veronica 2 Posted April 4, 2004 Share Posted April 4, 2004 I'm not very technical, I'll say that upfront. When I download files they seem to have different bitrates. The most popular seems to be 192. Is that CD quality (whatever that is), if the bitrate is higher is it a better recording or what? I have tried reading other places but it always confuses me. Anyone willing to hold my hand...? Link to post Share on other sites
danz 0 Posted April 6, 2004 Share Posted April 6, 2004 hey V... quick tutorial on digital music... 1) mp3s, aac, ogg, wma,etc. are all lossy audio formats. This means that they are NOT CD quality 2) bitrate is a measure of how many bits (digital information) were used to represent a piece of audio. Higher bitrate generally means better sound quality and larger file sizes. 3) CD quality would be around 44,100x16x2 bits/sec (for a stereo recording) 4) What it boils down to is your personal preferecne on where you want to be on the audio quality v. file size curve, and what sounds good to you! Each format does its own thing...If I am listening to lossy audio, I prefer ogg. Ogg files tend to sound better and are smaller size than mp3s of comparable bitrates (and aac,I think). danz Link to post Share on other sites
IIIII 2 Posted April 6, 2004 Share Posted April 6, 2004 I thought AAC was the best one. iTunes seems to convert to that as default. Link to post Share on other sites
danz 0 Posted April 6, 2004 Share Posted April 6, 2004 IIII... there is no "best one"...it really is subjective. AAC is macs pet, just like wma belongs to windows...of course iTunes is going to convert to AAC. But that is where iTunes falls short, as it does not give you more encoding options (like ogg, wma, etc). For many people that is just fine, for me it is not. danz Link to post Share on other sites
damian 0 Posted April 6, 2004 Share Posted April 6, 2004 respondents should be advised that danz has a decent collection of ants-in-his-pants regarding digital audio standards. Link to post Share on other sites
jared 0 Posted April 6, 2004 Share Posted April 6, 2004 I done some research a while ago before digitising my music collection and was convinced that 128bit mp3 was of varying quality depending on the encoder used (of which there are 4)and 256kbps it doesnt matter what one you use as they are close enough for a panel of audiophiles not to know the difference. There is a chance I have been misled though. a good place to start http://www.arstechnica.com/wankerdesk/1q00/mp3/mp3-1.html Link to post Share on other sites
bobby12 0 Posted April 7, 2004 Share Posted April 7, 2004 I always thought 128 was meant to be the best option. But if you have a ton of storage space (like a couple of 120gb hard drives) then you may as well go for 256 or whatever. When you burn the mp3s to a audio cd, the bitrate doesnt affect how many songs you can put on the cd, therefore its better to put high bitrate files onto an audio cd. worth bearing in mind. I have never personally tried ripping a cd to different bitrates and comparing them, but thats what you should do if you are serious about building a collection. Link to post Share on other sites
danz 0 Posted April 7, 2004 Share Posted April 7, 2004 I have much to say on this topic, as db hinted... hey, skiing isnt my only interest you know anyway, 128 is pretty crap if you ask me...and 256 is kind of overkill, as it does not sound much better than 192, but takes up much more space (we are talking mp3...) what are you listening habits?? is your pod only for when you are on the go, or is it now the heart and soul of your home digital music center?? I think a good general rule is to have on CDs (for archiving purposes) the highest quality audio you can get. This means its original format (no lossy encoders), or some type of lossless format (like .flac, .shn, etc...). For memory reasons, music you take on the go can be compressed using your favorite format at a bitrate that makes you happiest (192mp3s sound find to me...). I eventually will have a music hard-drive containg all of my cds in a lossless format (.flac, because it supports id3 tags). My stereo will be connected to my computer, and my music will be played with all its original fidelity. When I am on the road, I will convert my files to mp3, or ogg and stick it in my Rio Karma. I can then put my cds in the attic (until my gf drops my harddrive again losing all its contents ) digital rocks! danz Link to post Share on other sites
nzlegend 1 Posted April 7, 2004 Share Posted April 7, 2004 http://cd-rw.org/articles/archive/mydeneaclame.cfm I found this on the net a while back and its what I use to create mp3 from my cds. This guy Myden knows his stuff so I downloaded his presets (the .cfg file). The mp3 quality is pretty damn good, much better than all of the 128kps butchered garbage that comprise the majority of what you get on Kazaa. Try it. Link to post Share on other sites
spiralz 0 Posted April 7, 2004 Share Posted April 7, 2004 danz do you need all that quality for something like Phish? (Sorry, couldn't resist) Link to post Share on other sites
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