What is the best MP3 bitrate for good quality with small file size?

[pascal]

What is the best MP3 bitrate for good quality with small file size?
Any thoughts?
edited: my guess after some tests is VBR 128~256 Kbits

 

[London Geezer]

What is the best MP3 bitrate for good quality with small file size?
Any thoughts?

I tend to stick to 192k. Sometimes 128k. I can't tell the difference anyway, but 192k looks like a better number so it makes me feel better....

 

[ANova]

I say 192 as well but VBR 128~256 is good too.

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

I voted "other" because I think Ogg-Vorbis is better.

 

[ANova]

Yeah but not enough to convert everything, since it's mostly all in MP3 aside from itunes. Besides, this was about MP3 bitrates, not OGG.

 

[Bludd]

In my experience, LAME quality 6, vbr new gives the smallest files and it does it without resorting to resampling down to 32KHz so they still sound good.

 

[Albuquerque]

I prefer the Lame codec too; all the songs I rip from CD are done at 160-320kbps VBR.

 

[EasyRaider]

I'm surprised there are 3 votes for CBR so far. Have you actually heard CBR being better than VBR (both with a good encoder like LAME)?

With an optimal encoder, VBR will always be at least as good, usually on top. The encoder may sometimes allocate bits poorly, but I have a hard time imagining CBR sounding better in practical cases.

 

[Rolf N]

Something around 192kbits/s is good, so I voted for the first VBR option.
If I have a choice I prefer Vorbis audio. I also want to point out that it never makes any sense to convert existing MP3s into Vorbis.

 

[willardjuice]

Well I hate mp3's in general, but I can say VBR should reproduce better quality than CBR. I would stay away from CBR if I were you (and all compressed files for that matter! I know I know, you need the small file size ).

 

[Bludd]

From the hydrogenaudio wiki article on LAME:

the rule of thumb when considering encoding options: at a given bitrate, VBR is higher quality than ABR, which is higher quality than CBR (VBR > ABR > CBR in terms of quality). The exception to this is when you choose the highest possible CBR bitrate, which is 320 kbps (-b 320 = --alt-preset insane), but this produces very large filesizes for very little audible benefit.

 

[EasyRaider]

Well I hate mp3's in general, but I can say VBR should reproduce better quality than CBR. I would stay away from CBR if I were you (and all compressed files for that matter! I know I know, you need the small file size ).

Have you tried an ABX test? Can you consistently hear a difference between lossless and high quality LAME encodings? If so, I believe you must have really good equipment, near-optimal listening environment and "golden" ears.

And surely you mean stay away from lossy files. Not using compression at all is just a stupid waste of space.

Personally I rip to FLAC because disk space is so cheap, might as well make a perfect copy just in case.

 

[_xxx_]

"Small" and "good quality" don't go together. 320 for me and still audiable artefacts/stuff missing. But as anything, it comes down to the listener.

 

[stevem]

320 for me and still audiable artefacts/stuff missing. But as anything, it comes down to the listener.

...and you call yourself a Kramer fan... The hammer-ons alone should've killed any accuity down to 32kbps...

 

[pascal]

Using ggogle I found:

One qualitativy analysis of CBR rates http://www.mp3-tech.org/tests/gb/index.html

96kbs: The sound clearly lacks definition: as an example, hall's noises are perceived as some breath. The result is comparable to a good FM radio.

112kbs: The sound seems less present and less natural than the original. The definition is a bit less good, the voice is less clear. Attacks are less spontaneous. The spatialization is different from the original recording: the sound seems to be located more far and more lower. There is however a very noticeable improvement compared to 96kbs.

128kbs: Hall's noises are slightly less defined than the original. The violin is a bit less present and the piano attacks a bit less sharp. The voice is nearly identical to the original recording but sibilants are less pronounced. We can notice the same spatialization problem as with the 112kbs's one although there is again a good improvement compared to the 112kbs rate.

160kbs: The sound is more natural than 128kbs but the improvement is less spectacular than during the two preceding stages. The sound is different from the original, without however being possible to tell in what. I think that the difference resides more in what we feel rather than in what we hear.

192kbs: The sound is not felt as the original recording. It is however totally impossible to tell in what.

256kbs: The sound is indiscernible from the original. It is impossible to make the difference with the original recording.

320kbs: The sound is indiscernible from the original. It is impossible to make the difference with the original recording.

and a quantitative/graphical analysis of CBR http://fliptech.net/bitrate.shtml

 

[Skrying]

I do not settle for less than FLAC. MP3 is rather horrible sounding in comparison. Not everyone can tell the difference, even with good equipment, but I can and I have no reason to use MP3. Its not even as if MP3 is a decent lossy compression method, if I must go lossy I'll go with ogg-vorbis.

What's the concern with file size these days, a portable player? I'd certainly to the first encoding to some sort of loss-less compression (FLAC being my loss-less compression of choice) and then encoding to ogg-vorbis (if possible) for your portable, or to VBR 256kbps MP3 if ogg-vorbis is not an option.

 

[SugarCoat]

For an mp3 player itself, never samller then 128kbs, higher is better but if space is a problem, 128kbs will suffice. As already mentioned most normal people cant tell the difference between a CD and 192kbs mp3. Its generally accepted that over 192kbs is pretty damn close to CD quality. Impurities only really show themselves if you're using very good earphones or a very high volume on a set of high end speakers, beyond that of your normal surround sound system.

When i'm placing music on my HDD though its usually 256kbs to Audio Lossless. Not that you can tell a difference but i dont keep my CDs around so i go for as high a quality as i can. I need more HDDs ):. Two 750s soon enough.


You could be strange if you're one of those people who cant stand lossy music and rip music in uncompressed .wav format. Ahhh 300-500mb+ per song. Good times.

 

[Simon F]

(FLAC being my loss-less compression of choice)

Why choose Flac when there are others, e.g. Monkey's Audio, which do a better job?

 

[Blazkowicz]

FLAC has some portable player support, it's open source, and that page tells it's one of the less CPU hungry codecs. it also has the simplest name. so, that makes easily me choose it regardless of some other codec giving marginally smaller files.

 

[AlNom]

I usually target 192k constant. I don't have a bunch of music anyway... 128k doesn't quite sound right to me though. It's acceptable, but... there's just something not right.