Real deal about mp3 quality.

[Kaboom]

Ok, so what's the real deal about mp3? obviously anyone can tell the difference between 64Kbps and CD quality. Fewer people (not talking audiophiles here, just the untrained-eared, average jack) can tell the diff between 128 and CD quality, far fewer can tell the diff between 192 and CD, and i confess i get lost when it goes above 224. So really, where is the point where Mp3 and CD quality are the same? does this never happen because of the inherent limitations of lossy compression?
i must admit i am a vinyl freak, and that i own very few CDs i actually LISTEN to rather than hear. And my equipment is also by no means real HI-FI.
so where does MP3 sound like CD? does it?

[Wireworm5]

I use to have my music stored at 192 wma. At this level the quality is quite good, but compared to cds I found cds to have better bass. You may also be able to hear some high frequency irritations on revealing systems if your ears are sensitive to that.On not to revealing systems I doubt if the average person can tell any difference even at 160, and that would depend on the type of music being played.
Since that time I've stored my Mp3's at 320kbps but I have not done a comparison to a cd to see if I can actually tell any difference. But in all honesty I don't think my ears could discern a differnce even at 256kbps.

[Rycher]

MP3's are a compressed format. Regardless of which bit rate you choose to encode in, you will be throwing away up to 70% of the music - information that may not be all that critical when you listen to it thru your walkman or your computer speakers. But once you listen to MP3's thru a good revealing system you will notice that it is NOT comparable to the original CD. I have all my CD catalog as MP3 320k stored on my computer. I have the MP3's streamed over to my McIntosh system for music playback. There IS a difference. Granted it's not a big difference - certainly not enough to keep anyone from listening to the music, but nonetheless it is still there. Some people are more critical than others when it comes to music playback. I record mine at 320k, you can experiment an see which setting sounds better for you.

[beachcomba]

FLAC and SHN are also great alternatives to mp3. I'm about to convert my cd cataloge to FLAC; with this format it is hard to discern between cd's and FLAC's.


Just google flac if you are interested, it is extremely easy to convert and decode. And it is a MUST when you use your PC to play music to your audio systems.

[kexodusc]

As Beachcomba mentioned,there are other formats that are better alternatives to the very old MP3 file. While FLAC and SHN were former favorites of mine, I've since turned to the dark side and embraced Microsoft's newest WMA files...to me these sound the best, especially at variable bit rates.
I have never heard an MP3 or WMA file sound as good as CD quality on my stereo system, but at higher bitrates, they do beat the digital music stations I get on my dish...on my cheap computer speaker nothing sounds good, so it's not hard to get "CD quality".
Sometimes I find very little distortion or artifacts in an MP3, FLAC, WMA etc, through headphones, but when playing them through my stereo, you can tell very quickly that imaging and soundstage are severely compromised. I'm guessing here that overtones and frequencies important for timbre are being cut out in the compression process.

[beachcomba]

I dont really like it when FLAC is said in the same breath as mp3 or wma. Think of Flac like you would about Meridian(spelling?) to DVD-audio; FLAC just packages the music effeicently.

A 50 meg wave file might be compressed by mp3(or wma) to a 6 meg file. As you can tell, thats alot of file that has been cut(usually the good parts). Where as with FLAC, that same 50 meg file would end up being 38-40 megs. As you can, thats alot of space for music information.