Sound Quality: MP3 ripped from a CD vs a non-ripped MP3

[Dave3000]

Would an MP3 that was ripped from a CD down to 320 kbps sound worse than an MP3 that was bought online with the same bit-rate and from the same album? I'm thinking of buying an album in MP3 format online because I can't find it locally in stores and ordering the CD online will be much more expensive than because of shipping than just buying the album in MP3 format.

 

[PottedMeat]

they should be indistinguishable to your hearing at 320

numerically probably different depending on their encoder vs yours

i wouldn't worry about it

 

[v-600]

There's more than one variable to take into account but pretty much yes, they will sound the same.

Regardless of anything else most people with most equipment would find it hard (impossible) to tell the difference between a CD and the mp3 at 320kbps.

 

[bigboxes]

There's more than one variable to take into account but pretty much yes, they will sound the same.

Regardless of anything else most people with most equipment would find it hard (impossible) to tell the difference between a CD and the mp3 at 320kbps.

Agreed. 320kbps sounds great when ripped from the source.

 

[Dude111]

I think this was originally a WMA file and converted to MP3,what do others think??

http://web.archive.org/web/20131231013000/http://www.mp3sfinder.com/download.php?mp3=8ff29e9a4e1230fe7f2fcbf9ce25b15c/stay_the_night_benjamin_orr_hq_audio_320.mp3

PASTE LINK INTO YOUR PLAYER TO LISTEN...

It sounds BETTER than the average MP3. (Even @ 320k)

 

[Cerb]

Would an MP3 that was ripped from a CD down to 320 kbps sound worse than an MP3 that was bought online with the same bit-rate and from the same album? I'm thinking of buying an album in MP3 format online because I can't find it locally in stores and ordering the CD online will be much more expensive than because of shipping than just buying the album in MP3 format.

At 320K, as long as both were made from the same audio stream as a source, no. Much lower, there could be differences, depending on the content and encoder used (older v. newer Fraunhaufer(sp), or LAME). As high as 320K, either the MP3 format is good enough, or it's not and will glitch.

It sounds BETTER than the average MP3. (Even @ 320k)

Either that's placebo, or it's been encoded lossy multiple times. If the latter, of course the quality will be worse. It's the same kind of effect on the audio stream as the noisy and blocky re-encoded JPEGs you see all the time. You want any lossy file to be created from the highest quality source you can get.

 

[Cogman]

There should be little difference. If I were going with a lossy format, though, I would go for AAC. It has better compression and generally comes out on top in most A/B tests at the various bitrates. Heck, even Vorbis has "better than MP3" quality.

The only reason people still use MP3s is because of the momentum behind them (similar reason why some people clung onto XVid and the old DivX stuff way past its prime... H.264 was a much better standard and x264 creamed them at any give bitrate).

Honestly, I'm not sure why we haven't gotten to the point of just distributing Flac everywhere. Where phones have upwards of 64gb of memory, 20mb vs 3mb doesn't make a hill of beans difference.

 

[Aluvus]

Would an MP3 that was ripped from a CD down to 320 kbps sound worse than an MP3 that was bought online with the same bit-rate and from the same album? I'm thinking of buying an album in MP3 format online because I can't find it locally in stores and ordering the CD online will be much more expensive than because of shipping than just buying the album in MP3 format.

The difference in audio quality will be likely negligible. The MP3s produced by the vendor may even be better in quality, because they have the option of using audio that is closer to the original source (i.e. they can skip over the step of converting the audio for CD). But again, this is probably a trivial difference.

The difference you might be able to notice would be that the two formats may have been mastered separately. As a result, there may be slight differences intended to make the audio sound better in the different formats. Realistically, I wouldn't worry about it.

There should be little difference. If I were going with a lossy format, though, I would go for AAC. It has better compression and generally comes out on top in most A/B tests at the various bitrates. Heck, even Vorbis has "better than MP3" quality.

AAC (and Vorbis) generally come out ahead at low bitrates. At 256 kb/s and higher (or comparable variable bit-rate), I have yet to see an A/B test that could find any real daylight between MP3 and AAC or Vorbis. By your own statement, there is little difference between MP3 and lossless, which doesn't leave much room for improvement.

The only reason people still use MP3s is because of the momentum behind them (similar reason why some people clung onto XVid and the old DivX stuff way past its prime... H.264 was a much better standard and x264 creamed them at any give bitrate).

People use MP3 because the audio quality is good and it works on virtually every platform that can play audio. A better analogy would be JPEG; it's far from perfect, but it's quite good and at reasonable settings it can satisfy nearly all users.

Honestly, I'm not sure why we haven't gotten to the point of just distributing Flac everywhere. Where phones have upwards of 64gb of memory, 20mb vs 3mb doesn't make a hill of beans difference.

Why would I use 7x as much space (which eats into my finite storage and also takes longer to transfer), and a format not supported by some of my devices, to get no appreciable benefits? That is the reason.

 

[StrangerGuy]

MP3s properly encoded with LAME is audibly transparent at 192kbps, much less 320kbps. Lossy audio compression has come a loooooooooong way even for the archaic MP3 format since the early 2000s despite the claims contrary by the placebophile crowd.

 

[JeffMD]

MP3 has NOT changed.. it is still MP3. Compression does not get updates, or version numbers. MP3 from one place always needs to work with mp3 from another, you can't change it. We don't have "better" encoders.. we have encoders that suck less. And yes I can tell MP3 destroys high frequencies even at 320kbps. I'm also sad to see that OOG has its issues too.

Buy AAC if you can.

 

[Anteaus]

Why would I use 7x as much space (which eats into my finite storage and also takes longer to transfer), and a format not supported by some of my devices, to get no appreciable benefits? That is the reason.

That's a silly reason because it's about future proofing and creating a reference quality backup of your purchase. You don't buy lossless files for compatibility. You buy lossless so that you have the ability to convert to whatever future lossy codec is the current favorite with zero loss of quality.

Not all music is available in lossless, but if it is then in my opinion its foolish to not get them. For the price of one FLAC file, you also get that file in every lossy codec you can find a converter for right now and in the future.

People who voluntarily choose MP3 over FLAC when they have the option are like people who choose to shoot photography in JPG instead of RAW. I just don't get it.

 

[Murloc]

People who voluntarily choose MP3 over FLAC when they have the option are like people who choose to shoot photography in JPG instead of RAW. I just don't get it.

lack of technical knowledge or simply not giving a crap.

Big occupied space and transfering big files over the internet is an hindrance to most people, people who mostly don't even know what compression is.

 

[Cerb]

Why would I use 7x as much space (which eats into my finite storage and also takes longer to transfer), and a format not supported by some of my devices, to get no appreciable benefits? That is the reason.

It's not 7x, for one thing, even keeping lossy and lossless copies (unless you ignore popular formats, and use only Opus). More like 4x, or maybe 5x. If you use something like use 320k MP3s, it might not even be 3x. 7x would necessitate 128k, which is usually not transparent for much music in MP3, to anybody. You could probably ABX a newish LAME encode at 128k in a car on the highway, with the right music.

Then, on top of that, how much can you listen to? 1TB can store 2,000-3,000 CDs, as FLAC. 4TB drives are quite affordable, today, with affordable 8TB in the offing. Sure, storage is finite, but it's not confining, for music. Even getting high def tracks, you'll be upgrading a basic RAID 1 before space gets to be the issue, if it's mainly storing a music collection.

It's been 10 years or more since I've had to worry about transfer speeds, between devices, or over a network, for music (data caps, OTOH...). Conversion speed, yes, but that's what I have several CPU cores for .

Meanwhile, I'm either done, or I will be alerted to a corrupted file, which has happened. When any new formats come along, like Opus, I'm good. I just need to convert to them.

 

[Cerb]

The difference in audio quality will be likely negligible. The MP3s produced by the vendor may even be better in quality, because they have the option of using audio that is closer to the original source (i.e. they can skip over the step of converting the audio for CD). But again, this is probably a trivial difference.

It's not applicable at all. They don't do that. 44.1kHz/16-bit stereo is 44.1kHz/16-bit stereo is 44.1kHz/16-bit stereo. It must be converted to that before the encoding, and the quality of that conversion is going to be identical, whether it's going to MP3, AAC, FLAC, ALAC, or a CD.

The only way to get reasonably closer is to use the same rate and depth as the master itself. HD tracks at 96kHz or 192kHz are often archival quality copies. Lossy at such high data rates makes little sense. Most of the use they may have had in the past has been usurped by DACs upsampling and oversampling, except for the case of using a lot of DSP, to minimize errors (16-bit is enough for human hearing, but not by much).

The difference you might be able to notice would be that the two formats may have been mastered separately. As a result, there may be slight differences intended to make the audio sound better in the different formats. Realistically, I wouldn't worry about it.

That would be AAC from iTunes. TMK, that's the only case where there's usually any difference, and it's usually just a normalization pass, similar to using ReplayGain.

 

[bigboxes]

MP3s properly encoded with LAME is audibly transparent at 192kbps, much less 320kbps. Lossy audio compression has come a loooooooooong way even for the archaic MP3 format since the early 2000s despite the claims contrary by the placebophile crowd.

Yup. There's a lot of "it feels better" comments by the lossless nazis. It's all about the source. The better the source the better the digital copy you'll make. At 320kbps it sounds great to me. Outside of the source I'd say that DAC, amplifier and speakers are more important than using a lossless codec.

As far as using a lossless because storage is cheap. I have a file server with eight hard drives. I may have a ton of storage space, but I'd prefer to use it where it matters most -- for video. I'm not against lossless. It's great for ensuring the source quality. I just convert all of those precious FLAC files to 320kbps mp3. Please don't convert to mp3 or other lossy formats. Bwahahahahaha!!!

 

[Aluvus]

That's a silly reason because it's about future proofing and creating a reference quality backup of your purchase. You don't buy lossless files for compatibility. You buy lossless so that you have the ability to convert to whatever future lossy codec is the current favorite with zero loss of quality.

As you say, this is quite analogous to storing your photos in JPEG rather than RAW.

It's fundamentally an issue of balancing costs (more primary and backup storage, slower transfers for backups, time and energy spent converting formats) and benefits (lossless transfer to some hypothetical format that might replace the incumbent, and a few others in the case of RAW). For most people, using the lossless format is just not compelling enough.

It's not 7x, for one thing, even keeping lossy and lossless copies (unless you ignore popular formats, and use only Opus). More like 4x, or maybe 5x.

7x is from Cogman's numbers. Even if it's "only" 4x the space, the point is the same. Anyway, this is all getting a bit off topic.

It's not applicable at all. They don't do that. 44.1kHz/16-bit stereo is 44.1kHz/16-bit stereo is 44.1kHz/16-bit stereo. It must be converted to that before the encoding, and the quality of that conversion is going to be identical, whether it's going to MP3, AAC, FLAC, ALAC, or a CD.

The only way to get reasonably closer is to use the same rate and depth as the master itself. HD tracks at 96kHz or 192kHz are often archival quality copies. Lossy at such high data rates makes little sense. Most of the use they may have had in the past has been usurped by DACs upsampling and oversampling, except for the case of using a lot of DSP, to minimize errors (16-bit is enough for human hearing, but not by much).

That would be AAC from iTunes. TMK, that's the only case where there's usually any difference, and it's usually just a normalization pass, similar to using ReplayGain.

Conversely, this is very much on topic (and interesting reading).