AAC vs MP3 vs Others

[deftonesmx17]

Did you know that listening to MP3 (and other lossfully compressed audio) can damage your ears/brain?
Unfortunately the article is in german: http://users.informatik.haw-hamburg.de/~windle_c/Logologie/MP3-Gefahr/MP3-Gefahr.html

Ummmm unless your speakers can produce those freqs. then there is nothing to worry about. most speakers can only produce 20Hz~20KHz which all of do not damage your hearing un less they are pushed over 100 db

 

[zAlbee]

192 kbps fraunhofer mp3, stereo (not joint-stereo). its the best mp3 enc, so i haven't felt the need to try a different format.

too bad i can't read german...

 

[blight]

Ummmm unless your speakers can produce those freqs. then there is nothing to worry about. most speakers can only produce 20Hz~20KHz which all of do not damage your hearing un less they are pushed over 100 db

If the speakers couldnt produce any of the otherwise supposedly supressed stuff you wouldnt be able to hear a difference between MP3 and PCM ;-)

 

[Falcon4ever]

i just use 192kbps encoded mp3's, and sometimes wma's or ogg's.

Which ogg compression rates do you use anyway?

 

[sheik124]

hmm, lately i've moved towards 224 kbps VBR MP3s encoded with LAME, in joint stereo.
i always wonder why people romp on it (jointstereo), i used to think it was like some form of quasi-stereo that was just mono in a different name, but i EASILY tested this out. I took my Vertigo WAV (straight from the CD) and encoded it into a 224 kbps MP3 in JOINT STEREO. the guitar solos in Vertigo are ONLY on the left channel, and on the right is the bass, so I just killed the left channel in nvMIXER and voila, all i could hear was the bass.

 

[zAlbee]

oh it doesn't mix the left and right completely of course (that woudl defeat the entire purpose of stereo).

Q : What's the difference between the various stereo modes?
A : It's important to understand the difference between Stereo and Joint Stereo.
'Joint Stereo' modes take advantage of the similarities between the L+R
channels. This allows more bits to be used in other areas and in many cases
this can give an overall gain in encoding quality. Almost all encoders use
joint stereo when encoding at 128 kbits.

Joint stereo has 2 submodes called IS and MS. 'Joint Stereo IS' destroys
phase information and shouldnt be used for high-quality encoding.
'Joint Stereo MS' means Middle/Side and is OK for use in most encoding.

However, for some audio, Joint Stereo MS may create a 'flanging' or
'swishing' effect. In these cases it's better to use 'Stereo mode'. This
mode creates 2 independent channels for both left and right. When stereo
mode is used, you should also use a higher bitrate (160 or 192 kbits) -
Stereo mode will allocate about half of this bitrate for each channel.

In summary, for most audio, Joint Stereo MS at 128 or 160 kbits should be
fine. If your audio is especially 'wide' and creates flange you should use
'Stereo' mode. You can change these modes in the Radium codec control panel.

at something high like 192 or 224, there just doesn't seem to be any need to save bytes with joint stereo. it may or may not cause distortion in your particular song, but why waste time listening to test.

on the other hand, i get pretty annoyed when i find a full stereo mp3 at 128, since the quality of sound is just going to get lower.

 

[deftonesmx17]

If the speakers couldnt produce any of the otherwise supposedly supressed stuff you wouldnt be able to hear a difference between MP3 and PCM ;-)

ok the difference in quality is noticable between any format. lets take for example a speaker that is rated for 20Hz~20Khz is plugged to a cd player......sounds great doesnt it. now lets take that exact same speaker and plug it into a tape deck......sounds bad doesnt it. but they were both producing the exact same freq. range. i am a professional car audio installer and if any of those freqs. were damaging to your ears or brain then we would not be allowed to install cd/mp3 decks in cars as part of a high performance audio package. :bouncy: