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Topic: Low bitrate: WMA better than MP3? (Read 14159 times) previous topic - next topic
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Low bitrate: WMA better than MP3?

Reply #25 –
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this does not fit in the usual 700 MB CD with the standard 128 kbps MP3's


I think 192 kbps is much more standard bitrate

Low bitrate: WMA better than MP3?

Reply #26 –
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I would like to have in my car just one CD-ROM for all the Progressive Rock that I like


Man, being a fan of progressive rock are you really willing to sacrifice quality just to squeeze everything in one cd??

Low bitrate: WMA better than MP3?

Reply #27 –
Quote from: lesswire on
Quote
I would like to have in my car just one CD-ROM for all the Progressive Rock that I like


Man, being a fan of progressive rock are you really willing to sacrifice quality just to squeeze everything in one cd??


If they can't properly ABX the difference between 80kbps mp3 files and the source lossless files then they really aren't sacrificing any quality.  To them, the 80kbps mp3 files sound just like the lossless ones.  Not everyone has the same equipment and ears.  Additionally, cars are not the best environments for listening to music as there are just too many outside influences that affect the perceived quality of music.

Low bitrate: WMA better than MP3?

Reply #28 –
Quote from: 2Bdecided on
All this effort to save a 10 pence CDR?

Yes... My collection is classified in 7 genres:
Progressive Rock 1
Progressive Rock 2
General Rock
International Pop
Italian Pop
Disco/Dance
Classical/Operas

Getting the best from each genre (at 128 kbps CBR) I reach the capacity of one CD + a little bit more (approximately the same for each of the 7 genres!). So I keep 14 CD's in my car. With some more compression, they could be only 7, that would be more orderly and logical. Of course, I don't need a very high quality in my car (or in portable mp3/wma readers). I can listen to the CD's at home if I want high quality.

All started when I happened to listen to the famous (or infamous) WMA CBR 64k and I was impressed, since its quality seemed to be very good.
Then I made a few tests that showed that they were not so good, and I thought I could achieve better results with WMA CBR 80k or 96k. Then I discovered the WMA VBR Quality 50 option.
And finally I discovered that it is not necessary to switch to WMA's, because Lame is able to achieve good results around 85k-100k: so the matter became more and more complex and you know the rest of the story...

At this time I am considering several options, including:

WMA 9.2 Standard Quality 50 VBR.

The Lame VBR (-V 8) suggested by uart.

Lame ABR around 96k, that seems to be very good according to this listening test: http://forum.hardware.fr/hfr/VideoSon/Trai...jet_84950_1.htm (* see note).

The old-version Lame CBR 96k suggested by jmartis, even if I can't figure out how such settings can achieve a good quality and keeping it even with a 16 kHz cutoff!

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I guess you're not planning to buy any more music...

I don't like the music that have been produced in the last 15 years or so: I am only buying one single every two or three years! The last album I bought was Images and Words by Dream Theater (1992), apart from a collection of Simply Red (Greatest Hits, 1998, including 1985-1997 songs).

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... there are simply more samples to store at 44.1kHz than 32kHz... 32kHz is more efficient...

I have tested that the 32 kHz resampling actually achieves slightly better results than the original 44.1 kHz (around 96 kbps).

Before doing that, I had the following idea to quickly verify whether the overall principle was right (that is, whether there is a loss of quality due to the attempt to keep an high sampling rate): I applied this principle to very low bitrates, such as 32 kbps CBR, which is automatically resampled by Lame at 16 kHz only (with a cutoff around 7 kHz).
Then, starting again from the original wav file, and keeping the 32 kbps setting, I added the parameter --resample 44. The file size was the same, but the quality was much worse, with extremely horrible artifacts, that is what I expected due to the huge difference in sampling frequencies (44.1 and 16 kHz). The artifacts were not due to the cutoff frequency, which remained the same (around 7 kHz).
Strong artifacts can be heard (with 32 kbps CBR) also resampling at 32 kHz, and even at 24 kHz and 22 kHz (there is no need to make ABX tests in these cases, due to the strong difference).

Ipotesi

(*) According to the listening tests I read, he Lame quality strongly increases from 80 kbps (worse than all the competitors) to 96 kbps (among the best codecs!). Probably the 32 kHz sampling helps to get a better quality than competitors, since it needs to compute fewer bits than at 44.1 kHz. See http://forum.hardware.fr/hfr/VideoSon/Trai...jet_84950_1.htm (in French)
 

Low bitrate: WMA better than MP3?

Reply #29 –
For prog rock you are going to have problems maybe not today but sooner or later abx or not and end up reencoding everything . But with no regards for quality why not ? go for lowest bitrate .

You need to consider song intros , solo instruments, low volume vocals as prog has plenty and they will sound like utter cr-p esp at night or earphones. All subjective though but i've been there and ran away fast.