To MP3, or not to MP3, that is the Question
Music is a very personal thing and so is an individual's preference as to what level of audio "purity" satisfies them. What sounds OK to me, with respect to a digitally encoded audio file (e.g. CDs, WAVs, Flacs, Oggs, MP3s, WMAs, etc, etc), may sound terrible to someone else. There is a trade-off between file size and audio quality and, arguably, all compressed formats will suffer from some loss of fidelity.
As this post deals purely with the MP3 format I will not go into some long-winded discussion about what is the "best" compressed format (e.g. MP3, WMA, Flac, Ogg etc.) as this issue is covered extensively elsewhere.
Typically, the smaller the file size of a MP3, the worse the fidelity. For example, a typical 4 minute CD track consumes about 42Mb of storage space (in an uncompressed WAV form). When converted to a MP3, the same track uses much less space. The space used by an MP3 is directly related to the amount of compression used. For example, using our 42Mb, 4 minute WAV as a reference point, the following table gives you an idea of space used at different compression rates (the track I have used is Led Zeppelin's Houses of the Holy, off Physical Graffiti.
I have used AudioGrabber to rip the track off the CD and LAME (v3.96.1) as the MP3 encoder. I note that there is much controversy surrounding which encoder gives the best results and what is the "best" CD ripping program. I am not buying into that one at all.
What's all this mean then?
1. If you want convenience and reasonable fidelity, use MP3s.
2. Some music, such as that with a lot of loud percussion, does not compress well using the MP3 format and ends up sounds squelchy and totally shithouse.
3. In most circumstances, I compress at 160Kb, if that rate sounds crap, I try lower compression rates (192, 256, 320) and see how that sounds.
4. Everyone has a different propensity to detect differences (loss of fidelity) arising from compression. Try 128Kb compression (or 112, 96, etc) and if does not sound right to you then try a lower compression rate (160, 192, 256, 320).
5. If you want to fit more MP3s onto your iPod or MP3 player, use higher compression rates but be aware that fidelity is lost the more you compress.
6. If you can not tell the difference between an MP3 and a CD, you are one of the lucky ones as you will end up using much less storage space than some one who can.
7. Download/buy a decent CD ripper and MP3 management application and ditch Windoz management of your music.
Some links of interest:
Winamp - MP3 ripping and management
ImTOO DVD Audio Ripper
Flac - Lossless audio compression
dBpowerAMP - handles just about any audio format
As this post deals purely with the MP3 format I will not go into some long-winded discussion about what is the "best" compressed format (e.g. MP3, WMA, Flac, Ogg etc.) as this issue is covered extensively elsewhere.
Typically, the smaller the file size of a MP3, the worse the fidelity. For example, a typical 4 minute CD track consumes about 42Mb of storage space (in an uncompressed WAV form). When converted to a MP3, the same track uses much less space. The space used by an MP3 is directly related to the amount of compression used. For example, using our 42Mb, 4 minute WAV as a reference point, the following table gives you an idea of space used at different compression rates (the track I have used is Led Zeppelin's Houses of the Holy, off Physical Graffiti.
I have used AudioGrabber to rip the track off the CD and LAME (v3.96.1) as the MP3 encoder. I note that there is much controversy surrounding which encoder gives the best results and what is the "best" CD ripping program. I am not buying into that one at all.
What's all this mean then?
1. If you want convenience and reasonable fidelity, use MP3s.
2. Some music, such as that with a lot of loud percussion, does not compress well using the MP3 format and ends up sounds squelchy and totally shithouse.
3. In most circumstances, I compress at 160Kb, if that rate sounds crap, I try lower compression rates (192, 256, 320) and see how that sounds.
4. Everyone has a different propensity to detect differences (loss of fidelity) arising from compression. Try 128Kb compression (or 112, 96, etc) and if does not sound right to you then try a lower compression rate (160, 192, 256, 320).
5. If you want to fit more MP3s onto your iPod or MP3 player, use higher compression rates but be aware that fidelity is lost the more you compress.
6. If you can not tell the difference between an MP3 and a CD, you are one of the lucky ones as you will end up using much less storage space than some one who can.
7. Download/buy a decent CD ripper and MP3 management application and ditch Windoz management of your music.
Some links of interest:
Winamp - MP3 ripping and management
ImTOO DVD Audio Ripper
Flac - Lossless audio compression
dBpowerAMP - handles just about any audio format
posted by BlueRock | 9:55 am
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