What's the best 'bitrate' for music? 128 or 192 and why?

[MiniKiller]

jus tryna to figure out which is better and why between 128 and 192.

thanks!

[Sasaki Kojiro]

I don't think there's a difference really.

[Big_John]

the difference between 128 and 192 can only really be heard on higher-end audio equipment.. or sometimes in the fanciful minds of audiophiles with normal equipment.

anyway, i use a variable bitrate when i encode my music.

[MiniKiller]

Well I know in terms of space 128 is the way to go, its nearly 50% smaller in size compared to a 192 but I was wondering about sound quality, comparable to a CD or something like that.

[Big_John]

Well I know in terms of space 128 is the way to go, its nearly 50% smaller in size compared to a 192 but I was wondering about sound quality, comparable to a CD or something like that.

with a normal audio reciever/mixer/speakers or headphones you won't hear a difference between CDs and 128 mp3s. if you have some higher end stuff (>$800 equipment maybe?) you could hear a difference but you'd have to have pretty sharp ears to begin with.

[MiniKiller]

ok thank you that is what I was wondering. Id rather stick with 128 then because it takes up less space, and if the difference is hardly hearable I'd rather save space.

Thanks m8

[Big King Sanctaphrax]

If you're listening through a halfway decent system, 128 isn't really acceptable. 192 is a bare minimum, but I would rip to more than that if you can.

I personally rip to Ogg at 350Kbps, but I'm anal and a bit of an audiophile.

[MiniKiller]

Wow really? I always figured anything higher then 192 was just a memory hog.

[Big_John]

MiniKiller, here's a little clip from a CD i own, tell me if you can hear the difference:

128 403k
192 605k
vbr 510k

these were all done with the lame codec (version 1.30, engine 3.92 mmx)

[MiniKiller]

I couldn't really tell a difference I thought perhaps the 192, or the last one was a little crisper but I was listening really hard, the first couple play thru's I heard no diff at all.

[Big_John]

use your best headphones and keep listening. also, encode your own music in various formats, and give a listen. best thing is to find what you are comfortable with, if you can't hear a difference with your current equipment, and you don't plan on upgrading that equipment anytime soon, just go with the smallest, if disk space is a concern.

when you encode to test, try to test various dynamic ranges.. pick some quiet classical, some heavy bass rap and some loud metal, for example and see what differences you can hear.

[LeftEyeNine]

Best sounding MP3 encoding technique is the using of VBR instead of CBR (like 112, 128, 192, 320 etc.). VBR technique allows the encoding so that the bitrate swings between certain limits depending on the sounds varying every moment.

So VBR is the best around. For a limited portable audio player, I'd go for 128s though -no higher no lower.

[GoreBag]

Most of my music is higher than 128. A great deal of it is higher than 192, as well, but I think it's safe to say that 192 is the new standard for mp3 bitrates.

[Big_John]

ok, i had a little fun with this.. just found out that my software encodes ogg too. anyway, here are a couple more 30s clips that i just encoded from the CDs. first one is vocals, second one is jazz that's a bit louder than the other stuff.

notice the differences in filesize, and how the same vbr method can lead to relatively smaller (first set) or larger (second set) files than 192kbps.

128 voice 408k
192 voice 612k
vbr voice 516k
ogg voice 892k

128 jazz 550k
192 jazz 825k
vbr jazz 898k
ogg jazz 1299k

the ogg files were encoded with the dll version "xiph.org libvorbis | 20020717". they were encoded at quality 9 (~320kbps).

imo, the ogg is the only one that sounds noticibly different, and it simply sounds like the treble has been turned up a tad. but i'm not using high-end equipment by any means.


here's an interesting thing i discovered that my software can do, it's a delta (difference) file made between the 128 and 192 vocal files. basically, what you are hearing is the audio information that was left out of the 128 file, but included in the 192 file. unfortunately, this doesn't work with the ogg file.

difference

[LeftEyeNine]

MP3 is known to be a format using higher bass. That's why OGG sounds "treble"d.

[Viking]

I always make sure I have as high kbps rate as possible. I had a Rammstein track with 128 kbps and it sounded bad. Then I got another file with the same song with a bit rate of 192 kbps, and it sounded much better.

Also, when I transfered music files from WMP to my mp3 player, WMP compressed the music files. They sounded worse after compression; not as clear as the uncompressed ones.

[Puzz3D]

I settled on 192 kbps for mp3. While I can hear a difference between that and the original CD recording, it's not that great a difference. The difference is most noticable in the high frequencies. They are a bit muted with the mp3. The higher musical frequencies is where insufficent sampling is going to be more noticable. I notice a bigger difference with 128 kbps. I tried some .flac format music and that was equal to CD quality, but it takes a lot more space. I'm using a Turtle Beach Santa Cruz soundcard and Cambridge Soundworks 3 piece speaker system; not the bottom of the line speaks, but the next one up which is fairly good sounding. For the best sound, I listen to CDs on my hi-fi system which is much better quality than my computer sound system.

[Xiahou]

I agree that 128 can sound substandard in many circumstances. I usually go for 192 or a VBR with approx a 160 average.

[BDC]

There is definately a difference between 128kbs and a cd even on my cheap £30 speakers. Although it's less obvious on headphones. I use the highest bitrate iTunes offers now. Cleaner sound is worth the larger space. It's just like having your ears dewaxed...

[Paul Peru]

The difference between some of the older, crappier mp3 encoders and Lame is incredible.
Use VBR to get the best out of whatever bitrate you use (unless you intend to use it on an old device - some of them have issues with vbr).
I mostly go for 192.

[Quietus]

I use 128 kbps only because I don't have enough space on my HD.

It's passable enough on a good headphone and when you tinker with your player's equalizer.

[Marcellus]

320 kbps.

Well, I have a lot of hard drive and not much music.