MP3 Bitrate quality; Does it make a difference?

[Immacomputer 10+ year member]

Well, to answer my own question, of course it does. But, how many of us can really hear a huge difference?

I set up a test to see how well we all do here. To remove some variables, I took an uncompressed .wav file and ripped the same 33 second clip into different bit rates. Your job is to rank the songs from 1 to 10 in order from which sounds the best (1) to which sounds the worst (10). Be honest on this test as it helps nobody if you cheat (cheating by running the files through some analysis program or through anything other than a standard media player or car stereo).

The songs are zipped up in this archive and there is a folder with songs titled 1 through 10.

http://files.filefront.com/Test+fileszip/;9275409;/fileinfo.html

Post your results in this thread in this format:

Rank - Song number

For example, a reply should look like this:

1 - 3

2 - 5

3 - 6

4 - 2

5 - 1

6 - 8

7 - 4

8 - 10

9 - 9

10 - 7

After we get a bunch of replies, I'll post the correct order as they were ripped.

Click to read more...

 

[tcguy85 10+ year member]

i just played a couple of them and on my home theater system playing off my laptop i can't tell a difference. it's a pretty simple song though. maybe something with more than just a simple quiet guitar solo it might be easier to tell. i know i had my whole ipod filled with songs ripped at 128k and they sounded terrible compared to the real cd when played in my car.

 

[AllStar1500bd 5,000+ posts]

Jmac had a great post on this a while back.

 

[flakko 5,000+ posts]

should be interesting. ill run these off my headphones...cheap sony earbuds lol

 

[Immacomputer 10+ year member]

i just played a couple of them and on my home theater system playing off my laptop i can't tell a difference. it's a pretty simple song though. maybe something with more than just a simple quiet guitar solo it might be easier to tell. i know i had my whole ipod filled with songs ripped at 128k and they sounded terrible compared to the real cd when played in my car.

Well one of the big issues is upper frequency roll off as well as artifacts appearing at the upper end of the spectrum. This track has quite a bit of material in the upper end of the spectrum and I had the uncompressed form so why not. I might try it on a different set of tracks that I have but so far I like this one the best.

Jmac had a great post on this a while back.

I know the measurable differences but I want to see if people can really hear a difference.

 

[flakko 5,000+ posts]

dang i dont know...its tuff with these headphones. i guess someone with better test equipment can do a better job.

i think 1 and 10 sounded the best.

edit: i looked at the bitrates and boy was i off lol

 

[TheFiverMan 10+ year member]

thats why when u rip a cd use EAC/LAME (Exact Audio Copy) and use Lame to encode..

 

[60ndown 10+ year member]

in a quiet room you might hear it, @ 70 mph i doubt it.

 

[Immacomputer 10+ year member]

dang i dont know...its tuff with these headphones. i guess someone with better test equipment can do a better job.
i think 1 and 10 sounded the best.

edit: i looked at the bitrates and boy was i off lol

That's really interesting from my point of view but I won't say any more than that.

thats why when u rip a cd use EAC/LAME (Exact Audio Copy) and use Lame to encode..

I used the LAME encoder to go from uncompressed wav to mp3.

 

[vehementSPL 10+ year member]

Well I am not going to listen to them tonight lol. But I will say from my personally exp. For my daily driver (which I don't listen to any "high end" music) but I couldn't tell any difference between 128k and a real CD. Now I CAN tell a difference at 96k but from What I can REMEMBER it was more just of a volume loss .. not really a lot of SQ loss. now 64 oh god horrible. But for most daily music I think volume/sq I personally can not really tell a difference. Now if I was running a true SQ system in my car who knows. But again i am going to go with the audible difference most people will know is 96 then major at 64

 

[Flipx99 5,000+ posts]

I can't really tell the difference between 128 and CD

 

[PatFitz9 10+ year member]

I think it depends more on the player and ripping quality than bitrate. my ipod sounds like crap in the car, but an mp3 cd sounds fine. on the computer, not all 128 bit mp3's sound the same.

 

[goodstuff 10+ year member]

Do a song with cymbal crashes and vocals. That's where I always hear the mp'3 distortions. Sounds like a cassette tape in a walkman being shaken most of the time.

 

[Immacomputer 10+ year member]

I think it depends more on the player and ripping quality than bitrate. my ipod sounds like crap in the car, but an mp3 cd sounds fine. on the computer, not all 128 bit mp3's sound the same.

That's exactly what I'm trying to show here. The recording quality has more of an impact than the bitrate yet people are so set that files have to be 256kb or greater bitrate in order to sound decent.

 

[Mr Wiggl3s 10+ year member]

Yes, it does make a difference, pretty ****in self explaitory....

.wav > 320 kbps > all