iTunes encoding quality

Best overall (quality v. size balanced) bit-rate is ...

  • 128kbps

  • 160kbps

  • 192kbps

  • higher than 192kbps

Results are only viewable after voting.
GadgetLover

GadgetLover

Senior Member & Tech Guru
OK, so I'm considering re-encoding my CD's into 192k mp3's. I presently have them encoded for my personal listening pleasure (love my Nomad JukeBox baby!) at 128k. Is this necessary? A good idea? A must? While I still will keep them encoded at 128k for my mp3 player (so I can listen to more tunes), I was considering re-encoding at a higher quality bit-rate for "near CD quality" listening via my home stereo system. What do you all suggest? I have a lot of mp3s so re-encoding will: (a) take a loooong(!) time and (b) take double the space (gigs!) but se la vie if necessary.

Also, when (if ever) do people encode at HIGHER than 192k? If a CD is 650MB and you can get it down to 65MB (128k) it makes great sense if the sound quality is good enough. If you can get it down to 130MB it still makes sense (192k). But at some point (260MB, 325MB??) it is lame (no pun intended) -- less quality but not much less size. At some point in the argument, one might as well just 'rip' the CD into AIFF and leave it at that.

So, you audiophiles out there, please comment ....
 
I just finished encoding around 200+ songs tonight at 192. It is NOT double the size by any means, only slightly larger. I think 192 sounds great, but Im not a music junkie either.

Admin
 
I have not tried encoding at 192k but my friend did and said it was about 2.1 times bigger than the 128k file. Is that not true? Can someone tell me how big 10-20 songs are at 128k AND 192k (for comparison)?

Also, what is the difference between "joint stereo" and "stereo"?

Finally, do you 'customize' your encoding and--assuming that you all encode at 192k--turn ON "variable bit-rate encoding"? Is this necessary?

I am trying to create the best overall settings to encode ALL of my CD collection into mp3s -- so it will take up ALOT of space on my hard drive but it will be worth it (to some degree of space sacrifice) to get the quality out of it. I like the idea of using my Mac as a jukebox rather than manually switching between CDs every time I want to listen to different artists/songs.
 
I listen to music with iTunes through my stereo system so I need good quality, 128 bit was too low but I can hear no difference between 160 bit and 192 bit (but a huge difference between 128 bit and 160 bit) so I encoded my whole music library in 160 bit and my 124 hours of music takes only 8,1 GB of space (about 1,1 MB per minute)
 
Thanks for your input Halli!

Halli's comment regarding listening to encoded music through a HIGH-FIDELATY STEREO SYSTEM (not SoundSticks!) brings up a good point here:

If anyone replies in this forum regarding listening to mp3s on such a stereo, please include what type of stereo system you have (generally) ... for example, Halli reported that s/he heard no noticeable difference between 160k and 192k encoded mp3s but a big difference between 128k and 160k. And this may be quite true for Halli but not true for someone with a higher end hi-fi system (I used to think "hi-end" meant more than $500 for a receiver ... until I listened to such components costing more than $5,000 dollars (and up). Same with speakers... I used to think $250 (pair) 3-way speakers sounded great, then I thought that $250 (each) speakers sounded greast, then I listened to $500 (each) tower speakers (etc) ... until a friend took me to a store in Los Angeles (read: store for celebrities and rich folks only) where--believe it or not--they sell speakers costing as much as $80,000 (EACH!!). (A waste of money if you asked me, but then again, I'm not Bill Gates.) So, as they say, "it is all relative." Alas, this brings me to my point: the more info the readers have about what someone's listening components are the better their informed decision will be on whether or not they will likely notice any difference in quality.

... and if you ARE Bill Gates (or Steve Jobs, Shaq, or George Lucas) then please don't reply 'cuz we all know that our systems suck compared to yours and we don't care! Cuz we have no intention on selling our clothes, cars or homes just to buy a fancy tin can that has sound coming out of it -- I'd rather listen to the radio.
 
Most of my MP3s are 128 and sound fine (to me anyways) going thru my analog MidiLand subwolfer and speakers that come out of my iMac's audio out port. Haven't tried hooking it up to my stereo directly yet, but I have burnt some audio CDs from 128 MP3s and they sound fine on my surround sound stereo, too. I guess it's just how sensitive your ears can pick up :)
 
Wow! You like to write!

I encode them after how much I think I'm gonig to listen to them.
192 for most. 160 for less. I can't hear much difference, though.
 
Originally posted by julguribye
Wow! You like to write!
Click to expand...

:) I am trying to keep this forum focused and organized, as I think that this is information that many people are interested in. When this forum is 'closed' I will try to get it moved to the FAQ forum.
 
Speaking of encoding a CD collection, does anyone have a good method for smoothly ripping a collection of about 130 CD's? I would like to encode my collection, but would like to also limit the amount of time I spend sitting and waiting in front of my computer.

I've heard of 200 CD and 400 CD, um, things that you just put the CDs on a rack like, um, thing and it automatically loads one CD, rips it, takes it out, and goes to the next one.

I've also heard of scripts that have been written that rips a CD into AIFF tracks, spits out the CD, and encodes it into MP3 as the next CD is ripping. Sounds smooth, but I haven't been able to find anything like it that worked with MacOS X.1.
 
I personally record all my MP3's at 320kbps. I know it may be overkill but I like the detail. A typical 5 minute-ish song/track is around 11 to 13 MB. I read many years ago that MP2 was a better sounding but lacked the compression of MP3. I think I could tell the difference before (listening through $150 german headphones), but now I don't think I can hear the difference between the 320kbps MP3 and 320kpbs MP2. Perhaps the encoding schemes are better for MP3 than they used to be, I don't know. I remember downloading a command line MP3 encoder for OS X that claimed to encode using better psycho-acoustics than current MP3, but I never used it, got filled under some directory somewhere and archived to a CD, probably never to be used, but nice to have "just in case".

I wouldn't recommend re-encoding unless you have to. For me and my CD burner, I can copy an audio disk faster than encoding MP3, but I only make my MP3 for my use and no one else's. I had hoped to connect my Mac to my home stereo but never did. I didn't for fear of being disappointed in the sound quality coming from the Mac. My home stereo cost about $10,000 and I expect to hear serious flaws, which I wouldn't be happy with so I didn't even bother. Incidently, you can hear the difference between an original audio CD and the burned copy of an audio CD - the difference is due to timing errors that are introduced into the CD and picked up by D/A converter.

My stereo system:
High-end Philips (Made in Denmark) purchased 10 years ago from Paragon Sound in Toledo OH.

FR930 Receiver/amplifier($550; 150W/channel, Dolby ProLogic [when it was new!]).

CD 950 Compact Disc Player ($640; Frequency range: 2Hz-20kHz; Dynamic range: 108dB; Signal to noise ratio: >115dB; Channel separation: >110dB; Total harmonic distortion: 0.001%; Bitstream conversion 128X oversampling, 1 bit, 3rd order noise shaper). This unit contains a commercial laser. I will die before the laser burns itself out. Optical digital output goes directly to the DCC digital input.

Digital Compact Cassette (DCC) recorder/player (records in MP2 format, sound specs not as good as the CD player). Cost $1000 - yeah, I know, waste of money, right after I purchased it CD-R were introduced on the market.

BostonAcoustics VR960 speakers (Made in America; $1000/pair, 50 lbs each with one 8 inch powered sub in each speaker, Dolby Digital inputs, 1 inch Lynnfield tweeter, 4.5 inch mid range. Speakers rest on 2 inch long spikes going into my carpeted floor. http://www.bostonacoustics.com
http://www.bostonacoustics.com/ProductsPage.asp?ProductID=9&SpecID=1&SeriesID=16

Transparent Cable Music Link interconnects (Made in America; connects the CD player to the amplifier). These cables are approximately 3/8 inch think and are made with high purity copper with high pass and low pass filters that terminate at the cables end in a small black box($150/pair). Only frequencies in human hearing range are allowed to pass through the cables. http://www.transparentcable.com

Transparent Music Wave speaker cable (Made in America; connects amplifier to speakers). These cables are approximately 1 inch THICK, have high purity copper with high pass and low pass filters that terminate at the cables end in a large 7 inch black box($870/pair). Only frequencies in human hearing range are allowed to pass through the cables. Cables are only 10 feet long. http://www.transparentcable.com

Bang & Olufsen turntable. ($550 WITHOUT the diamond needle). For VINYL records!!! MM4 Eliptical diamond cartidge ($100). The MM1 diamond cartridge was $500 - too expensive for me.

Other components will not be listed. This is long enough.

When I listen to my music, I don't just hear it, I FEEL it, literally, the bass is incredible, but not overbearing - very tight bass.

chemistry_geek
 
Originally posted by chemistry_geek (from another thread)
I get between 5.8X to 6.3X MP3 encoding. When importing, the computer does not do any other tasks.

iTunes MP3 Encoding direct from the Preferences:

Input Using: MP3 Encoder.
8kbps(mono) / 320kbps (stereo), joint stereo.

Smart encoding is checked.

Songs do NOT play while encoding.

The way I see it, why waste all that bandwidth for a mono-type audio file? Everything today is stereo.

1427 Songs, 4:09:14:17 total time, 10.46GB
Click to expand...

You're just the type of audiophile that I wanted to hear from. I have a friend that has an even higher end system than yours (believe it or not) and he says some of the same things you have. So, I have been trying to figure out the middle ground between QUALITY and QUANTITY of my mp3s. Can you explain more about the mono v. stereo thing? Can you lower the mono part without effecting ANY of the sound quality in stereo?? I, too, could care less if my files do not have the ability to be played on a monoral system but I DO care that no quality is lost by reducing the mono channel to 8k (as you did) instead of (160k -- 1/2 of 320k). I can't believe that you can encode at 329k that many songs and have it only be 10GB. I have 2,000 songs encoded (at 128k) and it is 8GB. Does the mono thing affect it that much? Cool, if so. Also, can you explain the joint v. normal stereo thing?
 
GadgetLover:

A buddy of mine spent $20,000 ON A USED Proceed system (from eBay) after listening to the difference between Transparent interconnects and the cheap interconnect cables that come with every home stereo. His system at the time was Harmon Kardon purchased from Circuit City. He sold it on eBay and bought the Proceed preamp, CD-transport, a separate D/A converter, and a 100 lb Mark Levinson amplifier, with tranparent cables better than mine, piece by piece. His speakers cost $5000/pair and are made in England - forgot the name of that manufacturer. He too is a chemist in the polymer industry making bookoo bucks. His system makes mine sound like it was purchased at a K-mart bluelight special in Hicksville USA. It is a humbling experience to be out done by one-upmanship.

I cannot afford to keep up with the Jones's.

chemistry_geek
 
MP3 encoding differences.

Direct from MPegger Documentation (credit goes to that author):

Stereo - Encodes each channel as a separate stream. For example, if you encode a 128kbps stereo file with this set, it will actually encode two 64kbps streams, one for each channel.

Joint Stereo - Looks for similarities and differences in the two channels, and encodes them as one stream. This results in better sound quality, although it may not work with some MP3 players.

Layer III Constant Bitrate (CBR) - Encodes the file as an MP3 with a specified amount of data per second. This is the most compatible mode.

Layer III Variable Bitrate (VBR) - There are 3 types of VBR encoding: Normal Quality (NQ), Extra Quality (XQ), and High Quality (HQ).

chemistry_geek
 
Originally posted by chemistry_geek
Stereo - Encodes each channel as a separate stream. For example, if you encode a 128kbps stereo file with this set, it will actually encode two 64kbps streams, one for each channel.

Joint Stereo - Looks for similarities and differences in the two channels, and encodes them as one stream. This results in better sound quality, although it may not work with some MP3 players.
Click to expand...

Chemistry Geek (read: God):

So are you suggestion that the best overall setting (considering size too) is 8kbps (mono) / 320kbps joint stereo? And should I do CBR instead so it is compatible with my systems? My DVD player reads mp3s -- does it read VBRs? What about the Nomad JukeBox and iPod?
 
GadgetLover:

Well, I know that I've always used 8kbps (mono) / 320kbps joint stereo every since I obtained iTunes. I had no idea what "joint stereo" was until I read about it from MPegger's documentation I downloaded 10 minutes ago. The only thing I changed as far as iTunes encoding MP3 from the default setting was to minimize the monoaural audio stream's quality and to maximize the stereo audio stream. This is the 8kbps (mono) / 320kbps stereo setting. I didn't change any other settings for fear of messing up the quality in ways I didn't know about yet. Turns out leaving the joint stereo checked was better, according to MPegger's documentation. It would be nice if Apple actually provided COMPLETE documentation with their products so we would all know what these settings meant. I have yet to find a help file on my system that explains every setting in iTunes. In minimizing the monoaural audio stream and maximizing the stereo audio stream I (probably falsely) assumed that it would be less taxing on the CPU as it I thought it would / might be decoding audio I was not hearing or it was just throwing away. I was just looking to maximize the audio quality of my system while removing any inefficiencies from the MP3 decoding process. Who knows, I could be completely wrong about the 8kbps (mono) / 320kbps joint stereo setting, but it works for me. God knows Mac OS X is slow enough on my system I wouldn't want to burden the processor with any more worthless chatter.

Regarding the CBR setting, I don't know what you mean by compatibility with your other systems. Regarding your DVD player and Nomad Jukebox and iPod, you would have to check the documentation that came with your hardware. You may have to do some tweaking with encoding settings to get your MP3's to work with all those devices (if they don't already) with just one MP3 file type. As far as size is concerned, the 320kbps MP3 files can get large, and hard drives are cheap now so I'm not concerned with storage considerations. I'm after total quality when it comes to listening to my MP3 on my BeyerDynamic DT150 german headphones - I can still differentiate a 320kbps MP3 and the CD in the Mac.

The best advice I can give is that the 8kbps (mono) / 320kbps joint stereo setting works very well for me.

As an example, Charles Dickens "A Christmas Carole" narrated by our favorite Star Trek Captain, Patrick Stewart (Jon-Luc Picard) is a 2 CD set. Disk 1 is 48:07 and 110.2MB; Disk 2 is 58:51 and 134.8MB. BIG FILES!!! Even if you are into pirating MP3, which I'm not, it would be out of the question to share/ steal files of this size on LimeWire or other file sharing programs with a 56K connection. Your chances of getting disconnected from your ISP are greater than obtaining the file in its entirety. At 320kbps, I think this is purely an individual preference, you don't have to use that setting.

chemistry_geek
 
Joint stereo sometimes introduce artifacts... If you aren't concerned about the space, I'd encode at 256kbps, stereo. I wouldn't bother using VBR. It doesn't really save that much space.

you can use lame to encode mp3 with iTunes.

---
edited (addtion)

forgot when, but 300 'audiophiles' tested the quality of mp3 with original cd, 128kbps mp3, and 256kbps mp3. They picked out 128kbps mp3's 90% of the time...while most times 256kbps passed. They used quality audio equipment at studio, so it's not Fisher's bullshit boombox. and mp3's were decoded on Macs (encoded on PC though)

so if you're after quality, I wouldn't go with 128kbps.

If you are using lame, you can use JS. It's better than others. If there's too much separation, it'll just use stereo for that frame.. I dunno what encoder iTune uses.
 
...a song encoded in 192kbps takes up 1,5 times of what a 128kbps does.

But I'd say it's really worth it.

I´s easy to calculate the size of an mp3. kbps stands for "kilo bit per second". 128kbps takes up 0,96MB/min, (128*60)/8=960
192kbps takes up 1,44MB/min, (192*60)/8=1440
320kbps takes up 2,4MB/min, (320*60)/8=2400

128kbps sounds really bad. 160 is ok, but not good, can still hear some distorsion. While I think 192 is really good. It´s the best compromise between size & sound. So I rip all my CD´s in 192. But if there´s a really good song that I know I will listen to the rest of my life (almost), I rip it in 256.

I have a Sony STR-DB940 DD/DTS Reciever (about 650$, awardwinning), a Sony ...-XB930 CD Player(400$), and Audio Pro Black Diamond speakers (500$/pair, very priceworthy).
 
OK, so new sub-poll:

For those of you audiophiles that prefer higher quality encoding, which do you prefer (again, keeping in mind quality vs. size sacrifice)?

a) 192kbps, stereo (96kbps per channel);
b) 256kbps, stereo (128kbps per channel);
c) either 192 or 256 (above) but in JOINT STEREO;
d) 320kbps, stereo
e) 256 or 320 but with mono set to 8kbps (as Chem Geek suggests -- I've never tried it).

In other words, has anybody else done the mono reduction thing?

And what about the custom settings in iTunes -- if you encode at higher than 192kbps, you must use them, so what should the "smart encoding" and "filter frequences below 10hz" "channel (auto, stereo, etc)" be set at??
 
As a Hi-Fi obsessive who has now become a Mac obsessive too, I say forget MP3, if you want quality.

ANY kind of compression will be audible with even a half decent hi-fi.

So, what we are talking about is compromise - and you trade off quality for size.

Anything above 160 is going to give you sufficient quality not to wince, but you'll still flatten the sound and the high frequencies will lack energy.

At best, your MP3's will sound like they are playing on a mini-disc, which use a similar kind of compression.

Some high end hifi can make the music sound sweet, just the same (valves usually) - but on more analytical gear you can hear graininess, akin to pixellation on JPEG photo files.

Did someone mention B&O catridges by the way? Wish we could stll get the good ones in the UK, they only sell the low end version here! The top of the line MMC was my favourite of all time.



Rogers e40 valve amp
Quad ESL 63 speakers
Audionote CD player
Dunlop Systemdeck turntale with Ortofon line contact stylus.

Oh ...and a G4 733
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top