Audio compression quality

APJ

So which gives the best quality for minimal file size?

I've used fixed 320kbps MP3 and found it good quality at around 9Mb per track. But which gives the best near-lossless compression?

- 256kbps variable mp3
- 193kbps variable wma
- 320kbps wma9
- transcoding VBR MP4

or any other recommendation?!

wolfman

320kbps is the closest you'll get to cd audio quality. It can be seen as too much, but with storage space getting larger and cheaper it's not such a bad option.

I personally find the LAME mp3 encoder presets the best for quality/size.

alt-preset --standard, which is 192kbps done variably.
alt-preset --extreme, which is roughly 240kbps done variably.

Both being variable (ie use a lower bitrate during silence etc...) they save about 25% per track in terms of space taken, whilst often improving quality as they use a higher bitrate (ie 320kbps) during more complex parts of a track.

Also, with mp3 they generally work better (at least with the LAME encoder) at 192kbps+.

So my recommendation, would be to download CDex or EAC (Exact Audio Copy) and use the LAME encoder to create mp3's using LAME's inbuilt alt-preset extreme setting.

*sounds complex, but in CDex for example it's all selectable via dropdown etc...


With regards to other formats, avoid WMA. AAC is ok, but preferable at lower qualities. Ogg is very good and does well with higher bitrates. Mp3 still offers great quality though, and is unbeatable in terms of usability/support, plus it much less restricted. It's probably the best choice of the lot in my opinion.

Note - it is all subjective as it's how your ears hear the music. Make sure you test on a decent system to be able to define between higher bitrates. Also, just to get scientific you can still pull off the frequencies and range that an encoded mp3/aac/wma/ogg hits so you can to a certain point say one is better than the other.

APJ

Cheers Wolfman - just the info I needed!

Poppycat

I do roughly what Wolfman says but use Easy CD-DA extractor 9 which uses lame builtin.

I prefer quality over quantity any day.

I do use lower bitrates for Ipod (160kbps) and just downsample them from source, the orginals rips are always higher bitrate. I dont play orginal cds I keep them in loft for storage as I am short of space I tend to keep on of the rips all dvds for space saving must stress from orginals.

wolfman

Me too. I'm very much in the philosophy of keeping my collection portable. And by that I don't mean lower quality so I can fit it all onto an iPod. I mean so that a) I can play it anywhere and on anything, and b) it doesn't suffer in terms of quality.

I can play my music on my hifi (a decent setup) through my Xbox, Phone, Shuffle, iPod, other OS's (ie Linux) and even stream it as my own radio station (via Winamp) across the web.

And on all the above, because it's decently encoded (especially applying to my hifi) I don't have any issues with quality.

With ADSL speeds hitting 8mb+, mp3 players getting bigger, 300gb hard drives selling for £85, dvd-r's costing 30p each space is no longer becoming such a problem, so why sacrifice quality when a couple of years down the line you'll finally want better quality and have to re-encode everything.

APJ

Thanks folks - any download sites for these extractors/encoders?

Poppycat

YOu can get a trial version of easy CD-DA extractor

http://www.poikosoft.com/download.html

ollyshaw

Flac is lossless, so as good as your CD

http://flac.sourceforge.net/

OGG is a great little format, i peronally believe the quality to be very good. The only thing that stops me using this full time is my cars MP3 player (with usb interface :grinheart )

http://www.vorbis.com/

I have always thought that if the bit rate is reasonably high then the format doesnt matter, you probably want to be more aware of compatibility.

Olly

wolfman

CDex:
http://www.download.com/CDex/3000-2140-10226370.html

I use EAC (https://www.exactaudiocopy.de) but it's a little more complex.

As Olly says, stick with something compatible. I don't think you'll find much better than the mp3 format in terms of compatibility.

Oh, and with regards to quality vs quantity, you can buy (I just did) a 300gb hard drive for £78 these days! Just gives an extra reason to choose quality over quantity.