MP3 Question. whats the difference between Kbps?

[Solodays]

i'm trying to rip my cd's to .mp3 and was just wondering what all the differences between 64kbps, 128 kbps and so on.

 

[Aluvus]

Ripping at higher bitrates in general means higher quality and larger file sizes. Most people consider 128 kbps the bare minimum for MP3. 192 kbps is my personal preference.

 

[tatteredpotato]

I would agree, 192 minimum, higher if storage space isn't an issue.

 

[Solodays]

what is the default kbps for audio cd's?

 

[tatteredpotato]

By default to you mean to rip? That depends on the software, but it usually 128, although you cant measure the cd audio in kbps, as it is in a lossless state.

 

[DaveSimmons]

There are lossless formats like FLAC and apple lossless that store the exact same audio as the CD, typically using 30 MB of space per CD.

MP3 is "lossy" it reduces size by throwing away bits of music that you probably won't notice that much. The higher the bitrate the less that gets simplified or thrown away.

At 128 Kbps MP3 sounds better than FM radio and is hard to tell apart from a CD a lot of the time. At 192 Kbps you can almost never hear that something is missing or smeared.

I rip to lossless FLAC because space is cheap, I want to hear the CD exactly as it is not "pretty close," and because it then acts as a backup of my CDs.

For listening to on a portable I use either 192 Kbps MP3 or 160 Kbps AAC (iTunes).

 

[Shawn]

variable bit rate is better than constant bit rate. for the best file size to quality ratio set the minimum to 128 and the max to 320. or if quality is more important set the min to 192.

 

[alimoalem]

i think 160-192 is the sweet spot. 128 is the bare minimum (you can hear the difference pretty well below that...at least i can) and above 192 is a waste of space

 

[NaOH]

Variable bit rate owns constant bit rate (using only 160 or 192kbps). The song will be encoded at a higher bit rate when needed and lower when it isn't.

 

[Slammy1]

The nice thing about ripping to lossless, aside from the best possible sound quality (and there is a marked improvement on mysystem between 320kbps and lossless), is that you can always compress files for portable media which means you only have to rip the actual CD once. Going back and re-ripping my collection is very time consuming. I could even change to other lossless forms, but I haven't done that yet. You could go to wav as well, but no ID tags that way.

 

[CSMR]

I even use lossless on my portable .

 

[Schadenfroh]

I use 320kbps MP3 minimum on all of my PCs. If only my MP3 player supported FLAC.

I ripped it using LAME and CDEX

 

[0roo0roo]

use lame encoder. its considered the best for mp3. razor lame front end, or use it with EAC for ripping/naming with cddb/encode in one step. just google lame mp3 and you'lll find plenty of info. i use the extreme settings. variable bitrate of around 200-240~kbps ish. never use 128kpbs, its too low, and just a shady marketing number to claim very high compression or in the case of mp3 players high song capacity. 128kpbs no matter what the fliers say is not cd quality. mp3 becomes transparent from cd for most at 192kpbs or so. don't use itunes encoder. its weird, its vbr is broken from what i've read, it actually does worse in vbr than cbr. to be expected, apple wants you to use their format instead

 

[SunSamurai]

Originally posted by: Schadenfroh
I use 320kbps MP3 minimum on all of my PCs. If only my MP3 player supported FLAC.

I ripped it using LAME and CDEX

Thats a waste. You might as well go lossless at that unwise bitrate.

 

[SunSamurai]

Originally posted by: 0roo0roo
use lame encoder. its considered the best for mp3. razor lame front end, or use it with EAC for ripping/naming with cddb/encode in one step. just google lame mp3 and you'lll find plenty of info. i use the extreme settings. variable bitrate of around 200-240~kbps ish. never use 128kpbs, its too low, and just a shady marketing number to claim very high compression or in the case of mp3 players high song capacity. 128kpbs no matter what the fliers say is not cd quality. mp3 becomes transparent from cd for most at 192kpbs or so. don't use itunes encoder. its weird, its vbr is broken from what i've read, it actually does worse in vbr than cbr. to be expected, apple wants you to use their format instead

wma>appleaac>lamemp3

 

[potato28]

Im usually listening at 220kbps, but I have some songs that are 128kbps.

 

[Schadenfroh]

Originally posted by: aeternitas

Originally posted by: Schadenfroh
I use 320kbps MP3 minimum on all of my PCs. If only my MP3 player supported FLAC.

I ripped it using LAME and CDEX

Thats a waste. You might as well go lossless at that unwise bitrate.

As soon as my MP3 player supports FLAC or any other lossless, I will.

 

[dBTelos]

I prefer 320kbps MP3s. That or FLAC.

 

[Ika]

Originally posted by: aeternitas

Originally posted by: Schadenfroh
I use 320kbps MP3 minimum on all of my PCs. If only my MP3 player supported FLAC.

I ripped it using LAME and CDEX

Thats a waste. You might as well go lossless at that unwise bitrate.

Two comments - first, he obviously stated that if his MP3 player supported FLAC, he would use it. Second, there's still a big difference in space between 320kbps MP3 and FLAC, but not that big of a difference in sound quality (depends on your equipment, mostly).

 

[Noema]

Lossless all the way here, both in my PC (all of my CDs are encoded with WMA lossless) and AAC Lossless in my iPod, though I have lots of CDs in 320kbps MP3s as well.

I probably wouldn't be able to tell the difference between 320kbps and lossless, but I have the storage (60GB iPod) so it's not a problem.

Anything under 192kbps is unacceptable for me. I can really tell the difference, specially in classical music, when it bitrates go so low.

If storage is a problem, using Exact Audio Copy and LAME (LAME-Ain't an-MP3-Encoder, even though it is ) like Schadenfroh said to encode at 320kbps yields some damn good sounding MP3s. I don't believe it's a waste, since it takes up less than 50% of the space lossless does, like Aflac said and 99% of the human population can't really tell the difference, specially since as you get older you lose the ability to higher certain hear frequencies.

What Exact Audio Copy does is create a perfect, binary identical copy of your CD in .WAV format for you to work on. It can even get perfect .wavs off CDs that are badly scratched (though it takes a while, it's absolutely wonderful. I've gotten perfect wavs off CDs I had already given up on).

You can then use LAME to encode them into MP3s. LAME uses the BEST compression and encoding algorithms out there. Since it is an open source effort, hundreds of people have collaborated into making LAME the best for years now, including many audio engineers and musicians. LAME is console based, and that can be tricky for newbies, but there are some nice front-end GUI for it that make it much easier to use, like RazorLAME EAC+LAME is a bit like the best of both worlds, provided you are willing to take the time it takes to rip+encode your albums with this method.

 

[biggestmuff]

Originally posted by: Solodays
what is the default kbps for audio cd's?

around 1411 kb/s

 

[Firsttime]

It's all personal preference. I am not bothered by music at 96kbps, 128kbps is my default setting. I can see how some people like it at 192kbps+ but for me that's just to much space to justify.

 

[dBTelos]

Originally posted by: Firsttime
It's all personal preference. I am not bothered by music at 96kbps, 128kbps is my default setting. I can see how some people like it at 192kbps+ but for me that's just to much space to justify.

If you have high-end audio equipment (or anything better then $5 headphones), then you will notice the higher bit rate music.

 

[Fenixgoon]

Originally posted by: aeternitas

Originally posted by: 0roo0roo
use lame encoder. its considered the best for mp3. razor lame front end, or use it with EAC for ripping/naming with cddb/encode in one step. just google lame mp3 and you'lll find plenty of info. i use the extreme settings. variable bitrate of around 200-240~kbps ish. never use 128kpbs, its too low, and just a shady marketing number to claim very high compression or in the case of mp3 players high song capacity. 128kpbs no matter what the fliers say is not cd quality. mp3 becomes transparent from cd for most at 192kpbs or so. don't use itunes encoder. its weird, its vbr is broken from what i've read, it actually does worse in vbr than cbr. to be expected, apple wants you to use their format instead

wma>appleaac>lamemp3

no DRM > *

 

[IHateMyJob2004]

Originally posted by: Aflac

Originally posted by: aeternitas

Originally posted by: Schadenfroh
I use 320kbps MP3 minimum on all of my PCs. If only my MP3 player supported FLAC.

I ripped it using LAME and CDEX

Thats a waste. You might as well go lossless at that unwise bitrate.

Two comments - first, he obviously stated that if his MP3 player supported FLAC, he would use it. Second, there's still a big difference in space between 320kbps MP3 and FLAC, but not that big of a difference in sound quality (depends on your equipment, mostly).

encoding to 320 kbps for use on a portable is stupid. This goes for ANY portable unless it's tied to an aftermarket D/A converter/amp like a Bit-Head. And with a high end pair of cans