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shows that only the very best listeners only sometimes could tell 128 kbps MP3 (FgH encoder, not Xing, Blade, etc) apart from the original material.

It's not 128 Kbps MP3, it's 256 Kbps MP3. I can consistently tell 128 Kbps MP3 from the original rip, even on cheap $15 multimedia speakers (although I have to hold them right up to my ears). And I'm no audiophile.

Go to http://www.r3mix.net/ and click on the "Quality" link for some links to the MP3 tests.

Sorry, but analog (including vinyl) is still superior in terms of sound quality despite it's technical limitations.

Few people can hear much above 19 kHz, and CDs can flawlessly encode any sound containing frequencies as high as 21.9 kHz. The -96 dB noisefloor of 16-bit linear PCM is lower than the Brownian noise of the air molecules in the recording studio. The "warmer" sound of vinyl is actually harmonic distortion caused by friction of the needle against the groove.

Read more in my article about digital DJing.
Read more on r3mix.net, especially the 'myths' section.

try --r3mix as your parameters to lame. the page tells why. only works on newer versions of lame.

Let's see... For $20,000 US, I can buy:

1. Terabyte Fileserver: $5000

2. Turtlebeach sound card with optical out (SBLive won't do it; it resamples the data for no reason): $400

3. 'Ultimate Linux Box 2001'= $3200-$7000

4. Choice of storage formats: WAVs (Free[as in beer]:1250-1750 cds:lossless) MP3 (done proper) (Free[as in beer]:12,500-17,500 cds:lossy) Ogg Vorbis (Free[as in speech]:12,500-17,500 cds:lossy), and FLAC (Free[as in speech]:2500-3500 cds:lossless)

All this, 2.54*10^24 times more storage, and a set of components guaranteed to be better than what is in that POS that's being sold. Oh, and lets not forget the $7000 or so you'll be saving.

I'll pass.

Toodles

Go here and read the 'myths' section then tell me again how CD quality sucks (would have linked directly but the pages are designed to automatically shunt you to the frontpage if linked to from an external source)

I'd like to introduce you to www.r3mix.net. Specifically, click on the link labelled "Myths".

If you don't like listening to the true, unadulterated source, well, I guess tubes are for ya! Me, I like to hear what the musician played, so I buy transistor/fet based equipment.

Uh, this just ain't true anymore. Sure, as long as people keep using crap like MusicMatch Jukebox, crap mp3s will keep floating around. But if you're willing to do your homework, it is possible to create mp3s that are indistinguishable from the CD in all but the most remote of cases.

>How great can the audio be? It's mp3.
I agree and disagree; you can get CD-quality out of mp3 compression, but not at 40GB/750CDs: Higher quality will cost you more space.
(check R3MIX for excellent stuff on the subject)

>why wouldn't I just listen to my orignal CDs/LPs/8-tracks/whatever
Because doing this will generally make you listen to one CD at a time (or up to the limit of you CD changer). Then you have to get out of the couch to change it. (why do I need remote control?).

I'm converting all my CDs (all legal) to mp3. I leave xmms on "ramdom", and it can play for weeks (ok, two weeks and some days).

Anyway, for 1000 US I'd stuff my networked boxes with 40G HDs, and buy all the necessary CDs to fill'em up with mp3!

(pleaseplease guys don't start a war about "CD-quality not being quality")

Why are they testing 128kbit? Perhaps because a little while ago, a high quality listening test was conducted on the r3mix forums (although ogg wasn't included), on which, by the way, ff123 is a moderator and a contributor.

128kbit still has it's uses, since not eveyone has enough bandwidth to download higher quality files. Streaming is another option: you have to be able to download the file at the same speed it's playing, which is much easier on a 128kbit file than on a vbr file averaging about 190kbit.

So, both tests have their uses. Anyway, I saw ff123 was asking on the r3mix forum who was up for another high quality test, so that's coming as well.

That's a pretty crappy test criteria-- limiting the input to 128kbit/sec-- for those of us itnerested in achieving as-close-to-CD-as-possible performance from our compressed music.

I don't claim to have golden ears, but I can distinctly hear the difference between different playback engines (example; on a Mac, the Audion playback engine is considerable better sounding than iTunes) and different encoding engines with nearly the same settings (LAME is, by far and away, the best I have heard yet).

In any case, it would be useful to have an expanded test that includes higher bitrates for those that listen to tunes on something other than crappy computer speakers.

Ogg vs. LAME article

An excellent Ars article that only covers differences between mp3 encoders.

MP3 tech has a bunch of useful resources.

One of the best sites around, r3mix offers a wealth of technical information, some very well executed scientific and listening tests, and a section that destroys a lot of the myths surrounding mp3s.

This is an MP3 player. NOT a ripper.

You would load mp3s onto an mp3 player, from the net, your harddrive, whatever. But they would have to be already in MP3 format. You would NOT rip them from a cd, not in the player at least. You could do that on your computer, where you might want to have a 24 bit soundcard. You'd then load them in thru the ethernet connection. MP3 DOES have to be a lossy format. It is by definition. It doesn't have to be an AUDIBLE difference, but data IS lost - that's how it makes files smaller than wavs. Lossy isn't a dig, or a synonym for lousy, it's a technical description. There are lossless formats, MP3 is not one of them. If you convert a wav to an MP3 and then back into a wav, the second wav is not the same as the first, data has been lost. If they were the same, it would be lossless. What software are you using for ripping? What size are your files? 24 bit soundcards and mp3 are an unnecessary combination... if you need professional sound quality you need uncompressed audio, if you don't then the 24 bit quality will be totally lost in the resulting mp3.

For the most in-depth coverage of the MP3 format, including comparisons of encoders, file size, actual audio tests, etc. go to r3mix.net By the way, if all you care about is quality and not size, just don't convert to MP3. Seriously, 320 bit MP3's don't offer enough size savings to make the conversion worthwhile. There is a .shn shorten file format which is lossless and does make files smaller, don't know much about it.

Ok, we got many things (using lame style names):

CBR = Constant bit rate = Variable quality
VBR = Variable bit rate = Constant quality
ABR = Target bit rate = Variable but not as much quality

OGG normally uses a form of ABR, but is capable to do true CBR and true VBR as well (not sure which versions enabled for).

Also, even if you are using true CBR, there is little room for flexibility in the form of the "bit reservoir"; you can save some bits in the "easy parts" so they can be better spent in the hard parts.

Second, mp3, being open in some way or another, has the side effect of many encoders available. Different encoders produce different quality. Take 4 192kbps mp3s encoded with 4 different encoders, and you will discover quality differences as day to night.

And to use Lame properly, first, let me suggest that you *at least* use Lame 3.89b. Lame 3.70 is *too old*. If you get Lame 3.90a, even better.

Want to be on the safe side? use this single option:

lame --dm-preset standard

This will produce near 256kbps files, and its the hightest quality you can get out of mp3s.

If you think you can live with 192kbps like files, then use

lame --r3mix

Otherwise stick to the normal, don't apply options you don't know much of. Typically you *always* want -h, and -b for the desired bitrate in case of CBR, or minimun frame bitrate for audio in the case of VBR (usually 112 or 128). ABR is VBR attempting an average bitrate. And no, it is not wise to use option -B at all (let the encoder use up to 320kbps frames when using VBR).

If this topic of lossy compression is of interest for you, then you should visit:

Proyect Mayhem, channel #Project_Mayhem at irc.openprojects.org
and
r3mix.net, channel #r3mix at irc.openprojects.org

Um... on side note, have you seen The Wavelet Tutorial yet? Wavelets are planned for Ogg Vorbis 2.x, stay tuned... :)

BTW, for more in depth discussion that has been ongoing, have a look at the forums at r3mix.net and the Ogg-specific forums at Hydrogen Audio. I keep up with both forums, and the folks there tend to make prerelease build binaries available for people to play with. For up-to-date detailed information without the overhead of the Vorbis-dev list, those are the places to go.

One more link for folks who want to know more: The beginning of the document describing Vorbis stereo discusses good terminology and qualification of subjective fidelity. It's nothing new to most posters I expect, but it might help keep the discussion consistent.

Happy hacking,

Monty
xiph.org

I haven't directly compared OGG and mp3, mostly because I'm very happy with the quality of the mp3 encoding.

In my own testing, the r3mix.net settings were pretty much indistinguishable from the original in terms of frequency response. I did notice some changes in spatial effects. One of my CDs in particular was affected, Deepforest 2. With the original CD playing, the sound tended to bounce all around your head when wearing headphones. After being encoded by LAME, the sound still moved some, but it was much more granular. Most of the effect was lost. However, the actual FREQUENCY RESPONSE was awesome, and the only way I could really tell the difference was by listening very intensely. It is more than adequate for normal listening.

I did these tests about a year and a half ago, on LAME 3.81, and apparently it has improved quite a bit since. That team respects the r3mix site enough that they actually added in an '--r3mix' command line switch to implement all of their suggested settings at once. Apparently LAME now keeps more of the original signal; it's not quite so enthusiastic about assuming you can't hear certain kinds of noise. I'm hopeful this may have fixed the encoding issues I had with the earlier version.

Basically, given the fact that he has tons of space available, and given that there's all sorts of portable MP3 players in the world, I think he may still be happiest with MP3. I certainly am.

Equipment used: Non-golden ears, but decent ones. Soundblaster Live Platinum 5.1 (which has some frequency response issues with REAL audiophiles), Sennheiser HD 580 headphones for 'real' listening, Midiland S2 4100s (the older 2 speaker model) for casual music and gaming.

Aside: The 580s are AWESOME headphones, and you can often get them very cheap at auction. I got mine about two years ago for about $125. They have a reputation of having flaky connections. Mine did indeed have a problem when I first got them, which I solved simply by removing and replugging the wire in the bottom of the headphone. They are fully modular, easy to disassemble and clean, and sound INCREDIBLE. Two downsides: they really need an amplified headphone jack to reach their true potential, and they are big headphones. They're very comfortable but large.

Aside on the early model Midilands: great quality speakers, dismal amp. Hissy at any volume. Someday I'll move the way-cool little satellites onto a real amplifier, and will toss the subwoofer/amp in the trash.

Whoever mod'd this down to Offtopic doesnt know what they're doing. This is NOT offtopic.

EAC and LAME are the best way to rip and encode mp3s (respectively)

EAC: http://www.ping.be/satcp/eac00.htm Use secure mode when ripping, its slower but you wont get pops, clicks and bleeps.

LAME: http://www.hot.ee/smpman/mp3/

At the moment you should be using at least the LAME 3.89 executable to encode. If you are, use the following command line (EAC -> Compression Options -> External Compression -> Additional command line options):

--r3mix

Yes, that's all, "--r3mix", nothing else. For more information on this, visit http://www.r3mix.net

If you really want to do reliable tests on wav files, then visit PCABX to get the PCABX program and to read more about the testing methodology. The program takes in two wav files, and then chooses one of the two randomly and lets the user decide which of the two is the one chosen randomly. Basically, once this done a good number of times (say, 20) the program can then tell whether the user can actually tell the difference between the two files.

Also, a wonderful website dedicated to the task of creating archival quality encoded audio (which is indistinguishable from the original) is r3mix. Lame even has an optimized parameter that comes from the work at the site, --r3mix! This VBR parameter gives incredible quality at a fairly low bitrate. Check out too a listening test carried out at r3mix that showed the blind preferences of 42 users over a month of time.

If you want a bunch of good information on ripping *almost* perfect quality MP3's at sane bitrates (about 200 VBR), check out http://r3mix.net. I've been ripping like they suggust, and man does it sound nice!

r3mix.net has what appear to be properly done tests.. for mp3 at least.

no, the limiting factor is the 10:1 lossy mp3 compression

Yes, 128 kbps MP3 (11:1 vs. CD) loses depth. However, r3mix.net has done some tests showing that LAME can do transparent encoding of stereo audio at 192 to 256 kbps, using variable bitrate to encode the audio with only slight psychoacoustic loss that most listeners won't notice.

tell ya the truth, cd's arent that good sounding either

I addressed poor CD mastering in this comment.

r3mix

Read it, then come back here with a clue.

Don't trust the web page, do some ABX tests on your reference system, comparing 256kbit MP3 to the original signal.

Oh, did you mean 128kbit MP3, encoded by Musicmatch, has hisses and skips? I whole heartedly agree with you! But if you believe that all MP3 < all CD, I have a $20,000 tube amp I'd like to sell you.

Assuming 256kbit MP3 done with a decent encoder, this component, and a Toslink connection to your badass DAC, I can assure you that the limiting factor there is the quality of your DAC and everything after it.

go read r3mix.net and tell me if you still encode 256 kbit mp3s afterwards. I have found that VBR encoding with the lame encoder (the new beta has the --r3mix command line option) in conjunction with Exact Audio copy has the best quality without eating through hard drives... it is mp3, after all; it doesn't sound that good. i think this is realistically as close as you can get without going overboard

MD uses lossy compression. Is there no MP3 quality setting that compares? There must be.

Early MD devices used ATRAC, with encoding algorithms as powerful as MP2's, at 256 kbps. Recent MD devices use newer ATRAC encoders that match MP3's quality at anywhere from 64 kbps to 256 kbps. But the ATRAC decoder apparently hasn't changed.

I do not have a CD-R based MP3 player so I can't comment, but my geek intuition tells me that since both kinds of devices have spinning media, decoding hardware and audio hardware they will probably have similar battery life.

MPEG audio layer 3 on ISO9660 uses larger discs than the MD system uses. Larger discs have more rotational inertia and require more power to spin. However, a 2 MB anti-skip buffer means that the double-speed CD mechanism needs to spin up the CD only about once a minute or so to pull 1.5 MB of 192 kbps[1] MP3 audio off the disc and keep the buffer at least a quarter full, saving battery power.

[1] 192 kbps average rate MPEG layer 3 audio encoded with LAME sounds transparent compared to stereo 16-bit linear PCM, i.e. most double-blind listeners can't tell which is the CD and which is the MP3. See R3mix for more info.

I still compress my MP3s(using Razorlame, 256 ABR) because:

• What if you want to share a tune with a friend? Even on broadband, it's nice to transfer a 12 MB MP3 instead of a 75 MB .WAV
• What if you want to backup to CD-R? It is easier with fewer discs. Granted, it's smarter (for people like me that buy all their music) to just duplicate the original audio CD

Since we are on the topic, a quick plug for awesome info on MP3 ripping and encoding: www.r3mix.net

P.S. WTF are safety links supposed to do!? They just make Slashdot (even more) ugly.

I found it really unfortunate that most people used Napster simply to leech and steal.
I was in the honest minority that used it largely to try music before buying it. I was a poor college student, but I bought a lot of the music I kept, and I had a number of albums on the "to buy" list.
I would not have ever used Napster for "backups" - it would've been good in extreme circumstances, like having all of your CDs get microwaved by your roommate, but there was no quality assurance to Napster files.
[If there were quality assurance, like guaranteed usage of the standards suggested at r3mix, then I might use it as a backup... (however, with the advent of HDCD, there are still advantages to the raw CD format that MP3 can't capture...) but that's just an aside.]

So, if the Napster decision was based on majority usage, the next generation of Napster-esque programs could achieve eBay-like immunity by having a reasonable security mechanisms (plausible deniability?) in place - keeping the downloaded file for a limited time period, or allowing a limited number of plays.
Of course, it will be cracked - but that would be beyond the control of the program, and that behavior would hopefully stay to a small enough minority to allow it to get through any litigation.

Overall, though, one of the things that needs to happen in this discussion is for the ranting against the recording conglomerates to be seperated from the commune-istic (not a bad thing, in an ideal world [p.s.: the world isn't ideal {yet?}]) view of information. Different fights for different times. It only muddies the waters.

It would be nice to have different ranges too- maybe 64K to demo the song

Reminds me of MP3.com's 32 kbps lo-fi stream and 128 kbps download.

and 320K if you actually want it.

You don't really need 320 kbps for CD quality. Recent versions of LAME have a --r3mix switch that allows CD quality (i.e. transparent reproduction of 0-20 kHz stereo audio) at an average rate of 180 to 200 kbps; read the "quality" section of r3mix.net for details.

The only difference I see between 128 and 160 is a slightly "crisper" sound [...] 128 is quite adequate in conveying the qualities of a musician's performing and composition skills, which are what I think most people enjoy about music.

So I'm lazy, that's all I'm going to excerpt today... Check out r3mix.net for a few details regarding sound quality. I'm more or less sold on VBR as the way to go, as there are more than a few tracks out there that sound iffy at 128kbps, even using the cheapie hardware available to me at work.

In the main, though, I would agree that 128kbps (or lower, for some) is an adequate bitrate if one is merely looking for an alternative to FM-quality broadcasts and isn't concerned about maintaining a given encoding for archival purposes. Fidelity issues may not be the "killer" issue for most -- I agree -- but it quickly becomes an issue when forking over the dough for those self-same tracks. :)

but at a 256 kbps encoding rate (IMHO the lowest you can go to get decent sound quality without losing bass or getting artifacts) we're only talking about 100 minutes of music . . .

I felt the same way, until someone pointed me to r3mix, where there are many pointers on getting the best possible quality out of lossy compression. Using LAME with the --r3mix flag set, variable bit rate min 112, I can hear no difference from the source media, and I have very good ears. Try it; you'll save a ton of space, and be happier with your sound.

Business card CDs can hold up to about 55 MB of data or almost 40 minutes of CD-quality audio[1] encoded with a good MP3 encoder, making them very useful for distributing a demo "tape." This new player should be able to play them just fine.

[1]Yes, 192 kbps MP3 encoded with LAME is CD-quality if you consider CD-quality to mean "capable of profound fidelity over 0-20 kHz" or "transparent to the human ear vs. stereo 16 bit per channel linear PCM." See also R3mix.net's "encoding" section.

I've noticed most of the posts here are saying how awful Vorbis sounds... I've been using it for quite a while now, and have done pretty extensive testing myself as well as reading what alot of other people have had to say. I don't have "Golden Ears" or $10k worth of stereo equipment, just a decent pair of headphones, but it's ALWAYS been my opinion that ogg sounds better than mp3. I sent one to a friend once, and his first reaction was, "WOW! This is ALOT better than mp3!". And that was with the beta 4 encoder. Even those crazy guys over on the r3mix.net forums have lots of praise for Ogg Vorbis.

Like the topic says, I haven't been able to get to RC2 yet, thanks to it being slashdotted, but I seriously doubt RC2 sounds worse than beta 4, and while encode times _are_ slower than mp3, they're nowhere near as slow as some people are saying. (I get about 3x speed on my Duron 850 with b4). Clicks and pops are likely a cause of a bad rip from the CD, not the encoder.

I've been using nothing but Ogg for my CDs for a while now, and have encouraged many friends to do the same. People really need to give Ogg a fair, unbiased try before they go saying it sucks, because it's most definitely at the very least, better than mp3 at the same bitrate. Check out PCABX for info on how to do a good double-blind listening test.

Congrats to Monty and the rest of the Ogg Vorbis team. Keep up the good work.

LAME is the best MP3 encoder available. It's free, open source, and multiplatform.

On Windows, the best ripper/encoder is CDex. On Linux, look for packages for Lame, CDParanoia and Grip for your distribution.

For discussion of the best MP3 encoders, take at look at R3Mix (and in particular at the forums).

There is also a lot of information coming from the Lame Project, particular of your interest may probably be reading the mailing list which probably answers all your questions.

In your particular case, in my opinion you should try experimenting with the --r3mix switch using the latest Lame3.89beta or maybe even a Lame3.90alpha, which should give you VBR files averaging 170~220kbps. In any case reading the forums there is the best way to keep up to date with each Lame development.

In my opinion, Lame exceeds by far Fraunhofer's quality, but only if allowed to use the higher bitrates. On the other hand, Fraunhofer can't do better than average even with higher bitrates.

Ogg is on its way, but it is *still* behind the current state of mp3 encoding quality. Due to its design, it seems it has all what is needed to improve in both quality and size constraints; but its not there yet, needs a lot of testing and tweaking, a process very time consuming that needs a lot of people. I don't think its even fair to test it before the first non beta release is made, much less compare it.

--

--

12" vinyl records have much dynamic. More punch.

They're also impractical for use in moving automobiles or around small children.

Because a CD has only 16 bits of dynamic, music is overcompressed.

Each bit of linear PCM after the first provides about 6 dB of dynamic range, giving CDs approximately 90 dB of range. If you turn up the volume so as to hear the sound at 0 dB (threshold of hearing at 1-4 kHz), the sound at 90 dB may damage your hearing. Even THX movie soundtracks are mixed at 75 dB for dialogue, and most home theater setups run things 6 to 10 dB lower than that. Heck

Vinyl records sold in the 1970s have more punch than CDs sold today not because of limitations of the CD format but because of limitations of FM radio. According to the Myths section at r3mix (which uses JavaShit to prevent deep linking), the real cause for modern CDs' lack of dynamic range is the application of heavy dynamic compression to get the music to sound louder on the radio.

I spoke to the reporter who did these 'listening tests'... the tests were not structured, were not controlled, were not blind or double blind... in short, the reviewers knew exactly which codec sample they were listening to at all times. The reviewers also came into the test with already formed opinions about which codec was best and-- surprise--- the test seemed to confirm what they already 'knew'.

In ABX blind testing, Vorbis usually surprises the tester, for example, from our happy maniac friends at r3mix forum (MPEGplus and Vorbis won this ABX test first and second place over mp3pro, AAC, WMA8, TwinVQ and ATRAC3):

"Also, I must admit, both Ogg Vorbis and MPEGplus suprised me. I wasn't expecting to see them both so near the top. I've gotta say, I really had to guess alot for both the of these tests. Pretty darn close[...]
For MPEGplus, I was guessing almost every time, but I 'knew for sure' on Vorbis."

In any case, after talking to the Post reporter he feels a little sheepish about the whole thing... he thought he balanced the article by mixing positive traits of the openness of the code with a critical quality review and has agreed to be more fair to the first 1.0 encoder release candidate.

Monty

Lacoste
--
Vidi Vici Veni

it really deserves a second linking, www.r3mix.net is the difinitive source for the developing area of music archival on mp3.

it's pretty obvious w/o even reading the arkle that the 'test' is garbage.

before you get hot and bothered about lossy codecs for archival, check it out. it works in Real Life(tm).

--

MP3 is not MP3 - you can make good ones and bad ones, and it's easier to make a bad one than a good one, especially if you use many of the commercial all-in-one ripper/encoders. r3mix.net (http://www.r3mix.net if you like cut & paste) has some very interesting analyses of various MP3 codecs, and a link to a series of tests conducted by German magazine C't involving 300 listeners. Bottom line is, at high-enough bitrates most people can't hear the difference between CD and MP3. Now imagine how often people will pick the difference

- in less than ideal listening conditions - like through a Soundblaster card, or even the best "PC Speakers"
- using better options with better encoders (like LAME) (Fraunhofer "high quality" settings can be worse than "low quality"!)
- using the newer "Pro" standard

"But I can always tell the difference!"

Sure you can? Have you had someone prepare good MP3s for you and done a real blind test? Until then you only think you can tell. This is the point where fools stop reading - that is, "audiophiles" who think they know everything. As the Insanely Audiophile story showed, some people just like to spend money regardless of necessity.

"Ogg is better because..."

Great, choose it for your own recordings. The rest of the world, including me, will use what works everywhere - I won't be throwing away my mp3-only portable. I don't actually care how idealogically pure a codec is. Nobody says content protection is to come, only that it is possible. And even if it becomes possible that doesn't mean every MP3 (pro or otherwise) will become protected, only the ones you get from certain sources. If you're interested in creating copies of CDs you own, no problem. If you want to be a pirate, you're SOL and I have no sympathy. Enjoy your Ogg.

Once you accept the quality is there, you may as well make archival-quality MP3s of every CD you have and store those CDs somewhere where they won't take up so much space. Or, keep the CDs close by your CD player and enjoy great sound at work too.

No, WMA is not "better" than MP3. It does tend to produce better results at low bitrates, but once you get to 128k and beyond, MP3 actually sounds better. Go to somewhere like r3mix.net if you don't believe me...

Ignore all replies that don't mention the bitrate of the MP3s.

Take all replies that don't mention the encoder, or who didn't try a "blind taste test", with a grain of salt.

Keep in mind that listening to any MP3 though most computer speakers is not going to sound as good as listening to CD audio through most stereo systems, and that 99% of the MP3s on Napster were apparantly ripped and encoded by poorly trained monkeys.

Check out this site for the best discussion of MP3 quality I've ever seen, including the link to a German computer magazine's test of 300 audiophiles. 90% of the 128kbps MP3s were rated as worse than CD Audio; the 256kbps (constant bitrate) MP3s were not.

I personally can hear the difference between (constant bitrate) 128 and 192 kbps, but not between 192 kbps and CD Audio. My roommate is happy with 160. My one audiophile friend reencoded all his music at 384kbps after discovering how lousy 128 sounded through $2000 speakers.

How exactly is the music going to be CD quality if you can store 5 hours on 500 megs.

500 megabytes / 5 hours * 8,000,000 bits/megabyte / * hr/3600 s = about 224 kilobit/s. And 224 kbit is just about enough for sounds-just-as-good-as-a-CD quality; see also r3mix.

Err? The latest Win beta compile is 3.87, and the latest source isn't too far ahead.

> I have found that Lame sounds better, and
> using VBR will result in a smaller file than
> Blade and still sound better.

This is true depending on what you were doing with Blade. What John Q. Clueless knows of as an mp3 is what he usually gets off of Napster, which is 128kbps and generally encoded with Fraunhofer or Xing's encoders (even worse because it's so abysmally bad and it's in used in so many Windows CD ripping/mp3 encoding utilities). Lameenc VBR-encoded mp3s will be larger than them (once again a shameless plug for the site you should live, learn, love: http://www.r3mix.net/.)

If you were encoding with Blade at a static rate of 256kbps, then the odds are in favor of a lameenc VBR-encoded mp3 being smaller. Not always, because there is always the chance that the mp3 will require an unusually large number of blocks >256kbps, but it's still possible.

This site is the whole reason why I started using LAME...

Ask /. articles are often a great way to get info but you have to be willing to do some reading and thinking for yourself. Often the best articles are the shortest ones -- they are just links to outside sources.

This article is way inferior to www.r3mix.net. You should go back to that old Ask /. article and figure out why you didn't pick up on that web site. The fact that you didn't come away with an answer from the first article was entirely your own responsibility. All the info you needed was there.

Spectral and waveform analysis and such has all been done before, and LAME has been known to be superior for quite some time. I've been singing the praises of this site for at least six months.

"I agree with you that mp3s just don't sound the same, regardless of bitrate ..."

If you can read German, read this article from c't magazine which claims that 256 cbr is approximate to CD quality on a professional speaker system.

I got it from this page, which goes into depth on how to properly encode MP3s for near-CD quality. The entire site contains lots of information about encoding, ripping and MP3 quality in general. I'm not claiming it's all true; much of it is quite subjective. But I would cite the c't test as a definitive response to the oft-held belief that MP3s suck for quality no matter what. Granted, you won't find many LAME VBR encoded MP3s on Napster, but that's not to say that Napster or MP3s are worthless. If Napster users really wanted that quality, they could have it; this only shows how little that quality matters to most people.

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Just because most of the stuff on Napster is poorly encoded doesn't mean mp3's can't be CD quality. Go to www.r3mix.net and look under the quality section.

I personally use ExactAudioCopy and LAME to encode my OOP CDs and no matter how hard I try, I can't tell mp3 apart from the original.

This way, a dorm-kiddie on a T1 can fill up half of his 60Gig drive with MP3s, connect to Mojo, and watch the mojo karma roll in. I guess it could then be sold off, so you can actually MAKE money on this scheme (by hijacking university bandwidth; hmm...).

I think this is in principle a good idea exactly because it really encourages people to post stuff. I think that almost all recent music would quickly be posted on the site by people fishing for suckers. I think this is great. Napster could still run alongside, sort of the "poor man's trading program," but if you need something really rare, you'd log in on Mojo and pay for it, or, stay logged in on Mojo and hope people download from you so that you don't have to pay.

Problems (many already mentioned here; somewhat redundant):

1. Morons and idiots are still using the Xing mp3 encoder and other inferior products. From the filename and size you don't see how well it was encoded--not until you've paid for it. The system would encourage people to encode their MP3s using the fastest encoders available, which also happen to be the ones producing the most horrible results. (benchmarks). How would we reward good citizens like me who use only LAME 3.8x -V1 -h (which is what everyone with working ears should be using, by the way...)? Sure, it eats up CPU cycles...

2. Here's a get-rich-quick scheme: make up filenames like "Britney Spears-live rare bootleg Sao Paulo98-Pinball Wizard.mp3" That would earn you some uploads! Of course the file itself would be a recording of you lauging (all the way to the bank). So you would need an E-bay type ratings system for each user, that would show a username in red, for example, if they had bad ratings. But if you get bad ratings just use up any credit left in your account, ditch it and start all over again with a clean one, or get your buddy to write compliments like on Ebay. I just don't see how this would self-regulate.

Shit... need to go .. submit!

http://www.r3mix.net/

The LAME encoder drastically increases the quality of MP3s, at the cost of some disk space (considerable disk space, if you go all out).

Artifacts are nearly undetectable in my LAME-encoded MP3s.

To add my 2 cents to the main discussion: I've bought a good number more CDs since I started listening to MP3s I downloaded from other people.

Last month I bought 5 in one day -- all of them were purchases inspired by listening to MP3s from other people.



Regards,

Actually, they might not need to focus so much on Vorbis. Some more technical issues can be found at r3mix. Basically, they made a small test that in their opinion showed that Vorbis still had 'a year or two to go'. They didn't bash it, but pointed out that there was some stuff needed.

Personally, I hope Vorbis will live up to the hype, and I believe it will - most likely sooner than one or two years. This Supreme Drive stuff sounds like something for the trash can. Either it's crap that doesn't really work or it's crap that makes your music sound worse. Come on, re-creating the lost bits by sending the stream through some kind of algorithm?

Don't think so. Go Vorbis.