wav - Gizmodo

posts about #wav more →
The Great MP3 Bitrate Test: My Ears Versus Yours
Rock Out All Day (and Night) with Transcend's T.sonic 840 DAP
Creative Zen Wav: First Look Video
Zen Wav Gets Official...ly Mediocre
Creative Zen Wav Leaked? Possible iPod Nano Competitor Spotted in Singapore
iKey 320kbps Digital Audio Recorder Records Straight to MP3 at 320kbps

Your version of Internet Explorer is not supported. Please upgrade to the most recent version in order to view comments.

Dsmvwl Admin Promote to frontpage Approve user Ban user ×

johnnyabnormal
05/15/09

In reply to The Great MP3 Bitrate Test: My Ears Versus Yours
I use mono, 16 kbps through Pear Cables. You can't beat that...
Reply

johnnyabnormal was starred johnnyabnormal was unstarred

something_unique_and_descriptive
05/14/09

In reply to The Great MP3 Bitrate Test: My Ears Versus Yours
With current capacities I see no reason to go below 320kb, preferably FLAC, I just wish more players would support it (Apple, Microsoft, SanDisk, Creative, I'm looking at you) without the need for third party OSs (Thank you RockBox). The codec is free, the chips you're using can already handle it, just f**cking implement it already.
Reply

AndrosZ
05/14/09

In reply to The Great MP3 Bitrate Test: My Ears Versus Yours
Don't EVER use a picture of yourself again.

EVER.

That's a bi-curious hobbit if I ever saw one.
Reply

AndrosZ was starred AndrosZ was unstarred

Mark Wilson
05/14/09

@AndrosZ: Thanks AndrosZ!
Reply

Mark Wilson was starred Mark Wilson was unstarred

frigg
05/14/09

In reply to The Great MP3 Bitrate Test: My Ears Versus Yours
Higher resolutions / uncompressed were discernible on better speakers.
Reply

frigg was starred frigg was unstarred

LindsayJoy's MBP is into S+M
05/14/09

In reply to The Great MP3 Bitrate Test: My Ears Versus Yours
Mark you look quite handsome there. Maybe its the gotee. I have found in practice that a gotee on a man is extremely useful. But I digress. Not really, you did put a pic of yourself right up top!

Now onto music! I loved checking these out on my ipod touch, it went right into quicktime!
Reply

Jestermeister
05/14/09

@LindsayJoy's MBP is into S+M: Looks like he got his hair did before the pic, too.
Reply

Jestermeister was starred Jestermeister was unstarred

LindsayJoy's MBP is into S+M
05/14/09

@jestermeister:

Yes he does look good all around. The eyes too.

:::Stop typing, stop typing!:::

Sorry Mark, you caught me at a errrrr interesting moment.
Reply

Slayer
05/14/09

In reply to The Great MP3 Bitrate Test: My Ears Versus Yours
Speakers are iffy, but anyone can hear the difference with a nice pair of $200+ headphones. I want to punch people who encode MP3s in anything below 256kbps.
Reply

Slayer was starred Slayer was unstarred

Monty
05/14/09

@Slayer: Personally, I cannot hear a difference between 64K or lossless when I play back my music through my daughter's headphones. What it lacks in audio replication of the original it makes up for in painful off-tune memories.
Reply

Monty was starred Monty was unstarred

Thud
05/14/09

In reply to The Great MP3 Bitrate Test: My Ears Versus Yours
I am sort of curious why VBR w/the --alt presets didn't show up on the list...

That said, disk space is cheap. I ripped my collection to ALAC. Lossless 2:1 (or so) compression and tagging on the one hand versus proprietary format on the other... But at least ALAC works fine with my iPod and the host of slim devices on my network...
Reply

Thud was starred Thud was unstarred

notfred
05/14/09

@Thud: Same here. Disk space is _really_ cheap. Encode to a lossless format (I also use Apple Lossless), for home, but batch downsample (or use playlists) for your portable. And, if AAC is better than MP3 at low bitrates, why stick with MP3?
Reply

notfred was starred notfred was unstarred

notfred
05/14/09

@notfred: I should add, the mental agony I was experiencing about "should I encode at a higher bitrate" completely vanished after going lossless. Now that's worth a disk drive right there....
Reply

notfred was starred notfred was unstarred

Monty
05/14/09

@notfred: For what it is worth, PC Magazine did a (albeit, subjective) test and found that MP3 format actually sounds better than WMA and AAC at bit rates of 160K or above. Not that I have tested their findings, mind you.
Reply

Monty was starred Monty was unstarred

Monty
05/14/09

@notfred: The problem with lossless or anything other than MP3 is that it is not universally supported. If you pick an Apple Lossless format, for example, you had better stick with Apple hardware for playing it. If you go with a Microsoft Lossless, then you had better stick with Microsoft devices for playback. If you go with MP3, you can use anything to play it back, which is about as future-proof as you can get. Plus, I find it hard to believe that anyone can tell a major difference between 320K MP3 and lossless no matter what type of equipment you are playing it on.
Reply

Monty was starred Monty was unstarred

Joshua Bardwell
05/14/09

In reply to The Great MP3 Bitrate Test: My Ears Versus Yours
Why are you discussing the subjective results of your listening test when free tools are available to do ABX testing?

[www.hydrogenaudio.org]

When I wanted to figure out what bitrate to use, I did ABX tests at various bitrates. I had a preconceived notion, based on subjective listening, what the minimum acceptable bitrate was. It turned out, after ABX testing, that I could not tell the difference between the original and files encoded at a much lower bitrate.

Subjective audio test results are meaningless when it comes to answering questions like, "What's the best bitrate to use?" If you can't actually tell the difference between the original and a lower-bitrate file, your subjective impressions are just imagination.
Reply

Joshua Bardwell was starred Joshua Bardwell was unstarred

Monty
05/14/09

@Joshua Bardwell: More importantly, why would anyone record material at less than 320K with hard drive space as cheap as it is today? Who cares if you can hear the difference when, ultimately, there is no harm in recording it at the highest rate possible.
Reply

Monty was starred Monty was unstarred

yashichi8bit
05/14/09

In reply to The Great MP3 Bitrate Test: My Ears Versus Yours
Ditch the MP3s. Go WMA @ 192.

Or better yet AAC.
Reply

yashichi8bit was starred yashichi8bit was unstarred

Kaiser-Machead
05/14/09

@yashichi8bit: MP3 is pretty much universal. WMA is most certainly not.
Reply

Kaiser-Machead was starred Kaiser-Machead was unstarred

Earlier discussions Other discussions Show all discussions Show featured discussions only Start a new discussion

Gizmodo Team

SUBSCRIBE TO Gizmodo

Login

Reset Password

Register

Submit Your Comment