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Topic: Minimum aceptable bitrate for music@car (Read 11097 times) previous topic - next topic
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Minimum aceptable bitrate for music@car

Hi, new here, sorry about my bad english  :-[

I'm planing to recompress my whole mp3 collection (320kbps) to AAC to use it at my car. I need maximum compression due to space limitation of the playing device, so I'm asking about an aceptable compression level for car listening. Cheap music equipment, I'm not audiophile at all.

I'm planning HE-AAC@96Kbps, it could be OK?

Another question: What is the best way to do the transcoding of my collection at once (arround 60GB of MP3)? I can do it on Windows or Linux.

Re: Minimum aceptable bitrate for music@car

Reply #1 –
Should be fine, but convert a subset of your library first and live with it for a few weeks. Be sure to include all genres you typically play.

Re: Minimum aceptable bitrate for music@car

Reply #2 –
HE-AAC is designed for very low bitrates and has fundamental limitations that can't be solved by throwing more bits at it. According to what I've read and also personal listening tests it's not very practical beyond 64-80 kbps compared to other codecs. If 96 kbps is an acceptable bitrate to meet your storage requirements then you might have better luck with regular AAC. (or better yet Vorbis or Opus if your playback device is capable)

Re: Minimum aceptable bitrate for music@car

Reply #3 –
Quote from: milesrotaru on
If 96 kbps is an acceptable bitrate to meet your storage requirements then you might have better luck with regular AAC. (or better yet Vorbis or Opus if your playback device is capable)

My device is an old Android Phone, so all format capable I think.
So for 96kbps. which codec is better? I think AAC was the best..

Re: Minimum aceptable bitrate for music@car

Reply #4 –
I just suggest  you to convert to OGG Q7 - its 192 K VBR. Filesize less than mp3 in same bitrate. Still is good quality.

Re: Minimum aceptable bitrate for music@car

Reply #5 –
As mentioned already. At 96kbps you should not use HE-AAC, but LC-AAC.

The itunes sounds good at 96kbps LC-AAC. It will be lacking some frequencies from ~14khz and up. So if you can or want to hear higher frequencies you might wanna go for a higher bitrate like 128kbps or even higher.

Re: Minimum aceptable bitrate for music@car

Reply #6 –
Quote from: xabih on
My device is an old Android Phone, so all format capable I think.
So for 96kbps. which codec is better? I think AAC was the best..

You could use Opus then. It's pretty much the best lossy codec in existence right now. If you're using a music player app that doesn't suck everything should be good to go but otherwise you might have to rename the opus files to have a .ogg extension for them to be recognized.

Re: Minimum aceptable bitrate for music@car

Reply #7 –
Quote from: Mark7 on
At 96kbps you should not use HE-AAC, but LC-AAC.
fdkaac. he <=128kbps, he2 <=64.

Quote from: milesrotaru on
Quote from: xabih on
My device is an old Android Phone, so all format capable I think.
You could use Opus then.
for OLD device ogg better. easy for decompression = longer battery life.
    but in general...
recompress [...] mp3 [...]to AAC. there's a special place in hell for people doing this. amen!

Re: Minimum aceptable bitrate for music@car

Reply #8 –
Quote from: m14u on
fdkaac. he <=128kbps, he2 <=64.
Don't know about fdkaac, but FhG AAC from Winamp uses HE-AACv2 for bitrates <= 40 kbps, and HE-AAC for bitrates <= 80 kbps.
Apple AAC also uses HE-AAC for bitrates up to 80 kbps.

Re: Minimum aceptable bitrate for music@car

Reply #9 –
Sorry I missed the HE/LC thing.  For the car, I typically convert to AAC (Nero or Apple) or MP3 (LAME) in the 128-160 kbps range.  It sounds fine.  I also apply permanent ReplayGain ("Album Gain" w/ limiter) so that my volume levels don't jump around too much.  My car player doesn't support RG tags.  If my car player could handle OGG, I'd probably use that as I've had good experience with it in the past.  (Rio Karma, good times!)

Re: Minimum aceptable bitrate for music@car

Reply #10 –
For a car, you don't have to really care all that much. All the ambient noise will mask such a huge part of the music spectrum that any quality discusion is pretty moot, so as long as you don't go down to "old telephone line" bitrates you will be fine.

Re: Minimum aceptable bitrate for music@car

Reply #11 –
Quote from: LordWarlock on
For a car, you don't have to really care all that much. All the ambient noise will mask such a huge part of the music spectrum that any quality discusion is pretty moot, so as long as you don't go down to "old telephone line" bitrates you will be fine.

Exactly, the noise floor in a car is absolutely horrendous, unless you're driving an S-class Mercedes or a Rolls-Royce or something. And even then, road noise just cannot be completely eliminated.

In my perfectly ordinary cars, I used LAME -V5 (~130kbps) and that was perfectly fine, I never noticed any artifacts. An Opus or AAC reencode at 96-128ish kbps should present no issues, sound quality wise.

Re: Minimum aceptable bitrate for music@car

Reply #12 –
Quote from: LordWarlock on
[...] "old telephone line" bitrates you will be fine.
yes, if you want to give "sht" in your ears.
simple ariphmetic:
-1 ("old telephone line" bitrates) + (-1 (ambient noise)) = -2 (cow dollop in ears).
0 (mid bitrates, ~162) + (-1 (ambient noise)) = -1 (garbage, trash sound)
1 (high bitrates, >=256) + (-1 (ambient noise)) = 0 (poor music)

Quote from: KozmoNaut on
In my perfectly ordinary cars, I used LAME -V5 (~130kbps) and that was perfectly fine, I never noticed any artifacts
king of abx...

Re: Minimum aceptable bitrate for music@car

Reply #13 –
Quote from: m14u on
simple ariphmetic:
-1 ("old telephone line" bitrates) + (-1 (ambient noise)) = -2 (cow dollop in ears).
0 (mid bitrates, ~162) + (-1 (ambient noise)) = -1 (garbage, trash sound)
1 (high bitrates, >=256) + (-1 (ambient noise)) = 0 (poor music)
It makes absolutely no sense.

Re: Minimum aceptable bitrate for music@car

Reply #14 –
no more then like reencode lossy to another lossy

Re: Minimum aceptable bitrate for music@car

Reply #15 –
I use the FDK AAC encoder at VBR 2, this gives a VBR around 64~ kbps, the end file will be a HE-AAC (AAC-LC + SBR) my music library is all kind of genres and it sounds good and small file size footprint, been used it for years, first started with Nero AAC which it was the encoder to go at the time it could do HE-AAC v1 and v2, had a LG flip phone (non android) that supported AAC and I was good. HE-AAC requires a bit more power to decode so my phone (the flip phone) if I fast-foward/rewind then for half a second you could hear the AAC-LC before applying the SBR. In conclusion go with FDK AAC at VBR2 with afterburner (I think is on by default?) tag them well use musicbrainz Picard and insert a nice cover art into the m4a and you good to go.

PS: Didnt read ur other question OP, so for the transcoding of your collection go with foobar2000 but it doesn't come with the fdkaac.exe so u need to compile it or find a binary use google for that, again my way to go is fdk aac @ vbr mode 2.

Re: Minimum aceptable bitrate for music@car

Reply #16 –
Quote from: n1v3k on
[...] around 64~ kbps, [...] it sounds good and small file size [...] if I fast-foward/rewind then for half a second [...] insert a nice cover art into the m4a [...]
on the one hand, you use a small bitrate to save space (?), on the other hand, you insert pictures into a file... dude!
if your device is not powerful enough for HE-AAC, maybe it's time to try OGG ?

Re: Minimum aceptable bitrate for music@car

Reply #17 –
Quote from: m14u on
Quote from: n1v3k on
[...] around 64~ kbps, [...] it sounds good and small file size [...] if I fast-foward/rewind then for half a second [...] insert a nice cover art into the m4a [...]
on the one hand, you use a small bitrate to save space (?), on the other hand, you insert pictures into a file... dude!
if your device is not powerful enough for HE-AAC, maybe it's time to try OGG ?

I was talking about my experience with aac back in the day with a flip phone that supported it, today I have a smartphone capable of decoding ff/rewind he-aac v1 and v2 with no problems.

Yes I use that small bitrate to save space and sharing.

About "inserting pictures" its not like I'm inserting PNGs at 3000x3000 pixels, just JPGs at 500 or 1000 pixels that doesn't go over of what 100 kilobytes? make the audio file looks proper and good for sharing.

Re: Minimum aceptable bitrate for music@car

Reply #18 –
Don't fine-tune your AAC encoder.

If you're using something like the fdk-aac frontend, it'll select the appropriate variant for you, based on the selected target bitrate, I suggest sticking to that.

Understand that AAC-LC is the base profile, while HE-AAC adds spectral band replication. HE-AAC-v2 adds parametric stereo on top of HE-AAC. Increasing the bitrate while using these technologies, won't increase quality beyond a certain point, as these have essentially a "service ceiling" when it comes to what they can do, to replicated the original. Also, understand the point of these technologies isn't to replicate the original waveform as accurately as possible. Rather, the point is to have a close perceived match at a given bitrate, that also minimizes annoying artifacts.

Since your playback device is an old phone, I'm pretty sure it supports FLAC playback as well, so if you're annoyed at the whole bitrate malarkey, just go with FLAC.

Re: Minimum aceptable bitrate for music@car

Reply #19 –
I think you should have a "ballpark idea" of how much storage you have and how much storage you need. You have an "old Android" telephone, and most of these do support memory cards. If your phone can comfortably fit your entire collection at 128, then there is not much need to discuss whether 48 is enough.

Apart from that: just try something low, and see if it annoys you. You are not going to throw away the originals, so you can just overwrite later.

Quote from: xabih on
So for 96kbps. which codec is better? I think AAC was the best..
If you are driving with your attention on the road and just casually listen to the music with half an ear, then I'd assume AAC at 96 is overkill.

If you want to be impressed, take note that anything below 32 kb/s was considered so useless that the MP3 specification does not even allow it - seriously, listen to Opus at 32 kb/s! Twenty years ago you wouldn't believe that it could sound much like music.
High Voltage socket-nose-avatar
 

Re: Minimum aceptable bitrate for music@car

Reply #20 –
Just try some different methods. If possible stick with Opus.

Create a Opus file with different bitrates (32, 48, 64, 80, 96) and play them and see where it starts to sound good enough for the car. Then take one step up and set that as a default. I think you'll end up with 64kb/s :)
 
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