@contrapuntal wrote:
@jk98 wrote:
Imo 128kbps sounds bad, while 192 kbps sounds good but like it is missing something.
What is it missing? JK98, please ABX at –V2—c. 190 kbps–with LAME 3.99 and report back to us.
Oh boy, here we go. 
@tapeworm wrote:
Oh boy, here we go.
That link I provided explained in detail how to go about choosing a quality level for MP3s. Apparently JK98 disagrees with the advice given in that link and the reasons why that advice was given. If bad advice was given in that link and JK98 believes it is bad advice, he should explain to us why the advice was bad. Or do you disagree?
Contrapuntal wrote:
JK98 wrote:
Imo 128kbps sounds bad, while 192 kbps sounds good but like it is missing something.
What is it missing? JK98, please ABX at –V2—c. 190 kbps–with LAME 3.99 and report back to us.
I seem to recall that JK98 does not use VBR, because he believes it has a negative effect on battery life. I suspect that if he was open to VBR that he would probably be quite content with a V2 LAME encode.
@boris_yo wrote:
@miikerman wrote:
And 128 kbps really is fairly low at this point for music–I recommend 192 or greater, and possibly variable bit rate (VBR) to enhance the sound further.
But how can you hear the difference between this little range of bitrate? I could hear difference between 64 kbps and 320 kbps, but between 128 kbps and 192 kbps? Same to me.
When I originally started ripping CDs, I spent time testing various bitrates and found that 192 kbps VBR (with 320 kbps set as the VBR top end) was the best sound/space trade-off for me. And yes, I noted a difference in the sound (plus, who knows how much one might sense as a whole but not precisely hear).
I was referring to 192 kbps CBR, not variable bitrate. I chose to use 256 kbps CBR for compatibility reasons. Only some of my items that play mp3 files support vbr. I guess the sound quality of vbr averaging around 192 kbps is close to that of 256kbps CBR.
What Marvin says is also true. I do believe vbr gives shorter battery life than cbr. On my Clip+ with a memory card, what is in least supply is battery life, not storage. I have also had bad experiences with the elapsed time counter being wrong when using vbr files. I play many podcasts and lectures, and having the elapsed time counter being correct is very important for me. Even for music, it is important for me for the elapsed time counter to be correct(especially when playing long classical music tracks). So even though vbr averaging 192kbps might sound almost as good as 256 kbps cbr, I find 256 kbps CBR to be superior fo the above mentioned reasons(compatibility, battery life, accuracy of time counter).
JK98 wrote:
“Only some of my items that play mp3 files support vbr.”
Which MP3 players that you own do not support variable-bitrate MP3s?
“I guess the sound quality of vbr averaging around 192 kbps is close to that of 256kbps CBR.”
According to Hydrogenaudio, -V3—c. 175 kbps—sounds very similar to uncompressed WAVs. And they are not guessing. They also claim that –V4—c. 165 kbps—sounds close to uncompressed WAVs. Again, they are not guessing. http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?title=Lame_Compiles#High_quality:_HiFi.2C_home_or_quiet_listening.
“I do believe vbr gives shorter battery life than cbr. On my Clip+ with a memory card, what is in least supply is battery life, not storage.”
Eric Boyer claims more than 15 hours using Rockbox and –V0. That is better than SanDisk’s claim of 15 hours for 128 kbps. http://www.rockbox.org/wiki/SansaRuntime#Results.
“I have also had bad experiences with the elapsed time counter being wrong when using vbr files. I play many podcasts and lectures, and having the elapsed time counter being correct is very important for me. Even for music, it is important for me for the elapsed time counter to be correct(especially when playing long classical music tracks).“
The elapsed time counters have always worked for me when using variable-bitrate MP3s. And I have owned more than a dozen MP3 players. Which encoder did you use? I used LAME.
I own a number of devices that play mp3 files, and many do not play vbr. Some are older mp3 players, while others are different devices. I don’t want to list them all.
i don’t use Rockbox, so it is irrelevant for me.
I sometimes heard of elapsed time counters having issues with VBR rips, in earlier years–I haven’t heard of this issue in years, though.
@jk98 wrote:
I own a number of devices that play mp3 files, and many do not play vbr. Some are older mp3 players, while others are different devices. I don’t want to list them all.
i don’t use Rockbox, so it is irrelevant for me.
Technically if something doesn’t play back VBR, its not an MP3 player. That said, what device do you actually have that doesn’t? I have an 11 year old player that handles them fine.
@color43 wrote:
While were on this topic:
- Does sample rate have any effect on processor usage? I have a podcast that’s 64 kbps but 48000Hz, seems like a waste. I downscale them to 32000Hz to supposedly use less processor. Am I wasting my time doing that?
- Is there any difference on processor usage between MPEG-1, MPEG-2, and MPEG-2.5 (all Layer III) mp3 files? I would think that MPEG-1 would be the simplest.
The sample rate question depends a lot on how the player handles other sampling rates. I can’t speak for the Sandisk firmware. There is no meaningful difference between MPEG1/2/2.5. They’re all the same format.
