Mp3 vs. Normal audio file.
- Thread starter mack
- Start date
my ears tell me yes. i think its compression with loss.mack said:
it's lossy compression, yes, but they use techniques that try to take away the frequencies you normally don't hear, and ones masked by other frequencies. also, mp3 is a broad category, from 16 kbps mono voice recordings to 320 kbps rips with a quality encoder. i'd wager that 99+% of the population couldn't tell a 256 kbps mp3 apart from a cd on midlevel stereo equipment in a proper double blind test.
i typically rip @ 192 kbps, and use variable bit encoding, so that it bumps the bit rate up when it needs to (ie, complex musical passages), or down (silence, low complexity sections, etc). it's close enough for me to the original wav file not to worry about it, but if i did ABX w/ good headphones i'd probably be able to discern a difference.
there are better compression algorithms out there too (MPC, ogg vorbis, etc) but they are trying to catch up, and i've just resigned myself to rip to mp3 because i've already got so much music encoded to mp3 already.
there are better compression algorithms out there too (MPC, ogg vorbis, etc) but they are trying to catch up, and i've just resigned myself to rip to mp3 because i've already got so much music encoded to mp3 already.
well i've never used iTunes so i can't help you. but i've found that a combo of ExactAudioCopy and LAME is a great match. in EAC, there are options for setting bit rates during ripping. it can get a bit confusing, but there are forums on hydrogen audio to help you out.mack said:
narlus said:
I use a SUPER old ripper called AudioCatalyst made by Xing. It's a 3 pass encoder, reads it, normalize it, encode it. I typically rip at 224kb/s, and when hooked up to a good home amp, you can still tell the diff between a 224kbs mp3 and the original CD. However, in most cases, I use mp3s in cars and little portable players. In that environment, you can't tell at all.
Edit: isn't ACC a "lossless" from Dolby Labs? How big are those files for say a 5 min song?
Edit: isn't ACC a "lossless" from Dolby Labs? How big are those files for say a 5 min song?
paully, i'd suggest using a more modern algorithm than that Xing one. i agree that w/ car and portable outside noise, it's tougher to hear flaws which exist, but try doing an ABX comparison and i bet you'll see the difference clearly.Pau11y said:
Shoot off some proggie name for me to check out. I thought I saw iTunes?narlus said:
EAC or CDex with LAME as the encoder will sound better. Use -alt preset standard for ~200 kbit/s bitrate.
I remember using an earlier version of CDex and found it kinda clunky. Maybe it's better now, have to check it out. Thanx.Silver said:
i've never used CDex but EAC is very easy to use program. see my reply to Mack above for a link to that and LAME.
Is Windows Media Player that much worse than any of the programs mentioned above? I know there are die hards that insist that winamp or some other player is best, I ripped most of my collection to .wma and copied the files to cd-r's to listen to at work (cheap computer speakers in an office with lots of warehouse noise just outside of the open door,) our IT guys will crap kittens if I installed something on my computer at work and I'm not going to go back and rip all my CD's again but I might consider using another program to rip new CD's if there was really a differance.
