A good, time-proved quality setting for portable audio?

2009-01-18 16:19:44

Hello, can I get a recommendation about good, widely accepted and in long time period proofed output quality I could rely, in another words bitrate small enough to utilize at portable storage and high enough to make no or seamless difference against lossles at portable equipment (assume standard HF headset), good compromise. For now I think a setting at ~0.25 is the one but wouldn't like to find in future not as good and re-rip my collection. NeroAAC is assumed. I know I could find such a setting self but, such way is quite time expensive for me.

Can I find public listening tests at portable devices somewhere?

Thank for all relevant information.

A good, time-proved quality setting for portable audio?

Reply #1 – 2009-01-19 00:17:53

At around 128 kbps artifacts tend to be not annoying typically (and if you're in a noisy environment, probably inaudible) - that's 4.0 on the impairment scale. Nero quality 0.40 in single pass VBR mode seems to be about right.

For transparency, meaning indistinguishable from lossless practically all the time under ideal listening conditions, the consensus would be closer to the 0.45 to 0.55 range probably.

Listening tests tend not to distinguish between portable devices and computers or HiFi setups. Computers make double-blind testing easier (ABX or ABC/HR) so they're usually used. Headphones - even cheap ones - are more artifact-revealing than speakers usually, so are usually used for listening tests.

These tests are a good starting point, or search for public listening tests or browse the listening tests subforum here.