How does kbps in MP3 relate to WAV bit/sampling rate?

[axle]

Over the past... well, almost two years... I've ripped everything in .ape & cue. A single file and then a cue sheet, with EAC (don't use anything else). Played with foobar.

Recently, however, I've tried LAME 3.97a10 -V 2 --vbr-new. Now, I've got $350 headphones (the SA5000s, not listed in sig) hooked into a quality amp, hooked into a $100 soundcard with a $30 cable--that's about as good as I'm ever going to get. With my equipment--I cannot tell the difference between APE & MP3.

I well know I'll be flamed to all heck, but I can't. I do blind listening tests, with every kind of music and FX (DVD audio clips), and I just can't tell 99.995% of the time. The other .005%, I'm pretty sure my mind is playing tricks on me.

Thus, I've undertaken converting my entire collection into 3.97 LAME. Mostly for easier transfer to my mp3 player, as space considerations aren't a consideration (I actually have some CDs in wav because APE is too slow decompressing sometimes). However, let me give you an example:

Putumayo African Groove is 67.2MB in LAME, and 302MB in ape. And I just can't tell the difference.

 

[SockMan!]

A lot of people can't tell the difference between lossless and high-quality lossy. I can't. But I still use FLAC since it's fast, uses few resources, and gives me piece-of-mind since I know that I have the highest quality possible (so long as I use EAC). Also, transcoding to a lossy format won't cause the audio lose as much quality than if I used a lossy format as a source (though I still probably won't notice any audio degradation unless I transcoded several consecutive times).

Sure, it takes up more space, but hard drive space is cheap. Since I don't have hundreds or thousands of albums, it's acceptable. My computer is always used as a sound source, so I often don't need to convert to MP3. Whenever I do need to have a lossy format, then it's fairly quick and easy to convert. I'm not sure how fast APE works, but FLAC is speedy enough for me.

 

[korben_dallas]

Quote:

Originally Posted by EdipisReks looks like you are getting sample rate and bit rate confused.

Uh. No. Look at my original question.

Quote:

Originally Posted by hellokeith How does kbps in MP3 relate to WAV bit/sampling rate?

 

[EdipisReks]

Quote:

Originally Posted by korben_dallas Uh. No. Look at my original question.

i was referring only to the comment, by you, which i quoted in that post. to reiterate what others have said, the answer to "How does kbps in MP3 relate to WAV bit/sampling rate?" is "it doesn't".

 

[Asmo]

Quote:

Originally Posted by axle Over the past... well, almost two years... I've ripped everything in .ape & cue. A single file and then a cue sheet, with EAC (don't use anything else). Played with foobar. Recently, however, I've tried LAME 3.97a10 -V 2 --vbr-new. Now, I've got $350 headphones (the SA5000s, not listed in sig) hooked into a quality amp, hooked into a $100 soundcard with a $30 cable--that's about as good as I'm ever going to get. With my equipment--I cannot tell the difference between APE & MP3. I well know I'll be flamed to all heck, but I can't. I do blind listening tests, with every kind of music and FX (DVD audio clips), and I just can't tell 99.995% of the time. The other .005%, I'm pretty sure my mind is playing tricks on me. Thus, I've undertaken converting my entire collection into 3.97 LAME. Mostly for easier transfer to my mp3 player, as space considerations aren't a consideration (I actually have some CDs in wav because APE is too slow decompressing sometimes). However, let me give you an example: Putumayo African Groove is 67.2MB in LAME, and 302MB in ape. And I just can't tell the difference.

Yes, true, it is hard to tell the difference on many tracks, but some I can, even with lame extreme. I've stopped ripping any music into mp3 a long time ago, simply because, FLAC is a perfect digital backup of the CD, recently I had a 4-cd wallet stolen from me, with 4 of my favorite cds in it, will I buy them again? Nope, I have them backed up with FLAC, I just burn it from that to CD again. Would you want to replace a lost CD with a mp3?

 

[Albatross05]

Quote:

Originally Posted by axle Over the past... well, almost two years... I've ripped everything in .ape & cue. A single file and then a cue sheet, with EAC (don't use anything else). Played with foobar. Recently, however, I've tried LAME 3.97a10 -V 2 --vbr-new. Now, I've got $350 headphones (the SA5000s, not listed in sig) hooked into a quality amp, hooked into a $100 soundcard with a $30 cable--that's about as good as I'm ever going to get. With my equipment--I cannot tell the difference between APE & MP3. I well know I'll be flamed to all heck, but I can't. I do blind listening tests, with every kind of music and FX (DVD audio clips), and I just can't tell 99.995% of the time. The other .005%, I'm pretty sure my mind is playing tricks on me. Thus, I've undertaken converting my entire collection into 3.97 LAME. Mostly for easier transfer to my mp3 player, as space considerations aren't a consideration (I actually have some CDs in wav because APE is too slow decompressing sometimes). However, let me give you an example: Putumayo African Groove is 67.2MB in LAME, and 302MB in ape. And I just can't tell the difference.

Honestly, I doubt that most people can actually hear a difference. I myself cannot. Nevertheless, I'd still prefer to use lossless just to be sure. Hard drives are getting cheaper (and larger) all the time and saving drive space isn't what it used to be in terms of importance.

It's still an issue with an Ipod or something but I'm sure that too will become mostly irrelevant as prices come down and storage space increases.

So, while I can't actually hear a major difference, it certainly doesn't mean there is no difference. Differences can be subtle and music (especially for headphone listening) is all about subtle nuance.

It's your choice but don't count on your ripped collection being a backup for your CD collection. As anothe rposter pointed out, you lose the CD (or it gets broken, scratched or otherwise damaged) and all you got left is the MP3.

 

[axle]

That's a good point; I don't know if mp3 would replace a lost CD. Very good point.

 

[JWFokker]

Monkey's Audio is actually quite fast depending upon the speed setting used.

http://www.monkeysaudio.com/comparison_speed.html

The use of higher compression doesn't benefit much, as the finished product is only a few percent smaller while taking multiple times longer to compress. The only faster compression method is WavPack on Fast, but it compresses even less than Monkey's Audio on Fast. It's all a trade off really. I'm not sure why FLAC is so popular. WavPack is the fastest and Monkey's Audio has the best compression. FLAC is inferior to either in both regards. This is especially apparent if you look at the efficiency chart, which compares finished size vs time to compress. It all depends upon your priorities. For me, Monkey's Audio High compression is the best balance. I can deal with two minutes per album if it gets me higher compression than either alternative lossless codec.


edit:spelling

 

[shimage]

Quote:

Originally Posted by JWFokker [snip]I'm not sure why FLAC is so popular. WavPack is the fastest and Monkey's Audio has the best compression. FLAC is inferior to either in both regards.[/snip]

Because it's better supported. Why do you think mp3 is popular? Back in the day I used musepack, and I have to say, I'm not really a big fan of crappy support. Monkey's Audio is Winblows-only, and WavPack doesn't have nearly the same level of software support that FLAC does. Also, just about the only two lossless algorithms you're ever going to find on a portable (and yes, they're already there WRT space) are Apple Lossless and FLAC. I've seen the charts, and the difference in compression is negligible. If I'm using a lossless codec, do I really care about a few megabytes here or there?