Yeh I know wrong forum , but the ICE sections is just too slow...

Ive just got an MP3 player in my car...Im of the opinion that the sound quality is not as crisp as with CDs....is this true or am I imagining things?Anyone shed any light?

Depends. What bitrate are the MP3's? 256k is CD quality, any less and it will sound worse.

As Notorious sez, most MP3s off the web are 128K at best, which is sort of "cassette player" quality, but not quite CD.

That explains it guys..thanks for that..so is their any advantage in using 128 rather than 256?other than saving space..?which is irrelevant for me really......

the lower the bit rate the poorer the quality, but the less space it takes up. Simple really.

I always thought 128k was basic CD quality, anything more than that is better etc.

Best of both worlds, get cDex from download.com, and rip your mp3s with the "Lame" encoder, this is one of the slowest encoders, but very good quality, I find 128 lames sound better than 160kbit xing mp3s. Then set it to use the "r3mix" vbr setting, this basically changes the bitrate throughout the song so when there's lots of quality needed it goes up to 320kbps, and when there's none it drops to 32kbits :D

Nice one Ando!!

128 is CD quality (ish - I'd say 192 is in reality the best size). If you do a straight copy with very little compression it'll be 320k IIRC. You can get down to 192 with very little relative quality loss (as mp3 compression works by removing the data that it thinks you can't hear so that within a given frequency range you will not lose any quality, but where pieces of music go outside the frequency range is where any quality loss occurs). Any less than 128 is a no-no unless you need to minimise space used even more. If you want you can record at 320k to keep replication of CD data but it'll take a lot more space.

You'll probably only really appreciate the difference in a good quality home system (and unless you're using decent separates, I'd invest more in the stereo system rather than the media for better sound quality gains). In a car, there's too much wind/tyre/engine etc. noise to really appreciate the difference.

The BIG advantage of MP3 is that 1 CD can store about 15 albums (at 128/192k) which is a great convenience when travelling in the car or if you've a mp3 walkman etc.

I use 128 for most stuff as it's either for the car or walkman or on the computer where the quality isn't gonna make that much difference. I have my CDs for the stereo.

256k sounds about the same as CD on a walkman or average in car setup IMO.

Stick an MP3 at any quality on a decent Home HiFi of say £2000+ and the difference is astounding. You simply cant hide all that compression.

Lee

I found a noticeable difference even at 320kb bit rate, it doesn't even match the quality offered by MD! There are many noticeable artifacts, & that's from a set of computer speakers.
In theory, 256kb is CD quality, but in reality, it is very far from it. A 3 min track encoded to MP3 using 320kb bitrate is abt 8mb in size, whereas the same track with the CD occupies over 30mb. Surely, something have to give to achieve a file size that's only 1/4 of its original.

[Edited by clarence - 3/10/2003 9:25:43 PM]

[Edited by clarence - 3/10/2003 9:27:06 PM]

On a £1000 audio system in a room myself and several friends could not tell the difference between a 192kbit/s and the original CD using a double blind test. For a 128kb/s mp3 it was possible to hear the difference. With better ears I suspect some people could tell the difference at 160 - 192. On a car system with all the other noises round I would be amazed if there was a noticeable difference.

The kbits is important, but the enocoder is just as important, start using lame and it'll change your view of mp3s, stealing music never sounded so good...

It really depends on what you are encoding. Basically, mp3s work best with tracks with a small dynamic range, so if you are listening to chart stuff then you probably won't notice a lot of difference. If however, you try and encode a piece of classical music, jazz, etc for example (i.e. music with a much wider dynamic range from bass through to treble) then you really do notice the difference between cd and even the highest quality mp3.

Iain