Skip to main content ↑ ↓

Notice

Please note that most of the software linked on this forum is likely to be safe to use. If you are unsure, feel free to ask in the relevant topics, or send a private message to an administrator or moderator. To help curb the problems of false positives, or in the event that you do find actual malware, you can contribute through the article linked here.
Topic: Looking For Advice On The Quality Of MP3 @ 192kbps (Read 10950 times) previous topic - next topic
0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Looking For Advice On The Quality Of MP3 @ 192kbps

Hi,

This is my first post so please be patient with me! I think this is the right place for it if not please advise and I'll remove it and place it in a new section.

When I first bought a laptop (80GB HD) a couple of years back I investigated a little and decided to rip my CD collection (around 4000 songs) through WMP10 at 192kbps MP3. However I always knew I'd revisit the situation, and with the advent of dirt cheap huge external HDs that's exactly what I'm doing now. Prior to researching today I had the firm idea from conjecture that Lossless was the way to go and was thinking of doing that...now I'm hoping actually maybe my current setup is sufficient. I'm not worried about backing up the collection either as I'm quite happy for my CDs to be my backup for the moment.

Perhaps unfortunately the first thing I came across seemed to back up my pre-conceived ideas

http://www.stereophile.com/features/308mp3cd/index.html

Then I happily stumbled on this forum...but admittedly some of the stuff still goes over my head. I'm aware of the semantics of ABX testing and the like, and totally respect the need for it, but what I'm after is something in layman's terms from some members here who have seen all the countless studies/results etc...so if you could bear with me I'll ask two or three questions...

Primarily I want to know if there is any need realistically -the need being a noticably better sound quality to some or most people at varying degrees (please take that line as intended I know that's not ABXs objective)- to change the format of my music. Not bothered about the actual hassle of doing it so please don't take that into consideration. I play directly from my laptop through a dac into an amp/speaker setup if that's relevant. Also I personally love WMP11 as an interface for keeping and playing my music through, but I guess that can't really be considered either so feel free to tell me that's crap if it is!

- So codec-wise I keep reading about LAME etc but in tests could many people decide or notice that WPM MP3 @ 192kbps was inferior to LAME VBR at any of the presets?

- And just talking about coversion through WMP MP3 @ 192/256/320 can people tell the difference between those bitrates? (I'm not considering lower bitrates simply because the collection is already ripped at 192)

- Again if it makes a difference I listen to almost everything...folk/rock/rap/dance/DnB/classical/jazz etc

If you've made it this far thanks for reading the post, like I say I understand the semantics of scientific testing and my question almost certainly breaches some of these principles, though hopefully not in the infuriating nature of some posts...but it would be fantastic if someone could condense their knowledge and give me a layman's opinion backed by a little evidence (though not after exhaustive figures etc). I'm also aware I'm very possibly being extremely lazy by asking the above and not finding and studying all the evidence myself, it does have a tendency to make my head swim after a while though.

Thanks in advance

Looking For Advice On The Quality Of MP3 @ 192kbps

Reply #1 –
It really depends on your audio equipment more than anything. On a computer thru typical computer speakers, LAME 3.9X at CBR 192 kbps or Fraunhofer IIs at CBR 192 kbps will probably sound transparent to a CD or WAV file. Hook an iPod up to a high fidelity stereo or make an MP3 CD and play it on hi-fidelity equipment and you will likely notice some artifacts. I would use LAME 3.97 or 3.98 -V 2 setting if you want the "comfort" of playing your MP3s on any equipment and they sound great. If you want to use CBR, move up the bit rate to 256 for similar results. The "V" settings are the best way to go however as they are optimized. Most us -V2, -V3, or V0 depending on their tolerance for file size. I personally use -V2 with LAME 3.98.

Looking For Advice On The Quality Of MP3 @ 192kbps

Reply #2 –
I am sure you will get more thoughtful responses than one by me....but as a short executive summary:

You be fine.
Linked article is comedic effort to most all other then themselves and their advertisers

terry

Looking For Advice On The Quality Of MP3 @ 192kbps

Reply #3 –
If you get 10 replies, you'll get 10 different answers.  Here's mine -

I did my own tests/reading/research etc., and I rip everything to 320kbps, V0.  Many people will tell you that's overkill, and that 192 kbps is sufficient.  It probably is.  Quite honestly, I listen to some 128 kbps MP3s, and they sound better to me than 320 kbps...but it has nothing to do with the MP3s, it just has to do with the mastering of the CD.  But that's a whole different topic....

I rip to 320 because I'm a bit anal, and it would bug me that I didn't rip to the "best quality" MP3 I could.  (Actually, I started ripping 192 VBR, but changed to 320 about 25% in to my collection).  Yes, I realize that statement is somewhat of an oxymoron, and if it really bugged me why wouldn't I just rip to FLAC or some other lossless codec....the other reason I rip to MP3 is because I love equalizing the volume of all my music, so I'm not constantly hitting the volume button.  When I started, I didn't find anything (and still haven't) called FLACgain or something that would equalize the volume of FLACs.  To me, it was worth it to lose a little bit of quality (which I don't think I can really notice) for this feature.

Some people will also say to rip to lossless to archive, and then convert to whatever codec you want from the lossless for portable use....to me, that's a big waste of time.  My archive is my CD collection.  The only things I back up in lossless are bootleg CDs or something that is not commercially available (concerts I've been to, etc.).

Maybe one day I'll go back and re-rip everything to lossless, but who knows.  I'm very happy with 320 as it is.  As I've stated, I'm anal, and it does bug me a bit that I don't have an "exact" copy of what's on the CD, but like I said, I can't tell the difference between the two.  I don't have an overly expensive system, but it's pretty decent, so maybe when I upgrade to $1,000+ speakers it'll bug me.

If I were you, I wouldn't waste your time re-ripping from 192.  Just enjoy what you have.  And IMO, get rid of WMP.  A lot of people here like Foobar....personally, I love Winamp.

I'd also like to point out that I joined just about a year ago, and I was member 50,000 or so....the new member count was 15,000 in the past year (the OP joined today and he's around 65,000). 

Moderation: Removed unnecessary quotation of first post.  Discussion about volume equalization has been moved here.

Looking For Advice On The Quality Of MP3 @ 192kbps

Reply #4 –
"The "V" settings are the best way to go however as they are optimized. Most us -V2, -V3, or V0 depending on their tolerance for file size. I personally use -V2 with LAME 3.98."

This is the right advice.  But is it worth the trouble since you already have everything ripped to MP3?  It might not be.

Looking For Advice On The Quality Of MP3 @ 192kbps

Reply #5 –
Other people have answered your questions regarding bitrate, file format, and whatnot but I wanted to pipe in about the article that you linked us to.

The article is simply looking at the frequencies that each lossy format is able to reproduce.  That is fine and all for curiosity purposes but you cannot judge the encoders by their frequency performances.  I have seen some terrible frequency plots yet the files sounded fine.  I have seen some 320kbps AAC/mp3 files where people forced the encoders to analyze and encode the higher bitrates.  The frequency plots looked great but the files had terrible sound quality.

Point being: we don't look at our music, we listen to it.  It is impossible to judge the sound quality of files by looking at their frequency plots.

Looking For Advice On The Quality Of MP3 @ 192kbps

Reply #6 –
I think the most important question for OP is:

Is the MP3 encoder in WMP 10 noticeably inferior to LAME at 192kbps?

The files are already ripped and encoded.

I do not know myself whether there is enough difference at that bit-rate to make it worthwhile starting again, but maybe somebody has done some tests?

Looking For Advice On The Quality Of MP3 @ 192kbps

Reply #7 –
I believe that many people won't be able to distinguish 192 CBR created by a competent codec with most music, even with high-end systems.  With people who have trained themselves to identify artifacts and especially those who listen to things that are hard to encode such as harpsichord or music with lots of transients, the ability to discern 192 becomes easier.  With some people and some things mp3 is simply not capable of delivering transparent results regardless of the bitrate (though in this forum the onus is on the individual to prove).  What's more, some people with the ability to identify artifacts will say that it doesn't even matter if you have a high-end system.

The normal suggestion is to try Lame @ -V5 which produces files with bitrates with a 130-ish average and work your way up (or down) until you find a setting that appropriate for you.  I have chosen -V3 and am quite happy with the results.  The beauty of VBR is that my music takes less space than if I had chosen to go with 192 CBR.  What's more, I have the comfort in knowing that difficult passages can be encoded with up to 320 kbps frames, rather than being forced to use 192 and whatever extra the reservoir will allow.

EDIT: Reworded a bit since MichaelW added his post while I was typing.  I basically agree with what I think he's suggesting: if you don't have any reason to re-encode because the quality is good enough then I wouldn't bother.  The only other reason would be that you have space constraints and would like have more music available (on your DAP, for example).

Looking For Advice On The Quality Of MP3 @ 192kbps

Reply #8 –
a) I would not re-rip and re-encode.

b) For future ripping and encoding I'd consider using 320 kbps when it's up to WMP.

As for a):
You didn't encounter any quality problem with your encoded music.
Beyond your personal experience look at the last mp3 listening test (currently on hydrogenaudio's main page) to see that mp3 at even 128 kbps yields fine results for most people with most music. 128 kbps isn't perfect though but most of the imperfections go away at 192 kbps, also when using CBR.

As for b):
I guess you don't care about the larger required storage space for the future. You usually don't get a better quality with 320 kbps than when using 192 kbps, but you further reduce the small risk of a slightly audible deviation from the original. A mere matter of taste resp. your character: if you're more practically minded you are content with 192 kbps, if you're a bit perfectionist minded you're better off using 320 kbps in the future.
When using WMP you're using a Fraunhofer codec. Fraunhofer mp3 codecs are good but they have the special property that they use joint stereo up to 192 kbps, but plain stereo beyond that point (both are different ways to represent the stereo signal). Joint stereo is more efficient and usually gives the better accuracy for a given bitrate, so in order to compensate for the usually reduced accuracy by using plain stereo a significantly higher bitrate than 192 kbps makes sense, and I'd go right up to 320 kbps.
lame3995o -Q1.7 --lowpass 17

Looking For Advice On The Quality Of MP3 @ 192kbps

Reply #9 –
Quote from: halb27 on
When using WMP you're using a Fraunhofer codec. Fraunhofer mp3 codecs are good but they have the special property that they use joint stereo up to 192 kbps, but plain stereo beyond that point (both are different ways to represent the stereo signal). Joint stereo is more efficient and usually gives the better accuracy for a given bitrate, so in order to compensate for the usually reduced accuracy by using plain stereo a significantly higher bitrate than 192 kbps makes sense, and I'd go right up to 320 kbps.

While it's true that the choice to use forced stereo above 192 kbps is probably a mistake, I very much doubt that this will actually result in audibly inferior quality in any but the rarest cases. I wouldn't discourage use of Fraunhofer codecs for this reason.

Looking For Advice On The Quality Of MP3 @ 192kbps

Reply #10 –
I hope I didn't discourage the use of a Fraunhofer codec. I just wanted to say that when struggling for a better quality than 192 kbps (joint stereo) the best option for a real quality incerease is 320 kbps (plain stereo). Sure it's a matter of taste whether 256 kbps (plain stereo) is worth while or not, but I wouldn't exchange 192 kbps (joint stereo) against 224 kbps (plain stereo).
lame3995o -Q1.7 --lowpass 17