Need advice dealing with music files.

I will be in experiment mode right after the new year. Until then, Happy New Year to all....

 

When I first started my music collection I did a lot of research into the subject with an emphasis on sound quality. What I found out was that for any bit rate of 160 or higher it was very difficult for the vast majority of people to know which was a store bought CD and which was an mp3. Between 160 and 192 some folks would say that the 192 just "felt" fuller but they were really not able to say there was any loss in sound quality. Under 160 bits the sound quality rapidly deteriorated with 128 bits not bad, 64 bits clearly inferior, and 32 bits really bad........And this was when comparing on very high end equipment using audiophiles. So for normal folks, with even upper midrange equipment 160 or above mp3s will be indistinguishable from store bought. Put that into an automobile with road and auto noises and ,,,,,, well you get the point.

Things get a bit more complicated when you are considering older music. If the original sound recording was poor, or if the music itself did not have a large range (sorry I forget the correct term) such as, for example, early rock and roll, or so-called garage band music the sound was such that there is no need to stick with 192 bits or even 160. There is just no audible difference. This is where variable bit rate compressions come in. They look at the piece of music being compressed/converted and they select the appropriate bit rate that the piece should be compressed to.

MediaMonkey has an excellent set of compression/conversion tools which are very well explained in the user interface. (see attached)

By the way, (if memory serves), FM radio transmissions are in the quality range of 96 bits so if your OK with FM radio you should be happy with 128 or higher. Myself I try to acquire my tracks at at least 192 but the site where I buy my music from often provides its own bit rate depending on the kind and quality of the original music. Cab Calloway will be offered at a lower bit rate than Beethoven tracks for example.

PS: re the attachment below - I really like the way the publishers of MM characterize 320 bit - shows they have a sense of humour.

 

Thats all subjective with equipment. Ive put thousands and thousands of dollars into my front stage, amps, wiring, equalizing, crossovers, networks, line drivers, etc. in my car. I guarantee you that you can hear a difference between 192 and 320kbps MP3 music.

 

Good article, I had not seen it before,,,,,also I agree, mp3 gain is indispensable. I use it instead of MMs own leveling program. For one thing it does the job much faster, and as noted in the article you can easily undo the leveling if you don't like the results.

Oh, I have never had to undo the leveling done by mp3 gain......an excellent free program that IMO should be in the audio tool box.

 

No doubt on very high end equipment and if you have a real good ear I expect you can hear a difference,,,,,but I would suggest most people do not have extremely high end equipment nor exceptional hearing. This is especially true for those of us who are getting on a bit in years. I know for a fact that my hearing isn't what it used to be so I did not bother doing my own testing when trying to determine what would be best. I rather relied on test results as reported in a number of respected web articles. I may not hear the difference between a 128 bit and a 192 bit but a friend, nephew or niece no doubt could. So really there is a bit of a trade off here. 192 for most people sounds as good as store bought and it takes up a great deal less space on the drive than the 320 bit rate CD tracks. So my thinking was 192 was a good choice/option. If the track I am buying is offered at a higher bit rate than 192 I accept it and leave it as downloaded, but if I am converting from wave to mp3 I stick with VBR~192.

 

Gosh, I am getting old I forgot to mention MP3 gain, you can't make a good MP3 CD without it!
Aaron, if you are going to make MP3 CD's get MP3 gain. (it's free) It will make all your songs on the MP3 CD the approximate same volume. It can do whole folders at a time.
Thanks for the reminder guys, we don't want Aaron to make an MP3 CD just to have different songs play louder then others.

 

If hes got a decent headunit SLA will take care of it.

 

What is SLA? I have a set of Bose headphones (pretty decent quality) and am interested to find out about SLA.

 

I've tried using Ashampoo Burning Studio to burn an audio CD and they sounded okay. I then burned the same CD using Nero and they sounded better, much better soundstage than the Ashampoo-burned CD. I initially thought they are the same but now I know they sounded differently. Ashampoo is abandoned for me. Nero rules here.

Try it and let us know if this is not.

 

http://www.dbpoweramp.com/db-versions.htm

Check out all the 'tabs' to see if some extra features are worth your while forking out $.

Another (free) player that does it all is Aimp. Maybe just an auditory illusion, but I found the sound quality better than most.

 

I second dbpoweramp use as a music converter. It rocks

Been using winamp, will try aimp (free).

 

I know you guys are trying to help, but this is quickly becoming information overload. Unless someone can point out good reasons to do otherwise, from now on I will use Media Monkey to convert, rip and burn.

I have always enjoyed listening to music but I have just recently started downloading mp3's. However, the 11-year old CD player in my home stereo system doesn't recognize mp3 so I have to burn my downloaded mp3's as an audio CD in order to play them at home. On the other hand, the CD-DVD player in my car doesn't have a problem with mp3's.

The kicker is that I'm now in my senior years and a recent hearing test revealed frequency-rolloff starting at 10K (falling quickly). Fortunately I can still hear the major portion of musical content.

Happy New Year!

 

Its not free, I just checked the linked to site and its $44 Canadian

 

Overloaded and interesting.
I don't know if you are aware of this or not Aaron, just in case you aren't, I will point out to you that DVD players will play MP3 CD's.
Happy New year to you all!

 

MMMNnn, this is the developers official web site
http://www.aimp.ru/index.php
No information there about payment.

WOT has some phishing/fake reports about the .us site
http://www.mywot.com/en/scorecard/aimp2.us

 

English version of the free program (links below). I wonder how come the developer is allowing the fake site to continue existing? I would hope the above link to the rip-off site is removed ASAP.

http://download.chip.eu/en/AIMP2_1141836.html

http://www.snapfiles.com/get/aimp.html

http://www.softsea.com/review/AIMP2.html

Here is a link to a portable version

http://www.pendriveapps.com/aimp2-freeware-audio-and-internet-radio-player/

 

Tested aimp2 vs winamp and ......WinAmp still wins for me as I find aimp2 sound too loud and forward for my liking.

 

yup, seems like you've made up your mind and we would not confuse you with the facts.

 

Facts? Its more a preference thing when you get right down to it. There is nothing wrong with MM that I can see. If you feel different thats fine, each to their own.

 

Apologies for my slip-up, I should have checked more thoroughly - haven't used Aimp2 since I converted to Linux so thought the site had changed.

Best to all of you for the New Year !

 

Without having read the whole thread, the difference between lossy formats (e.g. mp3) and lossless formats (e.g. flac) is not how you hear it, i.e. quite often mp3s at 320 sound the same on the human ear with flac, but that you can encode the lossless format in any way possible, upwards or downwards in bitrate without any loss whatsoever.

 

In fact, after spending the last 5 hours working with the program, creating play-lists, tagging, and just plain listening to music, I can honestly say that the interface of a program is real important. And I have not seen too many program developers that have given as much thought to what might be of use and and how to make available those tools or functions available to the end user. No flashy skins (but you can make them if you want, MM makes it easy) but the interface with a music collection is superb.

Also, there is something to be said for having it all at your fingertips (literally), and with MM it is.

Highly customizable so you can work the way you want to,,,,,,,,

In short highly recommended (it really is a pleasure to use).

I should say though that I have not used the normalizing capability of the program because I began using mp3Gain long before I every heard of MediaMonkey. However, judging form the leveling quality that MM is capability of on the fly with newly obtained tracks (not yet to be run through mp3Gain), I have no doubt that tagged (not sure if thats the right word) leveling would be preformed quite well by the program.

 

How can you encode UP, I thought what is there is there, you can't up-grade the quality of the track without adding something to it,,,,,,,can you?