Ogg Vorbis noticeably better than MP3?

[brxndxn]

I downloaded a copy of Mr. Blue Sky by ELO (allofmp3.com) and I figured I'd try listening to the Ogg Vorbis format just for the hell of it. I had it encoded in 256kbps Ogg Vorbis and was amazed when I listened to it. I'm using a basic pair of Sennheiser headphones and my laptop to play it and it sounded clearer than any mp3 I've ever listened to.. and I've been growing tired of my huge mp3 connection because it just seems 'muffled' to me. The .ogg seemed to have much more pronounced highs and lows than 256kbps mp3.

Just to be sure, I downloaded the same song in 256kbps variable bitrate mp3 (lame) and it did not sound as good as the Ogg Vorbis one, imo. The mp3 seemed much less distinct in terms of lows and highs..

I'm very impressed with the Ogg Vorbis format..

 

[BigJ]

Whether its. ogg or .mp3, it simply depends on the encoding.

 

[Taejin]

in my experience, ogg is a superior format than mp3.

EDIT: This is coming from someone who was initially skeptical of ogg - which was pitched to me by someone who loves open source stuff because he thinks everything SHOULD BE OPEN SOURCE AND BOYCOTT WINDOWS AND OMG OPEN SOURCE!!!! FREE LOVE!!! (I especially hate that)

 

[Coquito]

It's huge, but I prefer my music in .flac.

 

[Taejin]

Hah! I posted a fraction of a second on the same second as Coquito did!

 

[Confused]

IMO, yes, Ogg Vorbis is better than MP3

Take an Audio CD, and encode a track to the same bitrate MP3 (using the LAME codec as it's the best) and Ogg Vorbis, add both to Winamp, and shuffle them around randomly a few times (so you don't know which is which) and try to figure out which is Ogg and which is MP3.

I am able to tell the difference almost every time. Of course some tracks have less of a difference than the others.


Alternatively, if you want the best sound quality, use something like flac as it is lossless compression, so you lose no quality over a CD.

 

[Mo0o]

what about size differences?

 

[Gurck]

Originally posted by: Mo0o
what about size differences?

As with mp3, ogg size is user-defined. At any given bitrate ogg sounds better imo, I rip most CDs to 192bit ogg (the rest - my favorites - to flac).

 

[ed21x]

Actually wma has always seemed underrated to me, as that has always been better than mp3 for me.

 

[Yanagi]

what file size does flac usually land on?

 

[Tiamat]

Ogg has better highs and lows then mp3s. I usually just rip my cds to .wavs though. If i run out of harddrive, i just buy another one - there pretty cheap now-a-days anyways.

 

[Coquito]

Originally posted by: Yanagi
what file size does flac usually land on?

From my experiece, 70-90% of the actual .wav file; pretty large. I have several 2 1/2hr concerts weighing in at 800-980mb. .Shn is also a nice codec, but it's been around for a while, & is being replaced by .flac.

 

[0roo0roo]

doubtful that its really better. unless your comparing at lower bitrates. mp3 encoded with lame at higher bitrates is pretty damn good.

 

[Triumph]

Originally posted by: Gurck

Originally posted by: Mo0o
what about size differences?

As with mp3, ogg size is user-defined. At any given bitrate ogg sounds better imo, I rip most CDs to 192bit ogg (the rest - my favorites - to flac).

So what's the answer? "At any given bitrate Ogg sounds better..." So which one is bigger at said bitrate?

Originally posted by: Coquito

Originally posted by: Yanagi
what file size does flac usually land on?

From my experiece, 70-90% of the actual .wav file; pretty large. I have several 2 1/2hr concerts weighing in at 800-980mb. .Shn is also a nice codec, but it's been around for a while, & is being replaced by .flac.

With those numbers, what's the point? You might as well just leave it as a .wav.

 

[Juice Box]

i rock out to 8-bit midi

 

[blakeatwork]

Originally posted by: digitalsnare
i rock out to 8-bit midi

Dude... the StreetFighter theme rxors the hizouse!



What's the filesize difference between .ogg and .mp3 at 256kbps? I know a 4 minute 192kbps encoded mp3 can run upwards of 8-10MB...

 

[spacelord]

for a filesize reference, I have a song ripped into OGG. I used a nominal bitrate of 192. (Actual average ended up being 176kbps)
The song length is 4:52, and the filesize is 6,463,608.

sorry, I don't have it ripped into MP3 for better comparison.


I am usually cheap with my filesizes, and I usually rip my OGG at Nominal Bitrate of 160. Even at 128 OGG sounds pretty damn good.

 

[Confused]

Originally posted by: Triumph

Originally posted by: Gurck

Originally posted by: Mo0o
what about size differences?

As with mp3, ogg size is user-defined. At any given bitrate ogg sounds better imo, I rip most CDs to 192bit ogg (the rest - my favorites - to flac).

So what's the answer? "At any given bitrate Ogg sounds better..." So which one is bigger at said bitrate?

If the tracks are the same length then they will be the same size.

Hence the "bitrate" being bits used per second, hence the filesizes being the same.

It's just the Ogg Vorbis makes better use of the file size.

 

[Gurck]

^ What Confused said

Originally posted by: Tiamat
Ogg has better highs and lows then mp3s. I usually just rip my cds to .wavs though. If i run out of harddrive, i just buy another one - there pretty cheap now-a-days anyways.

Damn, wav? At least convert to lossless, that way you're not losing anything, but are saving on size. Another poster said s/he found flac to average 70-90% of the wav size, but I find it to be more like 50-70% - the 70-90% figure was given using live concerts as an example, and live music tends to like higher bitrates, that could be the reason for the discrepancy.

 

[crazycarl]

maybe it's just my comp, but ~256k ogg encodes much faster than high end lame and sounds about the same to me, that's why i use ogg.

 

[RobCur]

Originally posted by: blakeatwork

Originally posted by: digitalsnare
i rock out to 8-bit midi

Dude... the StreetFighter theme rxors the hizouse!



What's the filesize difference between .ogg and .mp3 at 256kbps? I know a 4 minute 192kbps encoded mp3 can run upwards of 8-10MB...

bad math

 

[Triumph]

Originally posted by: Gurck
^ What Confused said

Originally posted by: Tiamat
Ogg has better highs and lows then mp3s. I usually just rip my cds to .wavs though. If i run out of harddrive, i just buy another one - there pretty cheap now-a-days anyways.

Damn, wav? At least convert to lossless, that way you're not losing anything, but are saving on size. Another poster said s/he found flac to average 70-90% of the wav size, but I find it to be more like 50-70% - the 70-90% figure was given using live concerts as an example, and live music tends to like higher bitrates, that could be the reason for the discrepancy.

.wav is lossy?

 

[blakeatwork]

Originally posted by: RobCur

Originally posted by: blakeatwork

Originally posted by: digitalsnare
i rock out to 8-bit midi

Dude... the StreetFighter theme rxors the hizouse!



What's the filesize difference between .ogg and .mp3 at 256kbps? I know a 4 minute 192kbps encoded mp3 can run upwards of 8-10MB...

bad math

Off the top o'me head, a 4 minute .mp3 was running roughly 8-10MB at 192kbps... I could care less about the math.. but if you're so inclined, please provide with the formulas used to determine size required at the various encoding levels.

Thank you.

It was more a question, that you chose not to answer, and instead posit forth an inconclusive statement.

jerk..

 

[pulse8]

Originally posted by: blakeatwork

Originally posted by: RobCur

Originally posted by: blakeatwork

Originally posted by: digitalsnare
i rock out to 8-bit midi

Dude... the StreetFighter theme rxors the hizouse!



What's the filesize difference between .ogg and .mp3 at 256kbps? I know a 4 minute 192kbps encoded mp3 can run upwards of 8-10MB...

bad math

Off the top o'me head, a 4 minute .mp3 was running roughly 8-10MB at 192kbps... I could care less about the math.. but if you're so inclined, please provide with the formulas used to determine size required at the various encoding levels.

Thank you.

It was more a question, that you chose not to answer, and instead posit forth an inconclusive statement.

jerk..

5,760,000 bytes

 

[maziwanka]

i wanted to bump this thread so that i could find out what programs ppl use to rip cd tracks to .ogg format