Lossy Audio Formats (mp3, ogg, m4a, etc), Quality and Comparisons

noise · 11-03-2009, 10:44 AM

in the end, i just say - why not? 90% of the time i can find what i'm looking for in 320 or V0, so that's what i aim for. $100 gets you 1TB of drive space these days, that will will hold an insane amount of music, even at these high bitrates. so i figure i might as well get HQ stuff.

there still remains the issue of lossless rips though. i usually only grab flac of things i want to archive. the new beatles remasters, for example. or the new kraftwerk remasters. i also spent an embarrassing amount of time tracking down flac rips of what are generally accepted to be the best remasters and/or best pressings of pink floyd's studio albums. i have lots of drive space, my internet is disgustingly fast, and music is very easy to come by these days, so again - why not?

SATCHMO · 11-03-2009, 10:49 AM

A TB is a lot of drive space but unless you have a very high performance front end audio system and outboard D/A converter to boot, you could cut the bit rate of a FLAC file in half and it would still be well in excess of what anyone would be able to hear.

noise · 11-03-2009, 11:08 AM

...which would suggest that audo cds offer much higher quality than is practically necessary. should we bring back cassettes?

i keep flac because it is a true copy of a CD, so if i ever want to burn CDs, i get accurate copies rather than compressed music. is that strange?

think digital cameras. today's point-and-shoots don't count for much, they use jpg compression to squeeze data down to reasonable sizes. but digital SLRs can shoot in RAW - the image equivalent of FLAC. my brother is an amateur photographer, and he always shoots in RAW. for most uses, he has to compress the images to JPG to use them, but he still keeps the RAW files around to have true and original versions of the images for archival purposes.

but yeah - you go your way, i go mine

Guybrush · 11-03-2009, 11:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by noise

...which would suggest that audo cds offer much higher quality than is practically necessary. should we bring back cassettes?

Well, the music industry is selling mp3s nowadays .. what bitrates are they offering their customers?

noise · 11-03-2009, 12:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by toretorden

Well, the music industry is selling mp3s nowadays .. what bitrates are they offering their customers?

i have only bought a few albums online. most were flac, but one i remember was 320...

is that abnormal?

Guybrush · 11-03-2009, 12:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by noise

i have only bought a few albums online. most were flac, but one i remember was 320...

is that abnormal?

Yes, that is abnormal. The napster mp3 store which is one of the largest has most of it's catalogue in 256.

And Apples iStore which is an even bigger actor on the market ..

Quote:

iTunes 4: About iTunes Store Song Bitrate

Purchased songs are encoded using MPEG-4 Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) format, a high-quality format that rivals CD quality.
Songs purchased and downloaded from the iTunes Store are AAC Protected files and have a bitrate of 128 kilobits per second (kbit/s).

The purchased song should sound as good as or better than a 160 kbit/s MP3 file. Because the bit rate is lower, though, the AAC file takes less disk space than the MP3 file.

That was before, now they've stepped up to an equivalent of 256 kbps.

Source : Apple - Support

And having checked on bands who sell or give away their music, I think the latest Marillion album was available as 256 mp3s at the highest. Radiohead's In Rainbow was at 160 kbps while Maudlin of the Well's latest album was high quality VBRs.

So yeah, I'd say that as the industry is moving away from physical formats like CDs, they are abandoning excess quality. At least they have the last some years.

Guybrush · 11-05-2009, 11:41 AM

I took myself up on my word and made a bitrate test! Those who think they are good at identifying differing bitrates in lossy formats can give it a shot

Check it out -> http://www.musicbanter.com/games-lis...-bitrates.html

Schizotypic · 11-05-2009, 07:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by toretorden

I took myself up on my word and made a bitrate test! Those who think they are good at identifying differing bitrates in lossy formats can give it a shot

Check it out -> http://www.musicbanter.com/games-lis...-bitrates.html

I'm definitely giving this a shot!

Leisiz de Paks · 02-19-2011, 02:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by noise

great read, thanks for bumping this, i never would have found it

i always try to get music in the highest bitrate possible - preferably 320 or V0. i can't really tell a difference with anything over 256, but i figure with drive space as cheap as it is, i might as well. besides, some day i might have the cash to buy a real sound system, so i like to think of it as 'future-proofing' my collection while internet is still fast and music is still dreadfully easy to come by

Me too, I do it for exactly the same reason. Have unexceptional sound card but I think there is going to be a difference when using old triple speaker system + a CD player.

Being meore into ethnic, jazz and avant, I think I can hear the difference. There's like more "warmth" to the sax part in lossless, for, example. Still, have to blind-test myself and probably will prove myself wrong.

A great article! Thanks a lot, tore !

nbakid2000 · 02-20-2011, 11:01 AM

For portability, I use LAME 3.98.4 at -V0 to encode my stuff - in the car or on my phone. I try to listen to 320 as much as possible.

At home, I can use use either MP3s (again, I try to use 320 but that's not always possible) or lossless...it doesn't bother me. When I'm downloading, I try to at LEAST get 320, but I can tolerate 256.

I haven't downloaded from iTunes yet but I would be willing to put up with their bitrates because it supposedly sounds as good as 320 does.

11-03-2009, 10:44 AM	#31 (permalink)
noise thirsty ears Join Date: Sep 2009 Location: Boulder Posts: 742	in the end, i just say - why not? 90% of the time i can find what i'm looking for in 320 or V0, so that's what i aim for. $100 gets you 1TB of drive space these days, that will will hold an insane amount of music, even at these high bitrates. so i figure i might as well get HQ stuff. there still remains the issue of lossless rips though. i usually only grab flac of things i want to archive. the new beatles remasters, for example. or the new kraftwerk remasters. i also spent an embarrassing amount of time tracking down flac rips of what are generally accepted to be the best remasters and/or best pressings of pink floyd's studio albums. i have lots of drive space, my internet is disgustingly fast, and music is very easy to come by these days, so again - why not? __________________ my flac collection

11-03-2009, 11:08 AM	#33 (permalink)
noise thirsty ears Join Date: Sep 2009 Location: Boulder Posts: 742	...which would suggest that audo cds offer much higher quality than is practically necessary. should we bring back cassettes? i keep flac because it is a true copy of a CD, so if i ever want to burn CDs, i get accurate copies rather than compressed music. is that strange? think digital cameras. today's point-and-shoots don't count for much, they use jpg compression to squeeze data down to reasonable sizes. but digital SLRs can shoot in RAW - the image equivalent of FLAC. my brother is an amateur photographer, and he always shoots in RAW. for most uses, he has to compress the images to JPG to use them, but he still keeps the RAW files around to have true and original versions of the images for archival purposes. but yeah - you go your way, i go mine __________________ my flac collection

11-05-2009, 11:41 AM	#37 (permalink)
Guybrush Juicious Maximus III Join Date: Nov 2008 Location: Scabb Island Posts: 6,525	I took myself up on my word and made a bitrate test! Those who think they are good at identifying differing bitrates in lossy formats can give it a shot Check it out -> http://www.musicbanter.com/games-lis...-bitrates.html __________________ Something Completely Different

11-03-2009, 10:49 AM	#32 (permalink)
SATCHMO Al Dente Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: Texas Posts: 4,708	A TB is a lot of drive space but unless you have a very high performance front end audio system and outboard D/A converter to boot, you could cut the bit rate of a FLAC file in half and it would still be well in excess of what anyone would be able to hear.

02-20-2011, 11:01 AM	#40 (permalink)
nbakid2000 Music Addict Join Date: Feb 2011 Posts: 179	For portability, I use LAME 3.98.4 at -V0 to encode my stuff - in the car or on my phone. I try to listen to 320 as much as possible. At home, I can use use either MP3s (again, I try to use 320 but that's not always possible) or lossless...it doesn't bother me. When I'm downloading, I try to at LEAST get 320, but I can tolerate 256. I haven't downloaded from iTunes yet but I would be willing to put up with their bitrates because it supposedly sounds as good as 320 does.