08-01-2003 10:49									#1
	MP3 encoding Support Apolyton, buy Civilization: The Boardgame

According to my encoder:

128 Kbps is CD quality
160/192 Kbps is archival quality (for high-end stereos)
224 to 320 Kbps is archival quality (for highest-end stereos)

Which do you use?
I have some decent speakers and lots of spare blank CDs, what would you suggest I use?

	08-01-2003 10:56									#2
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You have to use at least 224 kbps or you'll noticeably lose sound quality on most songs. 128 kbps is nowhere near CD quality. It is very easy to hear the compression. The track will sound grainy and the treble will often lose a good deal of clarity.

I personally encode everything at 256 kbps. I've got an Audigy 2 hooked up to a pretty decent amp and speakers using 5.1 surround.

	08-01-2003 10:57									#3
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quote: I've got an Audigy 2 hooked up to a pretty decent amp and speakers using 5.1 surround.

Git. Thanks for the tip though.

	08-01-2003 11:02									#4
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mp3 technology is getting old too, there are better compresion methods around, but I'm sure Asher will get back too you on that

	08-01-2003 11:07									#5
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I´m using 96 Bit for my MP3-Player.

Maybe it means a (barely noticeable) loss of quality, but it also means, that I´m able to get more songs onto my Memory-Card

	08-01-2003 11:09									#6
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quote: Originally posted by alva mp3 technology is getting old too, there are better compresion methods around, but I'm sure Asher will get back too you on that

Ohh, do tell.
I was thinking about this noticing the MPEG-1 encoding method. Must be old hat by now.

	08-01-2003 11:11									#7
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128K is pretty much all you need.

	08-01-2003 11:12									#8
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I can't really tell the difference between 128 and 192, but I encode my mp3s in 192.

	08-01-2003 11:13									#9
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quote: Originally posted by Graag Ohh, do tell. I was thinking about this noticing the MPEG-1 encoding method. Must be old hat by now.

OGG, WMA, MP3Pro, and AAC are all considerably better than MP3, off the top of my head...

	08-01-2003 11:16									#10
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You guys are all crazy. You really can't hear the difference? Low quality mp3's hiss. They sound just plain bad. With over 18 gigs of mp3's and hundreds of CD's I feel that I am qualified to say that EVERYONE should encode at at least 224 kbps. Maybe that way I could get higher quality stuff from Kazaa more easily.

	08-01-2003 11:17									#11
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Et voila

	08-01-2003 11:21									#12
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the problem with 128 is that when you 'extract'(to .cda) and'compress' (to mp3) it too many times, you will start to loose a lot of the ( so called) CD quality.

Same effect as with analog tapes.

	08-01-2003 11:24									#13
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quote: Originally posted by BustaMike You guys are all crazy. You really can't hear the difference? Low quality mp3's hiss. They sound just plain bad. With over 18 gigs of mp3's and hundreds of CD's I feel that I am qualified to say that EVERYONE should encode at at least 224 kbps. Maybe that way I could get higher quality stuff from Kazaa more easily.

Or even better, get people to ditch MP3 altogether and upgrade to some newer technology.

MP3's been around forever. That's a long time for computer technology.

	08-01-2003 11:28									#14
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So what in your opinion is the best one Asher?

	08-01-2003 11:31									#15
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quote: Originally posted by Asher OGG, WMA, MP3Pro, and AAC are all considerably better than MP3, off the top of my head...

Which do you use/recommend?
Where do I find the requisite encoder?

	08-01-2003 11:32									#16
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It depends on the kind of music, and it depends on the version of the codec.

WMA 9.0 (which came out today [Jan 7th, 2003] actually as a final version) is really good. A lot of people don't really understand how WMA works and ***** about how it has digital rights management features built in, but all you do is don't enable DRM and all of the stuff you encode with it won't have DRM. Simple stuff.

OGG is also really good. It's the only one that I know of that's free of all patents and is open in just about every sense you can think of, but in my personal experience it's not as good as WMA9. Your mileage may vary.

I've heard great things about AAC. Dolby made it, it's supposedly a tweaked Dolby Digital codec...

	08-01-2003 11:34									#17
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quote: Originally posted by Graag Which do you use/recommend? Where do I find the requisite encoder?

I rip all of my CDs in WMA9. The encoder is Windows Media Player, which is free.

You can also use the WinXP Plus pack for an MP3->WMA converter, but whenever you convert from one codec to another it ALWAYS sounds worse. You're taking the disadvantages of BOTH codecs this way.

Winamp also has a plugin that converts whatever file you open with it into a WMA7 audio file. WMA7 is also better than MP3 (IMHO of course).

	08-01-2003 11:36									#18
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WMA and AAC are also the only codecs I know of that support more than two channels (stereo), which means they support 5.1 surround and even higher (both can have unlimited amount of channels)

	08-01-2003 11:38									#19
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quote: Originally posted by BustaMike With over 18 gigs of mp3's and hundreds of CD's I feel that I am qualified to say that EVERYONE should encode at at least 224 kbps. Maybe that way I could get higher quality stuff from Kazaa more easily.

Tell my friend who has over 65GB of it.

	08-01-2003 11:39									#20
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Oh duh.

WM9 encoder! yay
encodes WMA9 and WMV9
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/wi...er/default.aspx

	08-01-2003 11:39									#21
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quote: WMA 9.0 (which came out today [Jan 7th, 2003] actually as a final version)

Good to know, had alot of probs with the beta version.

	08-01-2003 11:42									#22
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And there's WMA9 demos (WMA9 vs MP3 comparisons too)

http://windowsmedia.com/9series/Dem...up=AudioQuality

	08-01-2003 11:42									#23
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Thanks Asher, I shall look into these formats further... all sound good. I'm a big fan of freeware, so OGG sounds good, but I'll probably end up bowing to Big Bill and using WMA.

	08-01-2003 11:48									#24
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Doh, more research I need to do... guess I'll end up using WMA anyway, so might as well not bother.

	08-01-2003 11:58									#25
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Graag... a few too many threads today. Read my PM and please follow the guidelines in the future.