Different bitrates for different types of music?
I find that ripping cd's at 256kbps works pretty well for me and is indistinguishable from cd's, whereas at 192 or 160kbps, I can notice the degradation in quality.
But this is true only for albums recorded in the last 20 years or so. For older albums (e.g. originally recorded in the 70's and prior), I can't tell any difference between files ripped at 256 and 160, or even 128 for that matter, due to the limitations on the recording equipment used at the time (the cd's don't sound that great to begin with).
But before I rip my entire collection, I'd like to hear some opinions on this.
Also, although 256kbps sounds fine to me now, on my iPod and my fairly decent home system, I'm a bit concerned that eventually, when I buy a state-of-the-art home system, I'll wish I had gone with a lossless format.
[880 byte] By [
mark754] at [2007-11-10 21:05:30]
# 1 Re: Different bitrates for different types of music?
I wouldn't worry too much about lossless yet simply because 320kbps mp3/aac are still able to produce high quality files. Additionally, lossless encoded files will really eat up the iPods battery (ie you will only get 6-8 hours of playtime) and lossless files aren't suported that much. mpeg-4 AAC has a higher compatibility list than Apple lossless or even Flac.
As for needing different bitrates, this is extremely true. Not all music is created equal. Hence, not all music need to be ripped at the same bitrate. I highly suggest looking at EAC and Lame (mp3) as Lame has the best vbr settings. I have some music that is encoded all the way up to 256kbps VBR while other music is encoded at 160kbps VBR simply because it doesn't need that high of a bitrate. There are even a lot of recent albums (pretty much all of Korn's, Otep's newest one, Orgy's Vapor Transmission) that don't need a 245kbps bitrate.
You can go to www.bestmp3guide.com for more information on Lame and EAC. You could also do some listening tests and setup your prefered bitrate if you prefer that method as well.
# 2 Re: Different bitrates for different types of music?
Thanks, I'll check out Lame. So far, I've just been using iTunes to rip.
I was thinking about ripping everything using FLAC for archival, then converting a second copy to mp3 for iPod use. If I do this, would there be any loss in quality going from FLAC to mp3 as there would be going from, say, WAV to mp3 (lossy to lossy)?
Yeah, most rock and pop music sounds fine at 160. Classical and jazz is where you can hear the difference.
# 3 Re: Different bitrates for different types of music?
I just experienced my most extreme LAME variability to date: importing an album called Why Don't We Do It In The Road (various artists, Beatles covers), and using the basic alt-preset standard setting, the actual bit rates ranged from 129 kbps for Joe Cocker's "I'll Cry Instead" to 224 kbps for The Damned's "Help."
That's a swing of 95 kbps from a single setting, on a single album. Now that's what I call variable.
Mark, if you use a Mac you should check out a little freebie app called iTunes-LAME, which you can download from the Apple support site.
# 4 Re: Different bitrates for different types of music?
Originally posted by mark754
I was thinking about ripping everything using FLAC for archival, then converting a second copy to mp3 for iPod use. If I do this, would there be any loss in quality going from FLAC to mp3 as there would be going from, say, WAV to mp3 (lossy to lossy)?..? Neither FLAC nor WAV are lossy. In either case you'll be going form a lossless to mp3 format. Realistically you'll probably have to convert those FLACs to WAV before you can convert to anything else, but that should be a lossless conversion (I've never tried it).
I have a pretty nice (and moderately expensive) home stereo. I'll have to try some high-quality MP3s sometime to see how they sound (I know 128 sounds awful). I don't have a line-out for my iPod, so I'll have to use something else (DVD player, I guess).
bdb at 2007-11-15 17:41:29 >
# 5 Re: Different bitrates for different types of music?
Going from Flac to wav does not cause a decrease in quality, it is going from lossless to lossless so you are fine there. The best lossless format you can use is Apple Lossless simply because it is integrated with iTunes and you can play it back on the iPod. Flac is one of the older lossless audio encoders (not as old a wav or aiff but it is still one of the older ones) that has gone through improvements over the years. This is not bad at all. The only problem with Flac is that it is not widely supported with popular electronics. The only DAP that I know of that played Flac was the Rio Karma. There are some car CD decks (I found one older one at Best Buy) that play Flac as well.
If you want to use lossless then it would be best to use lossless as a backup of all your music (as you stated before) then just compress those files to mp3 or mpeg-4 AAC.
