I have just put a 16gig card into my galaxy mini. I am now transferring a selection of cds onto my phone. The default bit rate is 128kb when ripping the discs to my pc but is it worth selecting a higher rate. Will this mean better quality sound?
mp3 bit rate
128Kbs is OK for headphone listening and is the same as most UK Digital Radio services. Its fine for popular music but 160 or 192Kbs might be more suitable for Classical music where detail is important. 128Kbs will allow lots more on a flash drive so I'd go with it.
Early on I did a few in 128K but luckily I quickly settled at using 192K
It really depends on whether you 'can be bothered' and how many CD's you have.
It really depends on whether you 'can be bothered' and how many CD's you have.
Originally Posted by wavejockglw:
“128Kbs is OK for headphone listening and is the same as most UK Digital Radio services. Its fine for popular music but 160 or 192Kbs might be more suitable for Classical music where detail is important. 128Kbs will allow lots more on a flash drive so I'd go with it.”
“128Kbs is OK for headphone listening and is the same as most UK Digital Radio services. Its fine for popular music but 160 or 192Kbs might be more suitable for Classical music where detail is important. 128Kbs will allow lots more on a flash drive so I'd go with it.”
WRONG, DAB digital radio is MP2 technology, so it's not the same as 128Kbps MP3. Layer 3 introduces several encoding enhancements which provide better encoding quality. Also a lot of stations were 112Kbps last time I looked.
OP if you have the option to covert to AAC+ first and still maintain the 128Kbps you would have amazing quality tracks with the same amount of storage space.
The AAC codec is made by Orban, the makers of high end audio processors and it's a brilliant codec that has very good bass reproduction and really good sound that beats MP3 hands down when it comes to bitrates you get something like double the perceivable audio quality for the same bit rate.
Android should support AAC+ just fine, you could even drop it down to 96Kbps and it would still sound much better than 128Kbps MP3.
I'm not an audiophile but 128kbps is not good enough, 192kbps is my preference for a decent balance between sound quality & file size. 128kbps sounds ok at first but you will soon notice the difference (I especially notice it with cymbals on drums it really sounds tinny)
Originally Posted by Thine Wonk:
“WRONG, DAB digital radio is MP2 technology, so it's not the same as 128Kbps MP3. Layer 3 introduces several encoding enhancements which provide better encoding quality. Also a lot of stations were 112Kbps last time I looked.
OP if you have the option to covert to AAC+ first and still maintain the 128Kbps you would have amazing quality tracks with the same amount of storage space.
The AAC codec is made by Orban, the makers of high end audio processors and it's a brilliant codec that has very good bass reproduction and really good sound that beats MP3 hands down when it comes to bitrates you get something like double the perceivable audio quality for the same bit rate.
Android should support AAC+ just fine, you could even drop it down to 96Kbps and it would still sound much better than 128Kbps MP3.”
“WRONG, DAB digital radio is MP2 technology, so it's not the same as 128Kbps MP3. Layer 3 introduces several encoding enhancements which provide better encoding quality. Also a lot of stations were 112Kbps last time I looked.
OP if you have the option to covert to AAC+ first and still maintain the 128Kbps you would have amazing quality tracks with the same amount of storage space.
The AAC codec is made by Orban, the makers of high end audio processors and it's a brilliant codec that has very good bass reproduction and really good sound that beats MP3 hands down when it comes to bitrates you get something like double the perceivable audio quality for the same bit rate.
Android should support AAC+ just fine, you could even drop it down to 96Kbps and it would still sound much better than 128Kbps MP3.”
No need to shout and be so curt to get your point across.
Some interesting responses there. I did actually rip some at 320kb and they do sound clearer than the 128. However i see most of you recommend 192. Am i just wasting space ripping at 320. As for converting to acc this is something i will look into. At the moment the disks are ripping to my hardrive via windows media player so will have to look further into the options it gives.
What bitrate you use depends on how serious you are about audio quality. Which is why I never use an mp3 player. 
So basically rip at whatever bitrate sounds best to you, it's your ears that are going to be assaulted by the results so only you can decide. I've heard many an audio system that it's owner declares to be the dog's dangly bits that is producing horrendous distortion and generally sounds dreadful so go by your own ears not what I or anyone else says.
Also do not consider even for one moment converting the mp3 rips into AAC or any other format. Doing that will only degrade the sound quality. So if you do decide to use a different format always rip direct from the source CD all over again. That is the only way to ensure good sound quality, even if it is a much bigger pain in the wotsits that way.
So basically rip at whatever bitrate sounds best to you, it's your ears that are going to be assaulted by the results so only you can decide. I've heard many an audio system that it's owner declares to be the dog's dangly bits that is producing horrendous distortion and generally sounds dreadful so go by your own ears not what I or anyone else says.
Also do not consider even for one moment converting the mp3 rips into AAC or any other format. Doing that will only degrade the sound quality. So if you do decide to use a different format always rip direct from the source CD all over again. That is the only way to ensure good sound quality, even if it is a much bigger pain in the wotsits that way.
I would say no if it's just MP3, but if it's AAC (default iTunes format) then I would say it's ok.
I started copying all my CD's at 192, but then found that it was not MP3 as default, so I did some tests on a good quality system, my car stereo (a good one with good speakers) and also on my iPod and could not notice the difference between 128 and 192 on AAC files.
I started copying all my CD's at 192, but then found that it was not MP3 as default, so I did some tests on a good quality system, my car stereo (a good one with good speakers) and also on my iPod and could not notice the difference between 128 and 192 on AAC files.
I did a comparison not so long ago
http://nigelcoldwell.co.uk/audio/
i did MP3 in various bit rates, (as well as WMA, AAC, Ogg Vorbis, FLAC & WAV.) you could try downloading them at the different rates and seeing what is the best quality for you and your setup. it's a very personal thing.
I'd still stick with MP3 simply because everything can play it.
the biggest conclusion i reached was how much better variable bitrate MP3 was over constant bitrate. iTunes does not support this, presumably because they don't want you using it. cheeky really.
It's worth mentioning that if you have 16GB of storage at 128kbps this is roughly 11 days of continuous music or 250 albums. unless that is what you want then it might be worth ripping higher anyway.
over 128kbps you can't hear really hear the MP3 artefacts, it's more about if you compare it to higher bitrates you notice that there are bits missing.
the normal sequence is to rip to a lossless format, so you only have to rip once, say you want to play your music on a home media player with lots of storage, and then to transcode it if you want it for say a portable device.
http://nigelcoldwell.co.uk/audio/
i did MP3 in various bit rates, (as well as WMA, AAC, Ogg Vorbis, FLAC & WAV.) you could try downloading them at the different rates and seeing what is the best quality for you and your setup. it's a very personal thing.
I'd still stick with MP3 simply because everything can play it.
the biggest conclusion i reached was how much better variable bitrate MP3 was over constant bitrate. iTunes does not support this, presumably because they don't want you using it. cheeky really.
It's worth mentioning that if you have 16GB of storage at 128kbps this is roughly 11 days of continuous music or 250 albums. unless that is what you want then it might be worth ripping higher anyway.
over 128kbps you can't hear really hear the MP3 artefacts, it's more about if you compare it to higher bitrates you notice that there are bits missing.
the normal sequence is to rip to a lossless format, so you only have to rip once, say you want to play your music on a home media player with lots of storage, and then to transcode it if you want it for say a portable device.
Originally Posted by neo_wales:
“No need to shout and be so curt to get your point across.”
“No need to shout and be so curt to get your point across.”
Apologies, it was more to do with that particular poster posting wrong information again.
iPlayer for radio one uses this if anyone is interested:
Audio
Format : AAC
Format/Info : Advanced Audio Codec
Format version : Version 4
Format profile : LC
Bit rate mode : Variable / Variable
Minimum bit rate : 130 Kbps
Maximum bit rate : 222 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Channel positions : Front: L R
Sampling rate : 44.1 KHz
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 112 MiB (100%)
Audio
Format : AAC
Format/Info : Advanced Audio Codec
Format version : Version 4
Format profile : LC
Bit rate mode : Variable / Variable
Minimum bit rate : 130 Kbps
Maximum bit rate : 222 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Channel positions : Front: L R
Sampling rate : 44.1 KHz
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 112 MiB (100%)
