Re: MP3 or WMA

[Richard Malcolm-Smith <rich@xxxxxxx>]

> >I find MP3 at between 96 and 128 indistinguishable from each other
-
> >they are all awful.. 160 is ok for most stuff but 192 is better. I
have
> >on a couple of tracks heard problems at 192 that went away at
256.

> Richard,
> I am curious, simply because your results differ so wildly from my
own.
> 
> Some Questions:
> Have you done this listening as a blind trial, with someone else
selecting
> the tracks encoded at different bitrates for you?

No, but I have often had my older tracks come up on shuffle in winamp
and thought that they sounded awefull..

> What equipment are you listening on? I am wondering if you
specifically have
> many A-D D-A stages along the signal path, or perhaps are going from
optical
> to copper and back or some such.

At the moment I have some cheap sony headphones plugged into the
headphone out of an old preamp connected to the line out of the
soundcard. Its not got a decent amp and they are big headphones so its
a
bit quiet, still have problems with musshy sounding snares at 128
however.

the problem areas are the "Street sounds" in the gangsta rap
stuff like
gunshots and similar.. they loose the positioning of the sound and just
echo all around. Its not the playback because I use cdreader in winamp
to play audio cd's and it sounds great from that. A lot can be helped
by
not using that joint stereo crap that defaults to on for some reason. I
have being using the radium version of the codec (The one thats hacked
to allow the higher bitrates) - Ive had no luck with lame because i
havent found a proper codec for it, just an external compressor. Im not
interested in ripping to wave and then compressing those..

> I am also wondering what the MP3 playback device is, as I have
noticed
> considerable difference between (say) an MP3 Player in a Car to a good
PC
> Sound Card

Mostly im writing to CD and playing on a stereo in the bedroom.. Still
to get an audiotron :(       Theres no FM
reception here at the house so I
have little alternative other then MP3s and CDR's - unless im game to
listen to AM :( but thats not likly.. I may sort out an outside antenna
one day, but there are only 3 stations worth getting and they are the
weak ones.. Sigh...

> >I figure that HDD space is getting cheaper and cheaper and cheaper
and
> >just do all the new stuff at 320. Its a shame that most of the
stuff you
> >find online is at 128 and done in a shitty shitty encoder..
> 
> I maintain an MP3 archive, and whilst, yes, HDD Space is getting
cheaper, I
> find anything above 160 becomes problematic. Our archive takes about
190Gb,
> and is about 80% 128kbps. At 192 that rises to an earth shattering
270Gb.

You have too many MP3s then ;) But I figure that at the speed I can rip
them and download them adding another HDD every few months isnt a
really
big issue. Ive only just go the first 80 gigger full, and theres still
the second controller unused.. Then theres the new abit board with 6
ide
chains :) hehehe..

> As an aside, many of the worst (in quality rather than content) MP3
files I
> have ever encountered have been "looney tunes" bitrates,
like 320, and sound
> appalling on anything. a really good encoder like LAME at 160 will
blow away
> a 320+ donkey-rip 110% of the time.

Those are the ones that have jitter in the ripping because they were
ripped on a lousey cdrom drive with the error correction turned off
because it takes too long. Or, people have converted it up to 320
trying
to make it sound better (Dont laugh, it happens!!)

> As always the advice is suck it and see, and if this works for you,
then it
> works for you!! I would advise otehrs not to go down the same route if
they
> can at all avoid it.

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