Higher quality MP3?

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brokemusician
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Higher quality MP3?

Post by brokemusician » Sun Jan 30, 2005 4:46 pm

Is there such a thing as a higher quality sounding MP3?

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Re: Higher quality MP3?

Post by apropos of nothing » Sun Jan 30, 2005 5:47 pm

VBR slowest encode.

Otherwise, 192kbps static.

Depending on your ripper, the VBR highest-quality encode ought be the closest to "lossless".

spankenstein
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Re: Higher quality MP3?

Post by spankenstein » Sun Jan 30, 2005 6:36 pm

I generally do VBR with the minmum set to 128 and the max to 320. These tend to hover around 160 to 256 most of the time.

brew
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Re: Higher quality MP3?

Post by brew » Mon Jan 31, 2005 7:53 am

Yup, just encode with the highest bit rate. That said, WMA is much better than MP3, so if you can, use that instead.

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Re: Higher quality MP3?

Post by apropos of nothing » Mon Jan 31, 2005 8:09 am

I mean, if you want to be technical, ogg vorbis is way cooler than both mp3 and wma. I'd still rather have an mp3 than a wma, though.

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Re: Higher quality MP3?

Post by spankenstein » Mon Jan 31, 2005 8:38 am

brew wrote:Yup, just encode with the highest bit rate. That said, WMA is much better than MP3, so if you can, use that instead.
Except people that don't use windows media player. Closed formats suck. Even though there is an mp3 patent it's too late since the cat is out and there are encoders and decoders on everything. Same with the Apple one. My workstation at work is Linux so I have no wma or quicktime options.

Wilkesin
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Re: Higher quality MP3?

Post by Wilkesin » Mon Jan 31, 2005 9:56 am

brew wrote:Yup, just encode with the highest bit rate. That said, WMA is much better than MP3, so if you can, use that instead.
I know a lot of people that would be ROFL at this comment...

Here is a ripping guide that should make some damn fine mp3s:
http://www.fryth.com/eacfaq/

It's what i have been using to rip and get rid of all the CDs that i dont listen to that often and are taking up space in my tiny apartment.

Though, .ogg and .mpc are cool if you have discs that bleed from track to track because they rarely have gaps...

oxfist
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Re: Higher quality MP3?

Post by oxfist » Mon Jan 31, 2005 10:11 am

FLAC - Free Lossless Audio Format
http://flac.sourceforge.net/

its a better data compression algorithm, and its open source! fun for everyone!

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Re: Higher quality MP3?

Post by philbo » Mon Jan 31, 2005 10:24 am

Yup, FLAC, Ogg Vorbis & Monkeys Audio all rock - - they just sound better.

I personally think that WMA sucks - it completely cuts off everything above 15KHz. (That's fine if you are listening on low-grade equipment, I guess...)

If you want portability, though, like being able to play it in a portable player, MP3 can't be beat. I used A/B/X listening tests to determine the what bit rate to use so I couldn't tell the any difference between WAV source and MP3 copy, on my Tannoy studio monitors.

The winning combination: 192K static with VBR up to 320K, encoded with LAME with the high-pass & low-pass filters disabled (using the Razor-LAME skin).
Tangent Studios

oxfist
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Re: Higher quality MP3?

Post by oxfist » Mon Jan 31, 2005 1:17 pm

I love this program.
CDex - http://cdexos.sourceforge.net/

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Re: Higher quality MP3?

Post by apropos of nothing » Mon Jan 31, 2005 1:29 pm

CDex is very good.

I also like to use Wavelab's mp3 conversion.

Zoltar
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Re: Higher quality MP3?

Post by Zoltar » Mon Jan 31, 2005 5:13 pm

Just a thought, is it possible to get better than cd resolution mp3s? like a 96kHz type of thing? whouldn't that be nice?

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Re: Higher quality MP3?

Post by apropos of nothing » Mon Jan 31, 2005 6:30 pm

If you encode off of a better-than-CD-quality source (say a 24 bit wav file), and you use a good extraction routine, then you are likely to wind up with a better-than-cd-quality mp3.

maz
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Re: Higher quality MP3?

Post by maz » Mon Jan 31, 2005 6:35 pm

so, not to totally hijack, but anyone use Apple Lossless for anything? Half the file size and supposedly completely lossless, which I just don't get.

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Re: Higher quality MP3?

Post by brew » Mon Jan 31, 2005 9:31 pm

If you encode off of a better-than-CD-quality source (say a 24 bit wav file), and you use a good extraction routine, then you are likely to wind up with a better-than-cd-quality mp3.
No, lossy encoding is always lossy which is always inferior to the source... unless you happen to like the sound of that loss (hm, analog summing of digital anyone...?). The codec is going to trash the same "unimportant" frequencies whether it is 16 bit or 24 bit. However, the better sounding the source, the better sounding the resulting MP3, so in a way, kinda.

Still, I'm not even sure if most/any mp3 codecs know how to handle 24 bits or >44.1.
maz wrote:so, not to totally hijack, but anyone use Apple Lossless for anything? Half the file size and supposedly completely lossless, which I just don't get.
Well, you can WinZip a wav file and get it to 2/3 or whatever it is these days, then extract it back to normal, so what's not to get? There's redundant data that can be "abbreviated" and smart engineers are going to figure out how to do it.

-hollis

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