[SONGsanmanwah]

What 320CBR surely has over V0 is greater detailed silence

 

[parrot5]

I can tell the difference between 320kbps and lossless in the ABX test, BUT ONLY on complicated sections where strings and/or cymbals are involved. The difference (that I can hear) is in the airy-ness. (So "greater detailed silence" from SONGsanmanwah is almost right

) The 320kbps losses the airy-ness in the string solos, and cymbals sound "muted" ("mute" as in used in musical instruments).

It is indeed hard enough to distinguish them even with strings and cymbals (but when I last did an ABX, I had the Revo5.1 -> PA2V2/Little Dot Micro combo instead of the FWAudiophile -> GoVibe5 combo I have now). Back then I didn't know of the V0 setting. It'd be interesting to try whether I find it even harder to distinguish V0 from lossless.

 

[error401]

Quote:

Originally Posted by parrot5 /img/forum/go_quote.gif It'd be interesting to try whether I find it even harder to distinguish V0 from lossless.

The best it could possibly be is exactly the same as 320kbps CBR. The maximum valid bitrate for an MP3 frame is still 320kbps; V0 will have some frames that are lower than this bitrate, while 320kbps CBR does indeed provide the best possible quality from MP3. V0 is designed to sound identical while using less space, however.

This is one aspect of more modern codecs that has improved audio quality. Most newer codecs allow arbitrary frame bitrates (to a limit usually much higher than would normally be necessary as an overall average). That way, each frame is no longer limited to the 320kbps of MP3 and could go much higher if necessary, while the average could still be reasonable.