listen a lot of distortion!if u listen the same song at 320kbps there will much difference independent the quality of the speakers

 

[ezzieyguywuf]

Sure, if you blast your music you will hear some distortion at a lower bitrate, but who blasts their music all the time? If you want to continue hearing that distortion, you'll want to save your hearing, and you do this by listening to your music at reasonable levels. When you go ahead and put your music back to a reasonable level, more than likely you will no longer hear the distortion.

I'm not saying theres no difference: the other day I did some quick tests between FLAC and ogg q6 on my Cowon D2 through my Livewires and was able to tell the two track apart every time. That being the case, the difference to me is only noticeable when I am exclusively music listening: i.e. when I'm listening to my music at work (which if a lot of the time, actually) or between classes, the difference in audio quality is negligible. Therefore, I decided that for portable usage, a sligh loss in audio quality is preferable in order to save space and carry more music. I must add, though, that I recently purchased an external HDD and re-ripped my entire music collection to FLAC, so that when I am "stationary" listening to my music, I can hear it uncompressed. Of course, now I need to invest in a quality DAC, but thats a diff story...

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oh gawd, headfi, what happened to my wallet?!?!

 

[Clincher09]

Ok, so I'll probably rip the cds I haven't yet in lossless. Is windows lossless any good and does it work on the samsung p2?

 

[chinesekiwi]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Clincher09 /img/forum/go_quote.gif Ok, so I'll probably rip the cds I haven't yet in lossless. Is windows lossless any good and does it work on the samsung p2?

Quote:

Supported audio: MP3, WMA, WMA-DRM, AAC (via firmware update)

No it doesn't support lossless.
Can't Rockbox it either :/

In terms of 192 v 320 mp3, yes there is a difference, partculiarly with complex music.

 

[Sotiris]

when we are talking about capacities of 16G and 32G i dont think that we should worry to encode in 192 in order to gain storage.

 

[ezzieyguywuf]

well, really it depends on the extent of your music collection, and how much of it you like to carry. I like taking all my music with me, and when encoded @ q6 ogg it just barely fits on my 8gb cowon D2 + 16gb SDHC = 24 GB storage. I have about 1.5 gigs left for additional music. So, in my case, storage space does matter.

 

[scompton]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sotiris /img/forum/go_quote.gif when we are talking about capacities of 16G and 32G i dont think that we should worry to encode in 192 in order to gain storage.

You must have a small music library. I never do critical listening with my iPod so I have 128kbps VBR AAC on it. I can fit 1/3 of my library on my 80 GB iPod. I hate having to decide what to delete every time I buy a new CD.

Even if I did do critical listening on my iPod, I'd still use 128kbps since I've never heard the difference between it and lossless.

 

[immtbiker]

But...remmeber that we were also talking about "storage". And 500Gig HD's have come down to $100. With prices this low, it is worth it to store all of your music (or most anyway), in flac or alac, so that it can be re-ripped to wav at anytime to be brought back onto CD's when needed.

 

[Clincher09]

Yeah, I only have maybe 2 gigs of music in my library. I'm sure alot of you think that's crazy, but I don't see the need to carry 80 gigs around with me every day.

 

[nsjong]

I just usually rip it at 256, the middle point. That way, instead of deciding whether you can hear the diff. or not, you can have the comfort of being in between for safety of sound quality.
(and the fact that my panasonic player is dumb and only accepts below 320)