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Bit rate/Encoding question

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davidinsarasota   05-30-2007 at 03:50:38 AM

Since there is no advantage to encoding a song at greater than its current rate, what should I encode ripped store-bought CD's at. Is there a standard rate for them? Does it ever vary? How can I determine my current song's bit rates, downloaded from various sources?

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Claig   06-04-2007 at 04:07:31 PM
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To check an mp3's bit rate, just right click on it and go to properties. It's under summary.
In general, I would rip store bought CDs at 320k, unless you're short of space (I would say 192 is the minimum acceptable quality, but that's a matter of opinion).

If you have plenty of room on your hdd, rip them losslessly using flac or similar. That way you'll know you're getting no loss in quality.

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jaguarskx   06-05-2007 at 07:46:44 AM
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Quote :

To check an mp3's bit rate, just right click on it and go to properties. It's under summary.



Sure that'll work, but it gets annoying very fast.

A better way to see the bit rate of MP3 files is simple.

1. Goto the directory where your MP3 files are located using Windows Explorer.

2. Click View, then click Choose Detail... towards the bottom.

3. In the pop-up window check off the Bitrate box.

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jaguarskx   06-05-2007 at 08:01:44 AM
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Personally, I prefer to use Ogg Vorbis (or simply OGG) instead of MP3. Better compression, but more importantly less audio distortion compared to MP3. But you must have a portable music player that supports OGG if you want to listen to it on the go. That means no iPod.

Anywaste, a lossless codec best preserves the audio quality of music. FLAC and APE are pretty good. They do about a 2:1 compression ratio to maintain sound integrity. A minute of uncompressed music is about 11MB, that means using FLAC or APE brings that down to about 6MB per minute.

Trying to find a portable hard drive based music player that can support those codecs is even harder to find one that plays OGG files.

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davidinsarasota   06-05-2007 at 09:49:01 AM
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Thanks Claig and Jag. I will try these methods for finding bit rates. I doubt my Creative Zen Micro and Microphoto support OGG, based on petitions and such on the Creative forums. I will experiment with FLAC and APE.

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Fat4l1ty   06-08-2007 at 12:34:33 PM
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I believe when you rip music out from a Original CD, from the least 192kbps~320kbps, you wont hear any difference unless you have a amp, then you might hear some zzz sound because of the compression while its being ripped..

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jaguarskx   06-08-2007 at 06:35:31 PM
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Quote :

I believe when you rip music out from a Original CD, from the least 192kbps~320kbps, you wont hear any difference unless you have a amp, then you might hear some zzz sound because of the compression while its being ripped..



I can tell the difference with my Sony Earbuds (sorry don't know the model# off the top of my head); $35.

The effects of the compression is very pronounced for classical music. For heavy metal the decreased audio quality is noticeable if you pay attention to the music. But that's just me.

The problem with compression isn't really the bitrate used, it's the codec's method of compressing the music.

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jaguarskx   06-08-2007 at 06:38:24 PM
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Quote :

Thanks Claig and Jag. I will try these methods for finding bit rates. I doubt my Creative Zen Micro and Microphoto support OGG, based on petitions and such on the Creative forums. I will experiment with FLAC and APE.



I've read that WMA has a lossless recording option, but you'll need to use Windows Media Encoder 9 to do so.

I would check to see if your Creative Zen supports WMA lossless.

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flasher702   06-08-2007 at 07:22:11 PM
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heh... I realized the other day that I've been listening to 128kbps mp3s for so long that there are at least several songs where I prefer that to the original cda or a higher bitrate.

What you may want to do is store the songs in a lossless format on your computer and rip them to an appropriate format and bitrate for your mp3 player which I would suggest is probably mp3 somewhere in the range of 128-320kbps and can vary depending on what kind of music it is.

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