Written by Lucas on 12.05.2007 at 20:54

My opinion is that it doesn't matter.

Yep. That's basically the end of the discussion right there. The size of the mp3 file isn't very important in these days where the majority of hard drives are over the 100GB mark and additional external 300GB hard drives are under £100. The sound quality difference between 128 and 192 is negligible and if you were that anal about it then you'd just listen to the proper CD anyway.

Right?

ripping, what is that? infact what is a CD? hehe

mp3s in 192 kbps are the standard, it's not very good or great, but it's good. sometimes the production of the record determines wheter a higher bitrate is needed or not, but usually everything sounds good at 192 . i prefer mp3s in variable bitrate , over 192 kbps, but defenetly under 320.

Written by -tom- on 15.05.2007 at 19:58

Yep. That's basically the end of the discussion right there. The size of the mp3 file isn't very important in these days where the majority of hard drives are over the 100GB mark and additional external 300GB hard drives are under £100. The sound quality difference between 128 and 192 is negligible and if you were that anal about it then you'd just listen to the proper CD anyway.

Right?

not necasserily no - I am away from home at university and I have a huge amount of CDs at home, I'm not going to come and fill my little room here with CD towers and everything - I have all my music on my computer, and its hard drive will fill up one day.. with hundreds and hundreds of CDs ripped - the difference between 128Kbps and 192Kbps is rather significant indeed - far from negligible

@W-Lash, Nervel, Hyvaarin: Thanks for that, it's a little annoying, but oh well. I can't be bothered ripping all my CDs again, and to be honest I'm not all that bothered by the difference in sound quality. I use AAC encoding, and I couldn't really tell the difference that much on the same track between 64kbps AAC and 192kbps MP3. Well, it was there, but not that much to piss me off or anything. Guess I'm used to it by now...

Written by Judas on 16.05.2007 at 10:40

@W-Lash, Nervel, Hyvaarin: Thanks for that, it's a little annoying, but oh well. I can't be bothered ripping all my CDs again, and to be honest I'm not all that bothered by the difference in sound quality. I use AAC encoding, and I couldn't really tell the difference that much on the same track between 64kbps AAC and 192kbps MP3. Well, it was there, but not that much to piss me off or anything. Guess I'm used to it by now...

I'm not a music expert but i definetely know that there is a GREAT difference between 64 and 192. Maybe your player or your speakers are damaged?

Written by W-Lash on 16.05.2007 at 12:08

Written by Judas on 16.05.2007 at 10:40

@W-Lash, Nervel, Hyvaarin: Thanks for that, it's a little annoying, but oh well. I can't be bothered ripping all my CDs again, and to be honest I'm not all that bothered by the difference in sound quality. I use AAC encoding, and I couldn't really tell the difference that much on the same track between 64kbps AAC and 192kbps MP3. Well, it was there, but not that much to piss me off or anything. Guess I'm used to it by now...

I'm not a music expert but i definetely know that there is a GREAT difference between 64 and 192. Maybe your player or your speakers are damaged?

They aren't the best speakers in the world whatsoever, so that could be a reason. AAC encoding is better than MP3, but I reckon there should still be a recognisable difference between those bitrates. I can live with crappy quality, I guess, I haven't known anything different for around 2 years, so it's all good!

Written by Judas on 16.05.2007 at 12:25

Written by W-Lash on 16.05.2007 at 12:08

Written by Judas on 16.05.2007 at 10:40

@W-Lash, Nervel, Hyvaarin: Thanks for that, it's a little annoying, but oh well. I can't be bothered ripping all my CDs again, and to be honest I'm not all that bothered by the difference in sound quality. I use AAC encoding, and I couldn't really tell the difference that much on the same track between 64kbps AAC and 192kbps MP3. Well, it was there, but not that much to piss me off or anything. Guess I'm used to it by now...

I'm not a music expert but i definetely know that there is a GREAT difference between 64 and 192. Maybe your player or your speakers are damaged?

They aren't the best speakers in the world whatsoever, so that could be a reason. AAC encoding is better than MP3, but I reckon there should still be a recognisable difference between those bitrates. I can live with crappy quality, I guess, I haven't known anything different for around 2 years, so it's all good!

But why to live with crappy quality if it's possible to get better?

Written by W-Lash on 16.05.2007 at 13:22

Written by Judas on 16.05.2007 at 12:25

Written by W-Lash on 16.05.2007 at 12:08

Written by Judas on 16.05.2007 at 10:40

@W-Lash, Nervel, Hyvaarin: Thanks for that, it's a little annoying, but oh well. I can't be bothered ripping all my CDs again, and to be honest I'm not all that bothered by the difference in sound quality. I use AAC encoding, and I couldn't really tell the difference that much on the same track between 64kbps AAC and 192kbps MP3. Well, it was there, but not that much to piss me off or anything. Guess I'm used to it by now...

I'm not a music expert but i definetely know that there is a GREAT difference between 64 and 192. Maybe your player or your speakers are damaged?

They aren't the best speakers in the world whatsoever, so that could be a reason. AAC encoding is better than MP3, but I reckon there should still be a recognisable difference between those bitrates. I can live with crappy quality, I guess, I haven't known anything different for around 2 years, so it's all good!

But why to live with crappy quality if it's possible to get better?

Because it would take me countless days to re-rip my whole collection at a higher bitrate, now that the original quality has been 'lost'. I might do it in the holidays, if I can be bothered.

For me 192 kbps is manageable (depends on what kind of stuff it is too) but it's never very good. With average/bad speakers the quality difference is hardly noticeable, which is why I use low quality (128-192 kbps) files in my portable mp3-player to fit more music into it. Since I got my current speaker system for my PC the quality differences became obvious (no, not a placebo effect.) 128 kbps sounds like listening to music over the phone now that I've gotten used to the higher quality the new speakers are capable of. And under 128 kbps is just absurd, lol. The differences are actually quite sharp and easy to hear around the 128-256 kbps area, but going higher than that it gets harder (and this is of course for my speaker system + my ears.)

Constant bitrate (CBR) and average bitrate (ABR) are pretty outdated already. And let's face it, mp3 is not a very good format when comparing to ogg for example, as mentioned earlier in this thread. (Google for it if you're interested.) In fact I don't rip to mp3 at all anymore, except when converting stuff to the portable player. The rare CDs I decide to rip I either rip to a high quality ogg (around 400 kbps) or lossless flac (1:1 CD quality). When I used to rip something to mp3 I used Lame VBR (variable bitrate) with the highest quality configuration, sort of like maximum quality for optimal size. The "scene rules" for the mp3 releases' quality are more than acceptable which is why I don't rip music from my CDs that much anymore.

Yeah Krypton, i agree that flac or wav files are better than mp3 but for example one flac takes much more space than one mp3 and that's why usually people don't use them.
Simple example:
flac could be about 40 mb;
mp3 could be about 4 mb (in 128 maybe).

I don't support low bitrate mp3 ripping but i don't think that these big size files will be more popular in near future. High capacity HDDs have been developed but nothing has been changed for some last years (except one step from 128 to 192 kbps).

Ogg, wma or other formats may be better than mp3 but they aren't as popular because mp3 files can be used in various types of players but other formats can usually be played by computer software only.

Yes, that's why I only rip a few selected ones in flac.

And yeah it is sad that mp3 is more popular, but that's only because of history. The history is the reason why it is supported almost everywhere and other formats have either faded into the background or started to gain popularity (like ogg). There are many players on the market already that support ogg among other formats though. If I was to buy one right now, I would definitely not buy a player that has a very limited support like iPods do for example. I'm not actually sure if my player supports anything else than mp3. But I've always assumed it doesn't.

Do you think that ogg is gaining popularity right now? In fact this format was created some years before and now it's not more popular then it was in the day of creation. At least i haven't heard anything about that.

I normally use 160Kbps, but if I have to choose between 128 and 192, I'll select 192. I don't know how big the difference is between, but i still have free hard disc space so I can use 192 and somehow it's cooler what bigger Kbps but I don't really eaven care if I have to use 128 some day.

Written by W-Lash on 16.05.2007 at 17:43

Do you think that ogg is gaining popularity right now? In fact this format was created some years before and now it's not more popular then it was in the day of creation. At least i haven't heard anything about that.

Black metal is not popular, therefore you shouldn't listen to it! Joking of course.

But the MP3/OGG story is somewhat similar to that of Windows/Linux. Both are arguably good, but one of them is free. Nevertheless, no one wants to use the free (yet maybe better) option because the other is popular and commonly used.

As for MP3s at 128kbps or 192kbps, most people wouldn't tell that a track is actually encoded at "128" only just by hearing it (without knowing the actual bitrate). I mean, you wouldn't say "oh I wish it was encoded at a higher bitrate."
Thus being said, I still prefer ripping at 192. Perhaps it does really sound better (depends on the music I think) but above all, few people will actually complain about it afterwards

Written by wrathchild on 16.05.2007 at 20:28

Written by W-Lash on 16.05.2007 at 17:43

Do you think that ogg is gaining popularity right now? In fact this format was created some years before and now it's not more popular then it was in the day of creation. At least i haven't heard anything about that.

But the MP3/OGG story is somewhat similar to that of Windows/Linux. Both are arguably good, but one of them is free. Nevertheless, no one wants to use the free (yet maybe better) option because the other is popular and commonly used.

I didn't want to say that we shouldn't use OGG. I wanted to say that biggest part of people don't even know about such file type. That means it would be hard for ogg to get such popularity as for mp3.

At least I didn't know about it. And I doubt I'll start using it, cause I know shit of computers..

Though, I do use Firefox, so maybe that is one step on the path of leaving Windows behind. One day I'll be a Linux user with Firefox and OGG.

honestly, i never paid attention. I just checked and apparently it was all automatically ripped (by iTunes) at 128. my mp3 player has as much space as my home pc - 40gb (my pc is old) - so size wasn't really a consideration.

i agree with Wrath on this, the OGG format is slowly gaining grounds, but due to the commercialised MP3 (with everyone abkle to support it) it i s hard to see how OGG will win later on.

to answer the question proposed in this thread (not meaning to be really sarcastic) but 320 is the right answer ... and if your looking for both size and best quality, then go for VBR (320 -128, 320 being max, 128 being lowest) this way you will get the best quality when there is a lot happening in the song and low file size when only one tone is being played or what not.

Right, I'm now progressively re-ripping my entire collection to my computer at 192kbps in AAC format. Averaging around 10CDs each day, it will still take me around a month, but your arguments have made me realise that it's about time that I caught up with the rest of the world with regards to playback quality.

which media players can play OGG files though? I don't think Windows Media Player can - and that is what I am used to - it also can't rip to OGG format

I like to use WMP to rip albums because it makes the folder in the right place in the My Music folder and so is very good for lazy people like me that cant be bothered moving folders around, etc. hahaha
is there anything else like this that would rip/play OGG files?

Written by Baz Anderson on 17.05.2007 at 16:01

which media players can play OGG files though? I don't think Windows Media Player can - and that is what I am used to - it also can't rip to OGG format

I like to use WMP to rip albums because it makes the folder in the right place in the My Music folder and so is very good for lazy people like me that cant be bothered moving folders around, etc. hahaha
is there anything else like this that would rip/play OGG files?

I'm probably lazyer than you and still I can't touch WMP. But the main reason is that I've been using WinAmp from the very begining and I find it so much more intuitive than Microsoft's product.
And WinAmp now plays ogg without anything to add. Cause yes, you can play ogg files on WMP but you will need some more codecs. See here .

Yes, simply use Winamp. It plays almost all most used sound files. Even flac files (only some plugin is needed).
VLC player can be used for OGG too.

Winamp is nice, I used it for a long time. I've moved to foobar2000 though for better customization and better support for many things.

Written by wrathchild on 17.05.2007 at 19:17

the main reason is that I've been using WinAmp from the very begining and I find it so much more intuitive than Microsoft's product.

how is it? in what ways is WinAmp better then WMP.. I mean everything seems to be rather handy and simple with WMP right now.. (WMP 10 that is - I couldnt stand version 11)

I recently made the shift to Winamp after installing the god-awful WMP 11. Worst layout EVER - that you can't just look at a big list of your media library and just from band to band by typing the first few letters of their name is awful. I think I'll still use it for ripping, though, as Winamp seems to be a bit limiting with it.

I've been using WinAmp version 2.76 since it was released - and have never touched another media player. It occasionally has crashed due to Windows XP incompatibilities, but 99.9% of the time, it is flawless, sounds great on my 24-bit soundcard, and uses minimal memory. I refuse to use iTunes/WMP, as I find them terrible in terms of layout.

In terms of sound quality, this is a major difference to my ears on CDs encoded in less than 192k. A VBR encoding can lower the memory usage a bit without sacrificing quality, but still, I feel that any concession to quality below 192k (in MP3 format) is a poor decision. I encode all my cds now to 224k just to add a little buffer over the 192k, but that's just a personal decision.

@wrathchild, I'm unsure why you're suggesting that the MP3 format is not free versus OGG... I've never paid for a single MP3 encoder since I began my usage of it in 2000. I've used the program Audiograbber since its release in addition to using the LAME codec. I have heard OGG files, and while they seem to use less data, I have found no use in switching due the universal nature of the MP3 format and my inability to hear any difference in MP3s 192k or greater. I don't think any of my friends even know what OGG is

There have been plenty of times when I've heard a CD in someone's car and said to myself "huh, this sounds processed," or, "this sounds like it's been filtered through a trash can." And, invariably, the person says "yeah, I downloaded this CD." I listen to all my music via headphones at least once - and headphones (mine are very good and cost about $100 about 10 years ago) show off nearly all compression failures.

Written by Baz Anderson on 18.05.2007 at 01:25

Written by wrathchild on 17.05.2007 at 19:17

the main reason is that I've been using WinAmp from the very begining and I find it so much more intuitive than Microsoft's product.

how is it? in what ways is WinAmp better then WMP.. I mean everything seems to be rather handy and simple with WMP right now.. (WMP 10 that is - I couldnt stand version 11)

I use WinAmp as well and I find much easier to use...it's easy to manage your files, add files, create playlists and so on. Everything is easier ...maybe it's because I never used anything else than WinAmp.
Tried to use WMP once but just found to irritating

Written by Jason W. on 18.05.2007 at 08:22


In terms of sound quality, this is a major difference to my ears on CDs encoded in less than 192k. A VBR encoding can lower the memory usage a bit without sacrificing quality, but still, I feel that any concession to quality below 192k (in MP3 format) is a poor decision. I encode all my cds now to 224k just to add a little buffer over the 192k, but that's just a personal decision.

___________________________________________________________________________

There have been plenty of times when I've heard a CD in someone's car and said to myself "huh, this sounds processed," or, "this sounds like it's been filtered through a trash can." And, invariably, the person says "yeah, I downloaded this CD." I listen to all my music via headphones at least once - and headphones (mine are very good and cost about $100 about 10 years ago) show off nearly all compression failures.

I totally agree with you on both points. I also hear the diference and also listen to all my music via headphones at least once.

I am always baffled by the amount of people that say they hear no difference between 128kb/s and 192kb/s Are those people deaf? My eardrums are damaged slightly due to incessive concerts where I used no earplugs and helll, I hear the difference easily between 128 and 192. Bteween 192 and higher it becomes harder for me. But I also always pick out an orignal cd over any compressed format.
People gogin on about the difference between 128 and 192 being only 64, yeah it is only 64. But ffs 64 is 50% of 128 (or 33% of 192 alternatively) and that is a huge huge huge difference.

Written by Marcel Hubregtse on 18.05.2007 at 09:52

I am always baffled by the amount of people that say they hear no difference between 128kb/s and 192kb/s Are those people deaf? My eardrums are damaged slightly due to incessive concerts where I used no earplugs and helll, I hear the difference easily between 128 and 192. Bteween 192 and higher it becomes harder for me. But I also always pick out an orignal cd over any compressed format.
People gogin on about the difference between 128 and 192 being only 64, yeah it is only 64. But ffs 64 is 50% of 128 (or 33% of 192 alternatively) and that is a huge huge huge difference.

Yeah there have been times when I have checked out a CD online first, and can instantly hear the poor ripping job the originator did on the CD, or can hear a inconsistent "wobble" in the drumming (cymbals many times).

Any CD I enjoy, or artists I want to support, I make it a point to buy the CD when my funds allow me to do so. Nothing beats a direct copy, or the original itself. And even if one can't tell the difference, the way I look at it is: If metal (or music) is a passion in your life, wouldn't you want to enjoy it the way it was originally recorded? Most of the bands I know of in the metal scene seem to spend months writing and recording these songs, and then to "compress" the exprerience after all that work seems foolish to me...

I must admit, it's frustrating to me as a diehard listener to hear so many people say they can't tell a difference in sound quality - particularly major ones such as 128k to 192k. I can understand if someone says "it doesn't bother me," but to me it's clearly there. I've never thought of myself as having exceptional hearing - I just make it a point to listen to every instrument. I love the technological advances to the digital format - but I refuse to compromise myself to save petty things like "hard drive space" or "ipod space." It's quality or nothing as far as I'm concerned

Written by Baz Anderson on 18.05.2007 at 01:25

how is it? in what ways is WinAmp better then WMP.. I mean everything seems to be rather handy and simple with WMP right now.. (WMP 10 that is - I couldnt stand version 11)

Oh gosh, I misread your post... Since WMP 10 was installed on my PC and I find it horrible to use (I can't even find the "open file" menu lol) I upgraded to WMP 11... Which I can't stand since it won't even launch (I mean, they ask for a valid Windows version...)

So I'm definitely staying away from it now

As for ripping files, I never used WMP anyway, and neither WinAmp. To me they're players, so I use other software to rip CDs (like dBPower AMP)

Written by Jason W. on 18.05.2007 at 08:22

@wrathchild, I'm unsure why you're suggesting that the MP3 format is not free versus OGG... I've never paid for a single MP3 encoder since I began my usage of it in 2000.

MP3 is free for you, not for WinAmp. OGG is free for everybody
That's why you find nothing pre-installed to play MP3s with many Linux distributions, as if they were providing an MP3 player, they'd have to pay something to Thomson and the other patent holders.
See this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_audio_codecs