[jasn]

I'm back and forth between 192 kbps vbr and "Exreme" (~240 kbps vbr). Am I aiming too low for the long-term, or just wasting bandwidth pennies with the slightly higher rate?

Curious to know what others might be doing and possible have learned.

[ipodfan]

I never download at 128 kps. Usually my minimum bandwidth bitrate is 192 but depending on the artist I might do 160. You can hear the difference in the quality of the sound. It's just not worth it, no matter how cheap.

[AlderaaN]

@jasn

Greetings!

I'm using the MP3 VBR Extreme ~240Kbit/sec profile as well exclusively on all my downloads.

In general, audio quality perception is very subjective to each individual & the audio reproduction equipment available at their disposal.

"To Each His Own" so to speak

Samuel.

[jasn]

Originally Posted by AlderaaN

@jasn

Greetings!

I'm using the MP3 VBR Extreme ~240Kbit/sec profile as well exclusively on all my downloads.

In general, audio quality perception is very subjective to each individual & the audio reproduction equipment available at their disposal.

"To Each His Own" so to speak

Samuel.

I agree with your points on perception and equipment Samuel. If it were 10 years ago, when I was allowing myself much, much more time for concentrated listening, I'd probably be DL'ing at an even higher rate and not consider the question. My listening habits have shifted towards that involving multi-tasking, however, and I wonder if I will ever go back to a more focused music environment and discover my DL'ed collection to be inferior sonically. The rates I am using now seem quite satisfactory otherwise.

[Asathor]

You need to get an ABX program to decide this issue. I find people's assertions of "quality" meaningless unless they have the abx results to back them up with. I used to be sure that LAME - extreme was better to my ears than LAME - standard -- but the fact was that by knowing which one was which it biased my assessment. When I used WinABX to get a true blind test comparing different encodings against the original source - I found that LAME-standard was statistically transparent to me. Encoding any higher would just waste space.

[jasn]

Thanks much Asathor. I've downloaded the program and will play around with it to make my own judgments. I use Lame also for ripping through Exact Audio Copy.

I'm curious as to what sort of listening environment you used for your own trials. Two-channel set-up? iPod with earbuds? Other? Both?

No intentions to kill the thread, either. I'd still like to know what others are downloading at.

[film_girl]

I typically do LAME standard - for the same reasons Asathor pointed out. Just throwing it out there - when you do your own test, you should probably use whatever set-up you will most frequently be using when you listen to music.

[Asathor]

Exactly -- I did the tests on the equipment that I would be listening through. My equipment is mid-range, typical home audio -- not studio quality, not bargain basement. But I wanted to make sure that I wasn't encoding needlessly high - and found out with statistical certainty where transparency occurs for me. It also helped prove to me the other end of the range as well -- that any quality below lame-standard, I could still tell the difference. After my experience, unless somebody is able to produce their ABX logs with their proclamations of what the best quality is .. it's just simply meaningless to me.

Oh -- and you're right. EAC with LAME rocks!!

[bkram]

Originally Posted by jasn

I'm back and forth between 192 kbps vbr and "Exreme" (~240 kbps vbr). Am I aiming too low for the long-term, or just wasting bandwidth pennies with the slightly higher rate?

Curious to know what others might be doing and possible have learned.

Jason,
Sure, it's much easier to download st the higher bit rates, but if that's not an option you can always download the lower bit rates and then use you editing software (like Roxio) if you have it to convert from 128 kbps all the way up to 320 kbps. When I use allofmp3 where you have a choice i usually download cheap and then upgrade.

[Asathor]

I'm assuming I've mis-read your meaning above -- are you saying that you can take a 128 kbps mp3 file - and somehow convert that all the way up to a 320 kbps file? If so - then I believe you're unclear about the basic principles of lossy audio compression. All you've done by transcoding from the lower bit-rate is increase file size - but you can't re-introduce frequencies that have already been removed by the initial encoding.