MP3 Bitrate quality; Does it make a difference?

[redrocket 10+ year member]

Always an interesting discussion. Currently, I'm in the process of re-ripping all of my CDs losslessly because I can tell a small difference between a CD and my iPod in my car. It's not huge but it's disappointing when you notice it. I say, if you have the storage space for lossless files, why not go lossless?

 

[Immacomputer 10+ year member]

Yes, it does make a difference, pretty ****in self explaitory....
.wav > 320 kbps > all

Well if it's so easy, go ahead and label the tracks 1-10 please.

Always an interesting discussion. Currently, I'm in the process of re-ripping all of my CDs losslessly because I can tell a small difference between a CD and my iPod in my car. It's not huge but it's disappointing when you notice it. I say, if you have the storage space for lossless files, why not go lossless?

I agree. I'm just tired of seeing people think that there is such a huge difference between bit rates. Lossless and compressed are two different stories though. There will also be a difference with the ipod and your CD player because of the different audio sources.

 

[redrocket 10+ year member]

I hear you. Currently, I only have a 2 GB Nano but I'm hoping to buy a 160 GB Classic soon so I can load it up with all of my lossless songs which should help the sound quality somewhat I hope.

 

[darkist240sx 10+ year member]

i think 2 and 7 and 9 were the best but i have fools gold for ears so take it with a grain of salt.

 

[vehementSPL 10+ year member]

Yeah I know there are pleanty of people that have had problems with the IPODs sq (not sure if it was the direct connect or the aux in.. which probably would have something to do with it if it was the aux in) cause on mp3 cds at least I see no difference

 

[darkist240sx 10+ year member]

so can we just get the real order?

 

[J31Rob 5,000+ posts]

.flac > .mp3

 

[adio 5,000+ posts]

Yeah I know there are pleanty of people that have had problems with the IPODs sq (not sure if it was the direct connect or the aux in.. which probably would have something to do with it if it was the aux in) cause on mp3 cds at least I see no difference

its the ipod's......... i read it all the time

 

[adio 5,000+ posts]

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

what program should we use?

 

[Immacomputer 10+ year member]

so can we just get the real order?

I was just in West Palm this weekend; I played 18 holes at the Okeeheelee course. Nice area but way too crowded.

Anyways, the correct order for the 6 people who actually listened were:

2

3, 9 (both were 256k)

5, 7 (both 192k)

6, 8 (both 128k)

1, 4, 10 (all 112k)

What's funny is that flakko liked the 112k versions the best! I took some of the tracks and ripped them at a low rate then I turned them into 320k to make sure that people wouldn't just look at the rates and assume which one is better. It's the perception variable that was thrown out although you could put them on a spectrum analyzer and see which had the highest roll offs.

Maybe I'll make some more tracks but since only 6 people cared enough to download them, I will probably just save the effort.

 

[tcguy85 10+ year member]

i like what you did. but in my car i had a whole bunch of songs on my ipod, then one day decided to listen to one of the same songs but off of the original cd that i had and it sounded so much better. so ipods FTL IMO. maybe it's not the fact that it's 128 or 192 or 320, maybe it's just the ipods themselves.

all i know is now i don't cheap out anymore, i'll buy the cd and enjoy it the way it was meant to be heard.

 

[IgnoreMe 5,000+ posts]

i will download these in a bit. i am just now seeing this thread too.

i can usually tell them apart pretty easily on my car system (usually its because of the bass, which on shit bitrate files, to me at least, seem like it was attenuated). ive actually caught some of my files that i thought were crappy quality (bit rate wise), checked them when i got home, and sure enough, they were the much lower bitrate files, which i had missed on excluding.

but even then, im gonna agree with vehementSPL. to me at least, unless its a super low bit rate song, the only time i notice a difference isnt even in the sound quality, but just rather, the output isnt quite the same. as far as quality, they sound petty much the same to me.

only reason i download 320CBR and v0 files is because id rather not risk any loss of output, that i seem to have experienced in the past.

 

[Immacomputer 10+ year member]

The only time output is a problem is above about 15khz with lower bit rate tracks. The bass is not affected by it at all.

Many people just download songs that were either ripped in a shitty manner or have been edited and processed at a low rate and then people assume that low bit rate means lower quality which is true, but not as audible as people try to blow it out to be.

 

[IgnoreMe 5,000+ posts]

The only time output is a problem is above about 15khz with lower bit rate tracks. The bass is not affected by it at all.
Many people just download songs that were either ripped in a shitty manner or have been edited and processed at a low rate and then people assume that low bit rate means lower quality which is true, but not as audible as people try to blow it out to be.

are you sure? cause i heard a difference. enough so that it made me go back and check out the tracks bit rate, which was 96kbps haha. i have never done that before, and it was because of the bass on the song.

i guess it could be a placebo, but honestly, a placebo usually happens if you're expecting X and X situation. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/confused.gif.e820e0216602db4765798ac39d28caa9.gif

 

[IgnoreMe 5,000+ posts]

I've also had bass effected. I had downloaded some rich boy before and it was drastically different than the CD.

im guessing it could be based on the encoder used?

btw, i do have a little bit of OCD with my music. even if i cant tell a difference, something tells me "at LEAST v0 or 320kbps...just because" //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/crap.gif.7f4dd41e3e9b23fbd170a1ee6f65cecc.gif