Do Higher Bitrate MP3 Files Sound More "Crisp" To You?

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XacTactX

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I decided to not make this a poll because it's way too objective, and I have no idea what kind of answers people would have. Whenever I listen to music, after listening to files that are MP3 @ 128Kbps then moving to something of significantly higher quality, such as MP3 @ 256/320Kbps, the only thing I notice is that all of the instruments and sounds are much "crisper", in the sense that it is easy to differentiate and pick out the individual instruments. At low bitrates, the whole thing sounds like it's one sound. I'm not used to describing this difference, maybe you guys who are experienced in this regard can explain it better.

What difference do you notice between MP3 @ 128Kbps and higher bitrates like 256/320Kbps?
 
If you only have average to low end audio gear like I do, like a $20 cheap set of logitech desktop speakers and a set of Apple ipod headphones....you wont know.....hell, i cant even hear much difference at 80kbps.....
 
Usually all the high's go missing. Can't hear the percussion, clicking, and strumming clearly. Depends, though, recently downloaded a 320kb/s and 128kb/s mp3 of
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhSx8uKdD5o

maybe it was the original source, but i couldn't hear a difference. That's the only time that's happened though.
 
XacTactX [I said:
I decided to not make this a poll because it's way too objective. [/I]
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We assume that you meant to type 'subjective'.

As for myself, I do have a high end set of speakers and amplifier; when comparing a 256bps mp3 to a 128bps
the sound quality sounds less dampened to me - but not dramatically so.
 
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if you have good speakers it will make a lot of difference and it is pretty easy to tell the difference, and then compare it to FLAC or DTS and it gets even better.
 
ripken204 said:
if you have good speakers it will make a lot of difference and it is pretty easy to tell the difference, and then compare it to FLAC or DTS and it gets even better.
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Excellent point, now let's make that file a FLAC packaged, non-upsampled lossless file
16 bit, 48000 Hz (DVD Quality)
24 bit, 96000 Hz (Studio Quality)

Download a 24-bit FLAC file and really hear the difference.
24-bit FLAC is a studio-master quality lossless format
and means you can hear the album exactly as the artist
and engineers intended.
http://www.bowers-wilkins.com/Society_of_Sound/Society_of_Sound/Music/lossless-sound.html

But I am off track now aren't I because the topic was on lossy mp3s .:)

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Harbeth Compact 7 ES3 speakers
LFD IV Signature amplifier
 
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256 kbps most certainly sounds crisper and more defined to me than 128 kbps on anything except crappy earbuds. However, I won't claim to hear the difference between, say, 256 kbps and FLAC in anything but the most extreme, atypical circumstances.

For me, the cutoff for transparency with MP3's (using either my Senn HD497's or Klipsch B-2 bookshelf speakers) seems to be in the 160-192 kbps range. Anything much below that starts to sound bad quickly.
 
Depends on the genre of music, and the encoding, I guess.

Ath-m50 with theturd udac2 here.
Posted via Mobile Device
 
I can tell the difference between 128 and 320, most particularly in the highs of cymbals and such. In 128kbps they're just a hiss, while in 320 the full highs make it in. The difference has become especially apparent after upgrading from a logitech z-640 set to a 2.1 dayton bookshelf setup.

However, I cannot tell the difference between 320kbps and lossless.
 
Yes, I can notice a difference on my hardware. The subjective description I would use is crisper and fuller sound with better details.
 
Anyone can tell the difference if you have decent speakers. I cant listen to 128k mp3, they sound like cassette tape recording. My Sierra1 will cry if i feed it 128k mp3.;)
 
XacTactX said:
I notice is that all of the instruments and sounds are much "crisper", in the sense that it is easy to differentiate and pick out the individual instruments. At low bitrates, the whole thing sounds like it's one sound.
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I agree with your sentiments
 
128k is just really low and there are a lot of distortions and lack of detail.

I wouldn't bother with anything less than a 256kbit mp3 personally. But really everything I deal with is lossless.

I also wouldn't bother with mp3period. Use a more modern format like mp4. I haven't seen any device in the past few years that can play mp3, but not play mp4.
 
SirMaster said:
128k is just really low and there are a lot of distortions and lack of detail.

I wouldn't bother with anything less than a 256kbit mp3 personally. But really everything I deal with is lossless.

I also wouldn't bother with mp3period. Use a more modern format like mp4. I haven't seen any device in the past few years that can play mp3, but not play mp4.
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I'm sure this question has been asked and answered before, but does MP4 have better quality at the same bitrate or require less bitrate to preserve the same quality? And do you mean MP4 audio?

The reason I'm considering MP3 is because MOG's $10-a-month subscription has 6 million songs @MP3 320Kbps all for download with DRM. I don't want to sacrifice important detail in the music compared to loss, but the sentiment 'I can't tell the difference between FLAC and MP3 @ >=256Kbps' is also shared by me. Maybe I need TripleFi 10 to realize that difference, but I hope MP3 @ 320Kbps will not give up quality. Another thing I like is that it saves significant space, it takes up around half of a FLAC file. I want to put it on a 30GB Zune that has ~27GB usable, and don't want to run out of space.
 
LC-AAC generally fares better than MP3 at the same bitrate, though it's still encoder-dependent. Don't expect FAAC to excel over LAME, for example, but you can generally expect that of the Apple and Nero encoders.
 
XacTactX said:
I'm sure this question has been asked and answered before, but does MP4 have better quality at the same bitrate or require less bitrate to preserve the same quality? And do you mean MP4 audio?

The reason I'm considering MP3 is because MOG's $10-a-month subscription has 6 million songs @MP3 320Kbps all for download with DRM. I don't want to sacrifice important detail in the music compared to loss, but the sentiment 'I can't tell the difference between FLAC and MP3 @ >=256Kbps' is also shared by me. Maybe I need TripleFi 10 to realize that difference, but I hope MP3 @ 320Kbps will not give up quality. Another thing I like is that it saves significant space, it takes up around half of a FLAC file. I want to put it on a 30GB Zune that has ~27GB usable, and don't want to run out of space.
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Yeah, I'm talking about an implementation of mp4 audio like AAC. Particularly the Nero encoder because it's free too.

http://www.nero.com/eng/downloads-nerodigital-nero-aac-codec.php

I use Foobar2000 as a front-end for this encoder and use VBR.

In my experience mp4 is better than mp3 per bit rate or same quality with a lower bitrate.

I would also consider vorbis (ogg), but that's where you start running into compatibility.
 
The best quality to file size MP3 is V0 VBR. It's practically just as good as 320kbps but about 2/3 the size.
calvieee said:
Anyone can tell the difference if you have decent speakers. I cant listen to 128k mp3, they sound like cassette tape recording. My Sierra1 will cry if i feed it 128k mp3.;)
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Yea 128 is crap. I dont even have any 128 mp3s. But when it comes to comparing 198+, you need to a/b it.
 
Do a search for "Dynamic Range" and mp3 vs FLAC. Those low bitrate MP3s simply cannot capture everything in the original source material.

With a low bitrate MP3 you are just getting by with the bare minimum from the original song. With a high quality FLAC recording, the song can be played with most of its nuances intact, although the file size will be substantially greater.

When I was a kid, we would tape record songs off the radio, and they sounded terrible. Source>Radio>Cassette Tape. The tape would wear over time and there would be very little of the song's quality left. When I bought the retail record or tape of the same song, I almost thought I was listening to a new or better version of the same song.

Funny how things change, or funny how they dont.
 
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They definitely sound like a fuller version of themselves the higher the bitrate, especially if you have the hardware to hear the difference. The main problem I see these days is that with the big push for digital distribution, we don't really see any high quality modern mainstream music available. You can always get the CD and rip it but there are times I feel that modern CDs sound pretty much the same vs a good rip to 256k mp3s. I don't think the audio mastering gets enough devotion on modern music.
 
It is really hard to notice the difference by ear between mp3 bitrates unless you do some synthetic benchmarks that involves plotting the frequencies. For me, what still matters most is how the audio is being recorded/mixed/mastered from the production end. A great recording converted to mp3 will still sound better than a poor recording lossless WAV.
 
EarlKeim said:
Do a search for "Dynamic Range" and mp3 vs FLAC.
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Perceptual coding (generally) doesn't affect dynamic range in any way, insignificant or otherwise.

EarlKeim said:
Those low bitrate MP3s simply cannot capture everything in the original source material.
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They're designed to discard data — data that is hopefully inaudible. Saying that MP3 can't retain everything from the source isn't saying much because it's specifically designed not to (that's how psychoacoustic compression works).
 
The difference you can hear will depend on what you're using to listen. If you have cheap speakers/headphones, you won't be able to tell the difference because your listening equipment will make the high quality copy sound worse than it should.

Generally with good equipment, if you compare the same song at different bitrates, the higher quality one will have better isolation, it will have clearer highs and lows. The maximum frequency and minimum frequency for the highs and lows will also be better for the higher bitrate mp3.

Bitrate essentially dictates the amount of space that can be used to describe a given quantized section of a waveform. The better you can describe it, the more accurate the sound will be to the original source in every way.
 
They do sound better, though to what extent and how depends on the kind of music, the encoder, and so on. In terms of better bitrates, well it gets harder and harder to tell. I've never found anything except contrived tests (things designed to specifically mess with the encoder and create problems) where I could tell 256k from 320k in all real music they sound the same as uncompressed.

Personally though I just FLAC all my music these days (or leave the DVD-A stuff in MLP). Space is cheap and that way there's not a problem in the future supposing there's some reason for a higher bitrate or whatever.
 
In studies that contain blind tests with so called "audiophiles" it's been shown multiple times that people can't tell the difference past like 196k or 256k. When bitrates go higher than that, oftentimes people will literally get guesses wrong 50% of the time.

I've tested it myself before both on myself and others, even comparing CD's to 256k mp3's. Put through the same audio equipment and same headphones people will actually get which is which wrong about 50% of the time. They have no idea, even on a high end DAC/AMP combo with a very nice pair of headphones.

That said, going from 128k to 256k can be noticeable if the recording was high quality to start with and the gear used to listen is capable of making the difference audible.
 
I've always noticed a difference between 128 and 192. But from 192 and up, I couldn't ever really hear the difference. But that's going to back to the days of Napster when 192 and higher were rare finds, so I've always just stuck with 192 and higher.
 
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