posted
I have a ton of CDs, and I've long since ripped them to my hard drive. In fact, all my original CDs are in boxes, and I only listen to my music off my hard drive, or off mp3-CDs. This has worked perfectly for many years, as I don't typically listen in circumstances that demand extreme fidelity, even when I'm paying fairly close attention to the music.
However, I recently started a job that allows me to sit in a quiet room for most of the day listening to music through a high quality set of headphones. For the first time I'm noticing elements of the 128kb/s mp3 format that are sub-optimal. I'm anal enough about my original discs that I'm not about to bring them to work with me, but I would like to find a compression format that is superior to the one I have. I'm going to keep the 128 mp3 files, since they don't take up much space and are work great for practically any other circumstance. But as long as I'm going to the trouble of re-ripping the discs for work, I want to do it right.
I'm leaning toward re-ripping at 192kb/s VBR mp3, but I have a few questions I thought I'd throw out before I start.
1. I know that VBR theoretically produces a better sound than CBR, but are there any downsides to it? If VBR is so much better, why does CBR seem to be the standard?
2. Are there any audio file formats that would be a better choice than mp3? The files that I play at work must be readable by Windows Media Player, since that's the only jukebox program available on my work computer. I'd like them to be playable on iTunes, Real Jukebox, or Rhythmbox as well, in case I ever want to use them at home. Oh, and I'll be ripping them on this program. Are there any formats that are usable on those programs that are significantly superior to mp3?
3. Anything I need to know about different encoders for different formats? In other words, it's said that LAME is the best encoder for mp3 files. If I choose to encode to ogg or wma or something, are there any analagous situations I should be aware of?
Thanks in advance for any advice you have on the subject. Hatrack techie gurus.
Posts: 563 | Registered: Feb 2006
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posted
Who ever said VBR produced better sound didn't understand what they were saying. VBR only gives you a better compression on certain types of music. If you noticed a weird underwatery sound on some of your stuff especially in the high frequency area it's most likely because of the VBR encoding.
The only problem with VBR is that it's not 100% supported in all devices. But I really don't see that as a problem. It's really the obscure ones that don't support it. MP3 seems to be supported by pretty much everything. If you use other formats such as WMA or AAC or whatever the format is, you can have trouble in that not all players will support that format. But as to their superiority it's all media hype. The only way to know which one is better is to conduct a blind test where you don't know in advance what your listening to and then you decide which one sounds better and surprise yourself with what you pick or your inability to pick assuming the test was fair and that all compression ratios are taken into account when listening. The different formats were mainly developed for DRM and they all used some sort of MPEG compression underneath.
I do all mine at a minimum of 160kbs. But there are some that need better such as 192kbs. For my ears, anything higher than 192kbs I can't tell much of a difference and HD space ultimately wins over quality. I have many MP3s that are VBR 128kbs but they don't matter much because they are mostly off the air recordings of various things that aren't available anywhere else. Obscure stuff and weren't all that hi fidelity to begin with.
Audio books I do VBR at 96kbs or 64kbs VBR averages and still get excellent sound quality and compression. I can fit a 12-15 CD audio book on to 1 MP3 CD that way.
I use the LAME encoder with great results.
Posts: 527 | Registered: Aug 2004
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posted
As a big iTunes fan (though still a PC/Windows user), I generally rip my CDs to 192 kbps AAC format. If you want your songs playable on WMP, though, anything at the level of 192 kbps LAME-encoded MP3 or better is fine. Usually, I don't bother ripping above 192 kbps because my speakers aren't high-end enough that I'd be able to discern the difference anyway. I don't do VBR, because I've had problems with players being incapable of playing the songs in the past (although this was long enough ago that I wouldn't be surprised if it's no longer an issue).
Posts: 1321 | Registered: Sep 1999
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Variable bit rate should be able to produce better sound for the same storage space, because it reduces bit rate when there's less information to be stored, and only increases bit rate when necessary to store increased information. Thus, compared with a constant bit rate recording that has the same bit rate as its maximum bit rate, it should have very close to the same sound fidelity and a smaller file size.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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posted
The problem with that is that I have over 80GB of music when ripped to 128kb/s. So when I can afford to get a terabyte of hard drive space (and a 10GB thumb drive to carry to work every day) I'd love to have all wav files. Right now it'd be a little tough to manage.
Thanks for all the advice, everybody. Sounds like I'm going to be sticking to LAME-encoded mp3. The only question now is VBR or CBR.
Posts: 563 | Registered: Feb 2006
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posted
Well, B, one way is to store all your files on a cd, and when you need to, re-copy them as MP3's.
Posts: 10890 | Registered: May 2003
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Yeah, I've still got all the original CDs sorted and packed in boxes. I just find it much easier to convert them to data files and listen to them off the computer than trying to fumble around with 1,500 little plastic discs. But I'd never get rid of the uncompressed originals, in case I ever decide to do something like I'm doing right now.
Posts: 563 | Registered: Feb 2006
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This person seems to know what he's talking about:
quote:Most VBR quality junkies will agree that -V1 is the best VBR setting to use in LAME. It's the highest quality VBR setting that always allocates enough bits (the guy at r3mix.net says -V2 sometimes didn't allocate enough bits for the complexity of music). There is a -V0 setting, but it just produces files bigger than you really need (with no noticable increase in quality). Personally, I use -b 128 -m j -h -V 1 -B 256 -F.
-b 128: minimum bitrate of 128 kbps.
-m j: joint stereo (This is explained at r3mix.net if you don't know what it is)
-h: optimize for quality (IIRC, this is redundant with VBR... -h is on by default when using VBR)
-V 1: VBR setting of 1 (0 is best, 4 is worst)
-B 256: Bitrate ceiling of 256 kbps (On the most expensive equipment with the most trained ears, 256 is indistinguishable using LAME... so why go higher?)
-F: Force minimum bitrate (-b 128 won't always guarantee a 128 kbps minimum in parts of absolute silence... it's just the way LAME works. I don't have a problem with silence being encoded at 32 kbps, but I've heard some players don't like bitrates below 64 or something [Apex, maybe???].)
The guy at r3mix.net recommends -q 1, which lowers filesizes a little bit. I personally don't think I could hear a difference in quality with it (on my headphones), but frankly I just didn't want to use an undocumented, unofficial switch in LAME (-q is not documented). So, that's why I don't include it when I encode.
Though based on later remarks, you might just leave the maximum bit rate at the highest possible setting.
Files recorded the way he mentions will be higher quality than CBR @ 160, and depending on the song will be about the same size, only being larger if its a 'dense' song -- one with a lot of information in the entropic sense (though that roughly corresponds with auditory complexity), and those are the ones you want higher quality sound on anyways.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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