Hi, just getting into mp3. This site has answered a few questions already, thanks. Two questions: 1. which kbps should i be using? I intend to buy a portable cd player to play the best possible quality mp3 files (I consider myself a bit audiophilic!) Can most portable cd mp3 players support 320kbps and 256kbps? (i dont want to limited my hardware choices too much). 2. if there aren't many cd players supporting 320k, is there any software around which converts 320 kbps mp3's to 256 or 192 etc (with no loss of quality over coding the original wav file to 256 in the first place)? Anyone compared 320k and 256k? big differences? I like to hear the atmosphere and percussion stage in stuff from pink floyd to slowdive. Replies warmly apreciated.
Set up your computer according to this: http://cd-rw.org/articles/archive/mydeneaclame.cfm 1) It's not optimal to stick to a CBR bitrate. With variable bitrate you get excellent quality, while saving a lot of space. Use the guide above for optimal and verified quality results. 2) I think there aren't players that don't support 320kbps? The ones I've seen are older 1st generation players. If some player doesn't play all bitrates and VBR, then it actually isn't an MP3 player, according to the MPEG-3 Layer 1 specs.
thanks 4 link. An old thread suggested that many portable players cannot decode VBR reliably (will have to scrap media player if i go for vbr - no bad thing though). I'm new to this game and was imrpressed by the space saved from wav -> 320 cbr. Now you're saying vbr has higher compression and higher quality?
320kbps is the highest bitrate, highest quality MP3 can do. However, in many cases sounds equally good with significantly lower bitrates. With high quality VBR settins, like the ones used in the guide, give you variating bitrate around 160-220kbps per album, with quality virtually as good as 320kbps. But 320kbps still is the maximum quality possible. Read the LAME settings thread.
