paulr
New Head-Fier
- Joined
- Sep 8, 2008
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I wouldn't suggest mp3 as an archiving format regardless of bit rate. It doesn't matter if there's no audible difference from the original, since there can still be differences that may come out after (say) conversion to some other format. In other words even if wav and 320 sound identical, wav->128 may give a better 128 result than 320->wav->128. So I would do all my archiving with flac which is around 750 kbps. As the other poster says, hard drive space is dirt cheap these days. For listening on a portable, 128 kbps mp3 has been good enough for me most of the time, even if I can tell the difference from wav if I listen carefully. I have limited space on my current portable (4gb flash) so I usually put 128's on it, but keep the flac's on my computer.