Just figured out that youtube has 128kbps audio bitrate, and I coudn't feel the difference with 320

Just figured out that youtube has 128kbps audio bitrate, and I coudn't feel the difference with 320.
Who /deaf/ here?

Other urls found in this thread:

blog.codinghorror.com/the-great-mp3-bitrate-experiment/
blog.codinghorror.com/concluding-the-great-mp3-bitrate-experiment/
people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html
twitter.com/AnonBabble

you probably just use apple's earbuds

Buy better headphones or sound system, don't judge your ears bro

It's 128 kbps VBR (which means it's much better than the regular 128 CBR) and it's AAC (better than mp3 at the same bitrate). It sounds about the same as an mp3 at 192 kbps CBR. Btw, check this:
blog.codinghorror.com/the-great-mp3-bitrate-experiment/
blog.codinghorror.com/concluding-the-great-mp3-bitrate-experiment/

>But what about the claim that people with dog ears can hear the difference between the higher bitrate MP3 samples? Well, first off, it's incredibly strange that the first sample – encoded at a mere 160kbps – does better on average than everything else. I think it's got to be bias from appearing first in the list of audio samples. It's kind of an outlier here for no good reason, so we have to almost throw it out. More fuel for the argument that people can't hear a difference at bitrates above 128kbps, and even if they do, they're probably imagining it. If we didn't throw out this result, we'd have to conclude that the 160kbps sample was somehow superior to the raw CD audio, which is … clearly insane.

>Anyway, between the anomalous 160kbps result and the blink-and-you'll-miss-it statistical difference between the 192kbps result and the raw CD audio, I'm comfortable calling this one as I originally saw it. The data from this experiment confirms what I thought all along: for pure listening, the LAME defaults of 192kbps variable bit rate encoding do indeed provide a safe, optimal aural bang for the byte – even dogs won't be able to hear the difference between 192kbps VBR MP3 tracks and the original CD.

Thanks for the info.

Last week I made a thread because I had noticed YouTube's audio quality had gotten worse, a like really, really bad, to the point of being unlistenable.

I decided to try again yesterday and apparently they fixed the problem and everything sounds fine. I know it's not the best quality in the universe, but YouTube is perfectly suitable for throwing songs on at random

Saying that people can't hear the difference between 128 and 320 is just WRONG, tbqh. Listen to a song with lots of cymbals and distorted guitars. It's digusting. Singer/songwriter stuff and anything with less going on at once, particularly in very high frequencies, will sound better than rock at low bitrates, but 128 is unacceptable for rock music

>Saying that people can't hear the difference between 128 and 320 is just WRONG, tbqh.
I didn't say that. One thing is 128 CBR mp3 and another thing is 128 VBR aac.

Most people could hear the diff. between 128 CBR mp3 and 320 CBR mp3, but not between 128 VBR aac and 320 CBR mp3.

Just the bitrate means nothing. It matters what the audio decoding algorithm does with the data stored in those bits. e.g. an Opus file with very low bitrate sounds much better than an mp3 with the same bitrate.

Tbh I only skimmed through the greentext because I genuinely have seen "scientific" "studies" claiming that there is no difference between 180 and 320 for mp3 and I thought it was one of those

Spotify sounds fine to me and that's 160kbps ogg vorbis I think

>I genuinely have seen "scientific" "studies" claiming that there is no difference between 180 and 320 for mp3
There are differences, but if the file with the lower bitrate is well encoded, the differences are very hard to spot. The human ears and eyes are easy to be tricked.

>Spotify sounds fine to me and that's 160kbps ogg vorbis I think
Theoretically, a 160kbps ogg sounds about the same as an mp3 at 192kbps. The encoders became much better since the Napster days. A 128 mp3 that was encoded with one of the early mp3 encoders sounds like shit, but one made with the latest LAME sounds passable. The audio source and the encoder matter the most for the resulting output.

That's interesting. I still maintain a "320 or bust" mentality and will go to the ends of the internet to find high quality files, but sometimes if it's some obscure release I need to settle with lower qualities ripped from a CD 10 years ago. At the end of the day it's all fine, probably

>even dogs won't be able to hear the difference between 192kbps VBR MP3 tracks and the original CD.

It's funny with all these studies, and basic human biology that audiophiles will still insist they hear a difference between flac and 320kbps. There are real people out there downloading music in 24-bit/192kHz.

I listen to music on my iPod at 90 kbps (for storage purposes) and I can't even tell the difference with it and flac. Is there something wrong with me lads?

I prefer V0, which is the efficient version of 320 CBR. 320 CBR uses 320 even on parts with silence.

>There are real people out there downloading music in 24-bit/192kHz.
There's a VERY interesting article for them written by the main man behind FLAC and OGG Vorbis: people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html

It's all explained very clearly.

It would be a great dishonour for me to ever let my files drop below 320kbps at any moment. I listen to 4'33" at 320

I don't believe there's that much of a difference between 192 CBR and VBR. Don't they clamp down at the same dynamic threshold? I'm pretty sure choosing variable over constant is just a further space saving measure IE more extreme compression during silence. You can definitely hear the difference between 192 and 320. Looking at these through a spectrogram would answer this instantly.

>Articles last month revealed that musician Neil Young and Apple's Steve Jobs discussed offering digital music downloads of 'uncompromised studio quality'. Much of the press and user commentary was particularly enthusiastic about the prospect of uncompressed 24 bit 192kHz downloads. 24/192 featured prominently in my own conversations with Mr. Young's group several months ago.

>Unfortunately, there is no point to distributing music in 24-bit/192kHz format. Its playback fidelity is slightly inferior to 16/44.1 or 16/48, and it takes up 6 times the space.

>There are a few real problems with the audio quality and 'experience' of digitally distributed music today. 24/192 solves none of them. While everyone fixates on 24/192 as a magic bullet, we're not going to see any actual improvement.

What's the deal with this 320 thing? Just because it's the highest quality available to mp3 it doesn't mean it's the best option. It's like encoding films for Blu-Ray using CBR and not VBR, and making them much larger with little to no visible improvements. A waste of space for very, very little gain (the audio is already transparent).

Go V0, you'll save space for about the same quality (very, very close) as 320.

The waste of space argument is so bunk because I have plenty of space available. I use 320 cbr because it's the highest quality the format will allow. I don't care about efficiency

Why don't you go all the way to the flac then?

Because that is a significant increase in file size, 320 is hardly anything in comparison. It's just easy to google "[band] [album] 320" and download the first link. You're honestly putting way too much thought into the process

Moreover, I tried downloading some FLAC before but my iPod Classic won't play them so fuck that. I tried to install custom firmware on my iPod and fucked it up

get a fiiox1

I have an iPod Classic though, and we JUST discussed why higher quality audio is redundant, so why would I buy a device to enable me to listen to it?