MP3's = : (

[bcgood]

Have you ever done a true A/B comparison of an mp3 file and a wave file? I just got through doing one and it is pretty dramatic how much better wave files sound. The two files that I was comparing where from the cd by The Cowboy Junkies, Trinity Sessions. The mp3 was at 320 kbps and the wave was 16 bit/44.1

The main difference I noticed between the two files was in the high frequency information. The wave file had so much more air and presence to it. Even in the mids and upper mids, it just felt more full. When I switched back to the mp3 it was quite noticeable that the song just became sort of hollow sounding. It really was pretty dramatic. I suppose it would depend on the material and your monitors or headphones but on my system it is really obvious.

I guess my advice is, if your iTunes library is full of mp3's go out and by cd's and a 500 gig, (Or more : ) hard drive...

[bunnerabb]

We got one of these.

Probably time for another.

[travisbrown]

Originally Posted by bcgood

The two files that I was comparing where from the cd by The Cowboy Junkies, Trinity Sessions. The mp3 was at 320 kbps and the wave was 16 bit/44.1

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but is there any advantage to ripping a cd to MP3 at anything more than 128kbps? It was my understanding that cds basically operated at this rate.

I thought that to take advantage of higher fidelity at higher bitrates one needed higher resolution source material than that offered by 44.1/16 CD.

Couple friends have put out 320kbps LAME MP3s rendered from 48/24 material as CD bonus material. Those versions appeared to sound better than ripping at the same rate from CD.

Sort of a moot point for me because I try and rip everything as lossless, but still good to know.

[Brent]

Yeah we really need to stop going backwards with technology here... MP3's are right up there with the loudness war for me. Both make music sound like crap

Originally Posted by bcgood

Have you ever done a true A/B comparison of an mp3 file and a wave file? I just got through doing one and it is pretty dramatic how much better wave files sound. The two files that I was comparing where from the cd by The Cowboy Junkies, Trinity Sessions. The mp3 was at 320 kbps and the wave was 16 bit/44.1

The main difference I noticed between the two files was in the high frequency information. The wave file had so much more air and presence to it. Even in the mids and upper mids, it just felt more full. When I switched back to the mp3 it was quite noticeable that the song just became sort of hollow sounding. It really was pretty dramatic. I suppose it would depend on the material and your monitors or headphones but on my system it is really obvious.

I guess my advice is, if your iTunes library is full of mp3's go out and by cd's and a 500 gig, (Or more : ) hard drive...

[Jaan]

The difference in quality is minuscule if you've ripped it properly.
First, you didn't do a blind test.
You should also tell us what programs/codecs you used and what the were.
If I do a proper rip of --vbr new 02 then the rip is transparent for me.
You could be doing something wrong.
But hey, thas just me :P

[MarkRB]

Originally Posted by travisbrown

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but is there any advantage to ripping a cd to MP3 at anything more than 128kbps? It was my understanding that cds basically operated at this rate.

I thought that to take advantage of higher fidelity at higher bitrates one needed higher resolution source material than that offered by 44.1/16 CD.

Couple friends have put out 320kbps LAME MP3s rendered from 48/24 material as CD bonus material. Those versions appeared to sound better than ripping at the same rate from CD.

Sort of a moot point for me because I try and rip everything as lossless, but still good to know.

128 is very lo quality mp3, in comparison a CD is 1411(ish)kbp/s.

That 24/48 to mp3 being better than CD to mp3 makes sense, start with the best source material and all that.

I try and rip stuff at 320 which works OK for my purposes (I'm not saying I can't hear the difference before someone jumps down my throat :p )

[jarbar]

At close listen, mp3's certainly can sound like ass, but when it's a good conversion, I have to admit, it's certainly not night and day.

The way I see it, with the speed at which hard drive space goes up (and costs down), it'll only be a few years until the portable audio file standard is CD quality or better, and you'll still have gobs of space on your 60 Terabyte iPod. I mean, at some point nobody's going to be excited by the idea of 13 million songs on their iPod at a lowish quality, simply because there's enough space. They'll be ooing and awing over the new HD audio of the new file format. And there'll be plenty of space for any album you'll even want to hear on your little thumb sized player.

.....I hope....

[bcgood]

Originally Posted by Jaan

The difference in quality is minuscule if you've ripped it properly.
First, you didn't do a blind test.
You should also tell us what programs/codecs you used and what the were.
If I do a proper rip of --vbr new 02 then the rip is transparent for me.
You could be doing something wrong.
But hey, thas just me :P

Or perhaps you just don't hear it, or you should get new monitors? For me the difference isn't minuscule. VBR which stands for variable bit rate is even worse because it does not provide consistent compression, it changes according to the frequency information within different sections of the song. If you can't tell the difference I guess mp3 is great for you but for me I like listening to wave files or records. Each to their own I suppose.

[crufty]

mp3 is like jpeg, it's lossy! For lossless, use flac...

[RainbowStorm]

Originally Posted by bcgood

Have you ever done a true A/B comparison of an mp3 file and a wave file? I just got through doing one and it is pretty dramatic how much better wave files sound. The two files that I was comparing where from the cd by The Cowboy Junkies, Trinity Sessions. The mp3 was at 320 kbps and the wave was 16 bit/44.1

The main difference I noticed between the two files was in the high frequency information. The wave file had so much more air and presence to it. Even in the mids and upper mids, it just felt more full. When I switched back to the mp3 it was quite noticeable that the song just became sort of hollow sounding. It really was pretty dramatic. I suppose it would depend on the material and your monitors or headphones but on my system it is really obvious.

I guess my advice is, if your iTunes library is full of mp3's go out and by cd's and a 500 gig, (Or more : ) hard drive...

I can hear the difference in most speaker systems, even though the difference is most noticable in my Denon hifi system. I also hear a difference between my CDs and concert DVDs (recorded at 96KHz/24-bit). I agree about the characteristics you mentioned. I like to use the term "modular noise", what I mean by that is that the content doesn't contain the natural vibe of the instruments. It's like the content has gone through a mild modulation change, which I guess is the result of the algorithms involved in the MP3 encoding process.

In times when visual media has higher and higher digital resolution I think it's important to focus on more detailed audio as well. In a few years we'll have visual 3D media so we'll need true 3D audio as well. What we need to realise is that music is only a type of noise created by not only the instruments but also by the context, room and outside noise. In terms of experience the difference is huge! Most of us would like to have true "live" feeling of audio, we are nowhere close to such a listening experience with digital CD audio media. In order to achieve that we need more advanced audio reproduction techniques. With visual 3D and 3D audio we can have the real "live" experience in the playback room. In other words, we are able to move around virtually and optimize the listening experience based on what we feel is beautiful about each song. Taking this concept further we should be able to "dress" the band and select the context in the way we like by using 3D menus. What we truly need is an open common digital 3D based audio standard that enables virtual audio processes. The old WAV format needs to be replaced by a more advanced digital audio format. We need to be able to extract tracks, extract instruments, extract notes played, extract room, extract session players etc from the digital song to be able to increase the quality of the music experience by applying digital processes. We are not there yet, but we need to start utilizing the true power of digital audio media!

The breakthrough will be real 3D, that's when things will change forever. We are not far away...

AMAZING Audio Illusion Video

[adam miller]

It means absolutely nothing if the comparison isn't done as part of a double-blind ABX test. You can get programs that'll help you do the double-blind bit to make things easier.

[lowfreq33]

You also have to bear in mind that most people are downloading music over the internet to their portable players. Storage is only one reason for smaller files, transmission speed and bandwidth restrictions are probably the biggest factor at this point.

We all know that mp3's and aac's don't sound as good as cd's. At this point in time that doesn't seem to matter to the general public. One of the biggest problems I have with lossy formats is the distortion I hear in the low frequencies. Not subtle by any stretch of the imagination. I've noticed that music I rip from cd's sounds a little better than music I've downloaded. Makes me wonder what the labels are using. I do hear a big difference in 128 and 320.

[robot gigante]

Originally Posted by adam miller

It means absolutely nothing if the comparison isn't done as part of a double-blind ABX test. You can get programs that'll help you do the double-blind bit to make things easier.

Whaat?

I mean c'mon.

You don't need to waste all that time and effort just to figure out that MP3's sound like crap!

I can't rip MP3's even to put on my ipod, even at higher bitrates and even with the Apple AAC which I guess is supposed to be better than most MP3 encoders- they grate on my ears , WAV or AIFF is like a blessed relief.

I don't mean to be rude, but if you honestly think that the difference is small enough that you need a double-blind test to prove it or to discern the differences then perhaps you might want to reconsider this audio engineering thing, or at least train your ears to hear digital distortion a little better (since you have to deal with managing digital distortion when you're tracking and mixing anyway). Maybe this is why people dig plugins that create digital nastiness like VintageWarmer? Their ears aren't really picking up on digital nastiness when it happens..?

[bcgood]

Originally Posted by robot gigante

Whaat?

I mean c'mon.

You don't need to waste all that time and effort just to figure out that MP3's sound like crap!

I can't rip MP3's even to put on my ipod, even at higher bitrates and even with the Apple AAC which I guess is supposed to be better than most MP3 encoders- they grate on my ears , WAV or AIFF is like a blessed relief.

I don't mean to be rude, but if you honestly think that the difference is small enough that you need a double-blind test to prove it or to discern the differences then perhaps you might want to reconsider this audio engineering thing, or at least train your ears to hear digital distortion a little better (since you have to deal with managing digital distortion when you're tracking and mixing anyway). Maybe this is why people dig plugins that create digital nastiness like VintageWarmer? Their ears aren't really picking up on digital nastiness when it happens..?

I was thinking the same thing...

[travisbrown]

Originally Posted by MarkRB

128 is very lo quality mp3, in comparison a CD is 1411(ish)kbp/s.

Gotcha. Just did the math and that's about right. I guess I was thinking after one cut out all the supposedly unheard frequencies and all whether there was an advantage to ripping CDs at higher bitrate. Seems the only time I rip MP3s is for reference mixes or streaming from the web.

[adam miller]

Originally Posted by robot gigante

I don't mean to be rude, but if you honestly think that the difference is small enough that you need a double-blind test to prove it or to discern the differences then perhaps you might want to reconsider this audio engineering thing, or at least train your ears to hear digital distortion a little better

At 128k- of course not, I would hope the differences would be plain for all to hear. But at 320k- with a decent codec- I don't buy that the difference in fidelity is that easy to hear at all, regardless of your playback system.

[uosdwis]

Sorry, but there are tons of research and listening tests behind the latest incarnation of the best MP3 encoder (LAME) and the recommended settings actually do yield results that are indistinguishable from the source on the vast majority of samples for the vast majority of people (statistically).

Evaluating a codec that is designed for transparency really has to be done in a scientific manner (ABX tests) to eliminate bias. Just claiming that MP3s can sound bad is pointless, but sure, it's easy to prove.

The listening equipment actually plays a minor role in the evaluation, much more important is how trained you are to listen for the specific artifacts that are introduced. Audio engineers, whose job it is to listen critically, may well have an easier time detecting them, especially if the material is familiar (like 500 playbacks during recording and mixing). Regardless, most people with a stake to claim aren't that interested in finding out that they can't tell the difference.

But yeah, shitty sounding MP3s suck! As does shitty sounding CDs, and we all know there are plenty of those, too.

[bcgood]

Originally Posted by uosdwis

Sorry, but there are tons of research and listening tests behind the latest incarnation of the best MP3 encoder (LAME)

I don't know, sounds pretty lame to me.

[robot gigante]

I think that even if average people can't detect a difference, the subtle distortions still will tire their ears out quicker and cut into their listening pleasure/time. And the last thing you want in this business is for people to get burnt out listening to music.

And yes, to me the nasty artifacts are still there, if less so, with higher bitrates, as I stated before.

I remember being told that the more 'transparent' codecs are more lossy at high frequencies so that they supposedly would be out of the hearing range of most people... is that why there is so much aliasing/warbling/distortion in the highs? Sounds like no solution to me, just like extreme noise shaped dither can make a track subtly less enjoyable and less natural sounding.

[cornutt]

Originally Posted by jarbar

The way I see it, with the speed at which hard drive space goes up (and costs down), it'll only be a few years until the portable audio file standard is CD quality or better, and you'll still have gobs of space on your 60 Terabyte iPod.

I agree with this. MP3 came along at a time when 300 MB was considered a large drive for a home computer, and most people were connecting to the Internet via dial-up. Also, don't forget that MP3 was extracted from one of the MPEG standards (MPEG-2 IIRC), and the audio standard was not the MPEG group's first priority. Once disk drive capacities go through a couple of more cycles of Moore's Law, and most people in the developed world have high-speed Internet of some sort, the motivation to use MP3 will be gone. At that point, lossless compression will probably take over.

[Jaan]

None of yous still posted on how you guys conduct a 'proper' rip.... for lossless wavbase is best.

I will be running through a Presonus Firebox and Dynaudio BM5a's. I may be able to tell the difference there. But right now I cannot.

[rockrev]

The time I can *really* hear the difference?

When it's my own tunes. That's where I notice everything. I'm on Broadjam, and I try real hard to avoid playing my own tunes as much as possible (only to test them every once in a while). I even sent an email to Broadjam asking them to get rid of the 128 kbps playback. Not gonna do it. No matter what you upload, they only play it at 128 kbps. Well, at least it's better than Myspace. I think they play at 96?

dj

[Jaan]

If you want better than myspace, simply host the mp3's yourself, and link to them from your myspace. That way everyone is happy.

Back on topic.... settings!!!

[R'shonn]

yeah....the encoder and codecs/variable settings make a big difference even at the same birate.....I personally perfer wma, it sounds a lot better than mp3's... crystal clear in comparison to mp3 at the same birate.

[to-pse]

Originally Posted by robot gigante

Whaat?
You don't need to waste all that time and effort just to figure out that MP3's sound like crap!

One of the most respected computer-magazine here in Germany has done
a blind-test using both "normal" people and people from the professionel
audio-field... and guess what those people could in fact distinguish a 128kbit
MP3 from a WAV with no problem, but at 256kbit the results was pretty close
to random noise...

You should also keep in mind that no two MP3-encoders are the same.
Especially MP3s encoded "in the early" days of the standard could possibly
not be up to par to what current encoders would deliver...

So if you think you can do it better than those people in the test and would
also be possible to do a double-blind with even 320kbit, I would guess you
should apply with this guy I read about a couple of days ago who offered
a million bucks for anyone to distinguish those "esoteric" cables from each
other ;-)

Tobias

[uosdwis]

It's not so much about the bitrate either. A track encoded using 320 kb/s doesn't intrinsically sound better than one encoded at 256 kb/s. It's perfectly possible to make 320 sound worse than 128. And, it's very possible to make ~128 sound good in many cases (using VBR) although newer codecs (MP4, Vorbis) are generally better at these lower bitrates.

Isn't it interesting that people who work in audio would rather spend time trashing the format than doing a tiny bit of research in order to make the tracks sound as good as possible?

[dobz]

You know how i make my tracks as good as possible.....I leave them as wav's

Sorry couldn't resist but i am interested in what you MP3 junkies would recommend as a Wav to MP3 converter.....I have to put the music on my Mp3 player somehow without it sounding like poo!

[matucha]

256 and 320kbps properly encoded can sound perfectly acceptable to me. With bad encoding, you can make your 320kbps mp3 sound as lowly 160 and that's what you really don't want ;-).

However as the HDD sizes grown and price for 1GB is "funny" today, lossless codecs are getting more and more interesting as a delivery format. I mean wav is still a waste of space for delivery format. FLAC and similar achieve compression ratio around 0.7, sometimes hitting 0.5. That's not bad and it is the format I'd like to see in the internet stores as a standard. Buying 128kbps mp3 is a bad bad joke dfegad.

[Jaan]

That's exactly what I told yall at first.


You need to make a proper rip. And then, VERY, VERY few people, I doubt yourself even will be able to tell the difference.

[kats]

I still get depressed converting 24 bit files to 16 bit, so I'll have to pass on the mp3 vs CD listening tests.