MP3: what quality do you guys use ?

[VJ]

What encoding settings do you guys use for your MP3?

I'm about to start encoding to MP3 for in-car use, and would value quality but still files that are not too big... The car MP3 player supports CBR and VBR, up to 320 kbps.


Jörg

[ZokesPro]

Haha, got the first vote!

128kbit, constant for me. no less than 128kbit though. But no more for my MP3 player in my car, it has problems with higher bitrate.

[GuchiGuh]

128 absolute min
192 prefered. for recording to MD
constant bitrate. Variable goes a bit noisy in "buzy" bits in the music.

VJ/Zokes wat Deck you got for your car?

[lecter]

constant 192 for me, a decent combination between quality and file size...

[Wulfman]

flac, averages out at 700kb.

oh, wait - mp3... mostly ~192kb average vbr.

mfg
wulfman

[Nowhere]

I use Musepack, usually it's at ~230...but it's better at that bitrate than ANY mp3...
But of course, if I download something, high bitrate ogg or mp3@~200 is ok also

PS @ Guchi & lecter - based on what I know (mainly from hydrogenaudio...) vbr is always better than cbr...but of course I don't say that you're wrong - only that your clame isn't proven - BUT you can prove it - do ABX test
And Guchi...if you still want that gmail invintation pm me WITH YOUR CURRENT EMAIL

[Wombat]

I use LAME with the -r3mix option. Depending on the song It's usually in the 160-220 range. But it knows when it can drop down to save file size, and when it needs to use 320.

[KeiFront]

LAME VBR 192 kbps, I mostly use the --altpreset standard of lame.

[Ribbit]

All my MP3 CDs are constant 160kbps - the reason being that was the bitrate where all my Smashing Pumpkins stuff (the most of any artist I was burning) would fit on one CD. If I were to make them again, I'd do them VBR. But I'm not doing any ripping/burning ATM, and I want to get an iRiver HD player sometime and redo it all as Vorbis.

[RhinoZ]

I do variable 192 for some of my music, but mostly use the alt preset extreme setting . And I can still play it on my home stereo (and it sounds pretty good) along with my car stero. I usually get around 50 songs on a cd, and since I make car cds with a good mix of tunes, I can enjoy that cd for about a week before I NEED to change cd. I use EAC and razorlame to encode overnight.

Just a note a friend of mine encodes at lower bitrates and it still sounds good, but it's hard to find that one song you want to listen to on a cd with 200 songs on it.

[VJ]

Guchi:
The headunit is a Blaupunkt DX-R52 (1-DIN navigation), the MP3 player is the Blaupunkt CompactDrive MP3 (virtual CD changer). Sorry about the Dutch links, I couldn't find them on English language sites...

I got tired of only being able of listening to the radio (navigation CD is present). And if I want TMC support (for traffic guidance), I have to tune in to a certain radio station (and they *don't* give good music). The MP3 player supports CBR and VBR, both up to 320 kbps, shows ID3 tags (V1, not V2). It behaves as a virtual changer: disc up/down control chooses the directory, track up/down chooses the track . I got a great deal at my dealers: I suspect they haven't sold many of these, but had some in stock they can't seem to sell. So I got for less than half the price...

Keifront:
Are there other parameters for Lame you would recommend ?
I was thinking about:
-V 0 -b 96 -B 192 -replaygain-accurate
(highest quality VBR, minimal rate 96, maximal rate 192, don't know what that last one does)
Encoding time is not important for me: my dual Xeon can encode 4 MP3 simultaneously.


Jörg

[Greebe]

LAME variable, -b 192 -m j -h -V 1 -B 320

[Helevitia]

I used to use 128 as my minimum but it truly sounds like crap, so now I use 256 as my minimum. OGG supports up to 512. I may start using that soon.

[piaxVirus]

I use to use 256 - 320, but that was back when I had a lot less storage. I have been using flac for encoding for over a year now.

[The PIT]

I'm using direct dvd. Oh i guess that doesn't count.