[P.J]

Can you hear the difference between :

MP3 CBR 160Kbps
MP3 CBR 192Kbps
MP3 VBR LAME 3.98 -V2 --vbr-new
FLAC

and what's the difference between ABR and CBR / Stereo and Joint Stereo and Multi-Channel ?

Thanks

 

[Sherwood]

Personally, I can hear the difference between all of those (except the third one, MP3 VBR LAME 3.98 -V2 --vbr-new, which I don't understand).

Multi-channel out of headphones doesn't exist, it's just digital processing and it's generally not useful for music.

VBR is better than CBR, no doubt. Variable Bit Rate means that the bit rate changes as the "complexity" of the music changes. I've always assumed that to simply mean amount of signal. A 320 kbps only uses all 320 kb when the music is very "complex", according to the encoder.

CBR is Constant Bit Rate, meaning the whole thing gets encoded at the same rate, regardless of "complexity". It is my understanding that this generally yields less quality at a given file size.

FLAC is wonderful, and it's what you want. If it's worth buying the CD, it's worth ripping it in FLAC.

 

[Sherwood]

This topic is currently being discussed better, here.

 

[krmathis]

I guess it depends which encoder you use for the CBR files.
On some tracks I am able to hear a difference between LAME V2 and lossless, while others are transparent. Just for safety of mind I stick with lossless..

 

[scompton]

Rip to lossless even if you can't hear the difference. I originally ripped all of my music as MP3 or AAC. I'm slowly reripping everything to ALAC even though I don't hear the difference. After ripping I convert to AAC to put on my iPod. I want the lossless archive so I don't have to worry about reripping if I need another format or if I start being able to hear the difference. Either because of an equipment upgrade or training myself to hear the difference.

 

[P.J]

What's the difference between Average Bit Rate (which isn't VBR) and CBR / Stereo and Joint Stereo ?

 

[progo]

I guess ABR is like VBR but the bitrates are calculated to make a certain average.

Joint stereo encoding saves space but blurs the stereo separation = bad.

Flacs equal convenience in many cases, even if you couldn't tell the difference between formats.

 

[LnxPrgr3]

Quote:

Originally Posted by P.J /img/forum/go_quote.gif What's the difference between Average Bit Rate (which isn't VBR) and CBR / Stereo and Joint Stereo ?

At least for LAME...

To understand this, you'll need to know that CBR's bitrate is effectively still variable -- the current frame can borrow bits from the previous frames, if there were some unused.

ABR works like CBR, except with the "if there were some unused" restriction taken away, which allows the bitrate to jump up if it needs to. It still decides how many bits would be "ideal" for that frame the way CBR does, though.

 

[E.B.M.Head]

Joint Stereo doesn't blur the stereo image. It's just a lossless transcoding from Left / Right Stereo to Mid / Side Stereo. Don't mix it up with MP2 Joint Stereo!
As in most musical pieces the content of the left and the right channel is very identical this saves a lot of encoding bandwith and gives you a higher quality at a given bitrate. As you can mix M/S and L/R stereo frames in MP3 files, at least with the LAME encoder "Joint Stereo" means that the encoder automaticaly decides if it is better to use Mid/Side coding or Left/Right coding for a MP3 frame to save bandwith and give you the best possible audioquality. Forcing Mid/Side or Left/Right (which is both possible) is in most cases braindead and should only done when some very old and buggy decoders are used.

ABR is somewhere in between CBR and VBR. It uses the CBR psychoacustics (which aren't as good as the VBR ones), but tries to match the target bitrate while being flexible with the used frame bitrate. Silent parts (at the beginning and end of the track) can easily be encoded with a very low bitrate (like 32 kbps) but you will certainly have parts where a fixed bitrate (like 128 kbps) isn't enough to encode without artefacts. So the ABR saves bits where it is possible and uses the saved bit it places where it is needed.
All three models have their use:
CBR: For streaming where you need a fixed bitrate
ABR: When filesize matters, but bandwidth changes aren't problematic
VBR: For all other cases (Best Quality at least possible bandwidth)

IMHO the OPs question can't be clearly answered. It depends on the music and your listening equipment. If have lots of music that is transparent at 128 kbps, some that is transparent at 160 kbps, some that is transparent at 192 kbps, some at V3, some at V2, some at V0, some at V0 -Y, and some that needs to be encoded lossless because I hear artefacts no matter what encoder settings I use.
I normaly use V0, and the lossless codec of my choice (WavPack) for stuff that still isn't transparent. But I must mention I listen to a lot obscure stuff like Industrial, Noise, Power Electronics, Dark Ambient and Neofolk which is hard to encode lossy. For people with normal listening habbits V2 or V3 should be enough.