Bitrate, Spoken Word Sound quality and VBR.

I am wondering about what the best Bitrate is to use for Spoken Word Mp3’s.

And if VRB Bitrate is better sounding than regular CBR Bitrate.

Also, does the Clip+ play VBR settings as good as with CBR?

Thanks

Spoken word requires less fidelity than music.  I’ve heard that 64 kbps is just fine (and some say 32 kbps is fine).

Personally, I chose VBR over CBR because it just seems to make sense:  the ripper uses a higher bitrate for more complex passages, but lower when it’s not needed.  That way, you save file size/space. 

And the Clips handle VBR just fine.

Miikerman wrote:

Spoken word requires less fidelity than music.  I’ve heard that 64 kbps is just fine (and some say 32 kbps is fine).

 

Personally, I chose VBR over CBR because it just seems to make sense:  the ripper uses a higher bitrate for more complex passages, but lower when it’s not needed.  That way, you save file size/space. 

 

And the Clips handle VBR just fine.

Several of my podcasts come in at 32kbps mp3. And for a person talking , it sounds good enough.

For audiobooks, etc. I now rip down to 30kbps Average bitrate, and Mono - it makes the files incredibly small and it sounds just fine (to me anyways) - I’d personally rather have smaller files that are easier to transfer, backup, etc. , than to have larger files that don’t sound that much better than low bitrate ones (that’s for spoken word stuff - obviously not music, but even there I’m usually happy with ~128kbps, Joint Stereo).   I use a free program called MP3 Quality Modifier, and it works great for audiobooks, handles an entire directory of MP3 files no problem.  http://www.inspire-soft.net/?nav=soft_mp3qualitymodifier      I also use MP3Tag to get the ID3 tags in my MP3’s up to snuff before putting them on my Clip, the auto track re-numbering action is great! And again, a free program.    http://www.mp3tag.de/en/

I use LAME’s V8 setting for my audiobooks. This typically gives a bitrate of around 35 to 45 kbps (mono).

CBR is wasting a lot of bits because spoken word typically has a fair amount of breaks and pauzes. The bits VBR saves in these parts are used in more complex parts making them sound better.

If i get an audiobook with a bitrate of 96 kbps or higher, I reencode it to LAME V8 with foobar2000.

Use 32 kbps mono mp3 for spoken word files. While wma at 32 kbps sounds better than mp3 at 32 kbps, with wma battery life is probably around 20% shorter, so it isn’t worth it. Using variable bitrate for spoken word files isn’t worth it though, as the space savings will be quite small(32 kbps is small enough) or the quality improvement won’t be much. With VBR, often the elapsed time counter won’t work properly(especially with longer files), and there is a much greater chance of playback glitches than with a constant bitrate.

I have downloaded many lectures that were at bitrates from 16 to 64 kbps mp3. Even many of the 16 kbps ones sounded decent, but the 32 kbps mono ones sounded noticeably better. The ones at 64 kbps really didn’t sound much better than the 32 kbps mono ones.

JK98 wrote:

Use 32 kbps mono mp3 for spoken word files. While wma at 32 kbps sounds better than mp3 at 32 kbps, with wma battery life is probably around 20% shorter, so it isn’t worth it. Using variable bitrate for spoken word files isn’t worth it though, as the space savings will be quite small(32 kbps is small enough) or the quality improvement won’t be much. With VBR, often the elapsed time counter won’t work properly(especially with longer files), and there is a much greater chance of playback glitches than with a constant bitrate.

 

I have downloaded many lectures that were at bitrates from 16 to 64 kbps mp3. Even many of the 16 kbps ones sounded decent, but the 32 kbps mono ones sounded noticeably better. The ones at 64 kbps really didn’t sound much better than the 32 kbps mono ones.

My elapsed time counter always works the same, CBR or VBR. And I don’t have any playback glitches. :wink: