MP3 bit rates debate - can YOU tell?

Gregeff · 23 Apr 2006 at 18:47

I really think it depends on the music. I just did a quick test, encoded Pink Floyd - Money, from FLAC to Lame MP3 in 64, 128 and VBR variants.

The 64kbs one was truly terrible and i think that anyone would be able to tell, the 128kbs was better, but still noticbly worse than the FLAC, however i'm sure many people on many systems wouldn't notice the difference.

The VBR (alt Preset Standard) MP3 was identical to the FLAC imo, but again i'm sure someone with a £10,000 system would say otherwise! Hence why i keep FLAC, just incase one day i can afford a £10,000 hifi!!

fish99 · 27 Apr 2006 at 16:19

Is VBR at 100% quality lossless? (there's a quality slider in musicmatch when using VBR)

james.miller · 27 Apr 2006 at 16:22

mp3's are never lossless so if its encoding mp3's then no they arent

PlasmaZombies · 28 Apr 2006 at 12:38

I personally did a side by side comparison myself when I was deciding what format I wanted to encode my music in.

To cut the story short. MP3 @ 192 was just bloody awful. Harsh sounding, terrible drum noises etc. Ogg Vorbis @ 192, Couldn't tell much difference except it was slightly quieter than CD. WMA @ 192, Pretty much the same as Ogg Vorbis.

I personally will never encode to MP3 again. I now always use WMA as that's more compatible than Ogg Vorbis and there isn't really much difference between the 2.

fish99 · 28 Apr 2006 at 13:10

The point of the thread isn't for people to offer opinions on bit rates though, it's to try the test in the first post and prove whether their opinions can be backed up by fact. You should clearly be able to pick out the 64, 96, 128, 160 and 192 kbps tracks in the test then.

james.miller · 28 Apr 2006 at 16:35

that's right. ive yet to see a person who can say "192k mp3 is crap" AND pass the test aswell

TooNice · 28 Apr 2006 at 16:43

I don't see the reason people still use CBR though. There is very little incentive nowadays. I know early VBR algorithm had their share of problem, but it was a very long time ago.

bledd · 29 Oct 2006 at 19:33

excellent thread

i've sworn by EAC + lame for cd->mp3 creation for a while now, using the hydrogen audio settings

here's my pre-configured installer for it

http://bleddyn.co.uk/creations/EAC.exe

will place a link in start menu, and a shortcut in system32 folder to allow -start, run, eac

-have some stars

Android · 30 Oct 2006 at 22:45

Depends how good your audio rig is.

Personally I won't touch Mp3 Lame as it sucks unless you use stupid bitrates and you might as well use a lossless codec (flac, Ape, .shn ...etc) then as the file sizes aren't that far off!!

Ogg and Musepack are FAR FAR better codecs.

EAC + Ogg/Musepack 160/192kbs is the best for given bitrate.

james.miller · 30 Oct 2006 at 22:52

can you prove that? high bitrate lame is so close to the original that very VERY few people successfully tell them apart. as for filesizes you are so far off the mark!

example: Ode to my family by The Cranberries.
uncompressed: 45.5mb
monkies lossless (ape) - 29.6mb
Lame 3.97 VBR using -V 0 --vbr new (average bitrate of ~230kbps) - 7.61mb.

can i abx them? no. as for lame vs ogg again, you are way off. Any comparisons of the two showing ogg to be a clear leader were from very old versions of the lame encoder. You can take a look on hydrogen audio to varify this

these days its either neck and neck or win some lose some, and quite honestly being as close as it is id go for mp3 every time simply because of compatibility. to say ogg is FAR FAR better is simply misguided.

Alexrose1uk · 31 Oct 2006 at 00:23

Perhaps a misguided question, havent dont this test yet, but reading through the debate, are there better *DECODERS* than others, or is the generic windows codec going to give the best/same reproduction as any other mp3 codec based upon the given media and your audio hardware?

Will get round to doing the test soon as well, Im interested to see how I fair with my X-fi and Sennheisers/X-Fi and Cambridge A5+ Mission 751s

shaffaaf27 · 15 Nov 2008 at 18:25

mmmm

yeha i couldnt tell, and im using a Xonar DX and HD 555s

Greenlizard0 · 15 Nov 2008 at 19:47

Wow, this problem really bugged you didn't it.

HOLY THREAD REEEEEEVIVAL INNIT?!

marscay · 16 Nov 2008 at 07:22

LMAO

on topic though since i got some decent hi-fi equipment i do find a lot of my compressed music is quite harsh when i never really noticed before.

Yamahahahahaha · 16 Nov 2008 at 10:27

Through a decent pair of headphones / decent hifi, all those mp3s sounded flatter than a gymnast's chest.

Lossless is the way to go, get over it.

p4radox · 16 Nov 2008 at 11:13

Yamahahahahaha said:
Through a decent pair of headphones / decent hifi, all those mp3s sounded flatter than a gymnast's chest.

Lossless is the way to go, get over it.

But the link in the OP is down... Have you got the ISO?

FatRakoon · 17 Nov 2008 at 13:36

Bugger, the links dont work for me to have a go!

However, I have myself done this very same test some time ago using my own music.

I use an Atari Falcon and CuBase Audio for my music.

My Synths etc, all being Analog, all go through a 4 Track, with my Korg 05rw and Kawai GMega going through the INPUTs on the MU10 due to me not having a big enough mixer, the Falcons Output is from the FDI and is therefore Ditigal and what I do, is have the output from the Mixer going to the AUX2 Inputs on a Recording PC's Audigy 2 Live Drive, and the Digital from the FDI, to the DIGITAL IN on the LiveDrive. This then gives me a basic Analog + Digital Mixer, plus I record my music to WAV.

I can then save out as MP3 should I need to.

I have done an entire CD much the same as what you seem to have done, but I did the very same song,one that had a good wide range ofsounds from a good range of various sources, and I exported the original WAV ( 96K 16Bit ) into a number of various MP3 formats, 320,240,192,160,128,96, 64 and sure, many machines didnt seem to make much difference between any 2 perhaps, and all seemed to show a fairly large drop off from 128k and down, but all the good gear that I played them back on, could tell the difference even between 320 and 240.

Personally however, I like it 192 as a minimum, but I can get away with Pop music at anything because at least the bad quality compression will match the bad quality drivvel they try to call music.

Scougar · 17 Nov 2008 at 15:21

I have always found that MP3's especially lower bit rates have that horrible electronic noise in the background, like an electrical short all the time. Not static, almost like an electronic echo. Non-compressed all the way

(I can hear dog whistles as well, although I doubt that is uncommon).

moon man · 18 Nov 2008 at 10:33

my ears may be abit older than some of yours but i cant tell between a flac track and a vbr wma highest qual on wm player .tbh more of my bad rips come from the quality of the cd i.e loudness war , bad mastering ect and no matter what i do never sound 100% through my ultrasones

gt_junkie · 18 Nov 2008 at 11:57

I'd have loved to give this a try too just to see.

gt