[Janos]

Of course VBRs, what the hell is up with CBR people here?

Ogg is nice too, or FLAC if you happen to be insane.

[Nuke]

well i rarely rip my own music anyway. so when i do i just use my old time familiar cbr. l ilke vbr, but it doesnt give me beans for end file size statistics.

[jr2]

well i rarely rip my own music anyway. so when i do i just use my old time familiar cbr. l ilke vbr, but it doesnt give me beans for end file size statistics.

Try using something other than VBR0?  (6?)

[IceFire]

Based on all the reports I've read...with blind surveys of listeners.  People, even those with above average hearing, can't tell the difference between 192kHz and 256kHz.  So thus 192kHz is just perfect for me.  Most sound systems, like iPods and other MP3 players can't deal with it anyways.  I would, on the other hand, use the higher bit rate if you wanted to convert that file to something else later...but then I'd ask why you didn't just save it in uncompressed WAV and convert later.

[Starkweather]

I use 128kb/s when I want to make my ears bleed.
I use 192kb/s for decent (but not great) quality for the benefit of storage.
I use 256kb/s most of the time, it's a good sweet spot between quality and file size.
I use 320kb/s for the highest fidelity and depth for compressed music.
I use 384kb/s for archiving purposes when FLAC isn't available.
I use FLAC for everything else.

Sex. That's exactly what I do.

.flac is musical sex.

You know it is. Most of my Stuff on my iPod is .flac, the rest is usually 320 for friends to listen too. Only reason I use 320 or lower on my iPod is if I can't find a better torrent.

[KappaWing]

I think anything beyond 192 kbps is just placebo, no matter how good your hearing is.

[CP5670]

Based on all the reports I've read...with blind surveys of listeners.  People, even those with above average hearing, can't tell the difference between 192kHz and 256kHz.  So thus 192kHz is just perfect for me.  Most sound systems, like iPods and other MP3 players can't deal with it anyways.  I would, on the other hand, use the higher bit rate if you wanted to convert that file to something else later...but then I'd ask why you didn't just save it in uncompressed WAV and convert later.

This thread is not referring to the sampling frequency, which is almost always 44khz or 48khz. It's about the kilobits per second (or presumably the average kb/sec, in a VBR file).

[perihelion]

I think anything beyond 192 kbps is just placebo, no matter how good your hearing is.

You'd be wrong.  As I and several other people on this thread have already stated, we can hear the difference, and I'll add that with .mp3's, the difference is a particularly annoying one.  Some formats out there have aural artifacts or distortion that one can perceive but more or less ignore.  [personal opinion]  Loss of stereo separation isn't really a show-stopper for me, but that swishy noise some .mp3's exhibit is one of the most annoying aural artifacts of any format out there.  [/personal opinion]  Those artifacts don't go away even at 256 kbps on some songs.  It just isn't something .mp3 is good at.

As noted (several times) VBR goes leaps and bounds towards fixing this, regardless of your format and regardless of your average bit-rate.

[jr2]

Eh, of what you can hear depends on your speakers...  If you have crappy speakers, you wouldn't notice the difference between a 128 kbps MP3 and a 320 kbps.  With so-so speakers (ie, most people's included system speakers), prolly 192 is about all you can notice.  If you have a set of $100 headphones... 

[perihelion]

Well... $60, but why quibble?   
Valid point, jr2.

[IceFire]

Based on all the reports I've read...with blind surveys of listeners.  People, even those with above average hearing, can't tell the difference between 192kHz and 256kHz.  So thus 192kHz is just perfect for me.  Most sound systems, like iPods and other MP3 players can't deal with it anyways.  I would, on the other hand, use the higher bit rate if you wanted to convert that file to something else later...but then I'd ask why you didn't just save it in uncompressed WAV and convert later.

This thread is not referring to the sampling frequency, which is almost always 44khz or 48khz. It's about the kilobits per second (or presumably the average kb/sec, in a VBR file).

Oopps...wrong units.  The idea is the same.

[CP5670]

Well, you may be right about what you said there (some audio pros use 192khz and I think DVD Audio does too), but there most certainly is a difference between 192kb/s and 256kb/s.

[jr2]

*hears people digging in their pockets for extra change to buy better speakers/headphones* 
*starts to laugh* 
...
*runs* 

[Starkweather]

*hears people digging in their pockets for extra change to buy better speakers/headphones* 
*starts to laugh* 
...
*runs* 

I am teh Broke after I bought my Dream Theater DVDs/Albums.

Next Paycheck. =/ (Already have 40 dollar ones, they are the Apple In Ear Headphones, other ones were giving me a headache from being to big.)

[Ulala]

Since I move my music files around a lot (to my phone, my laptop, friends computers, etc...) I stick with good ol' compatible .mp3s at a bitrate of 192.

[jr2]

Put a test .mp3 with VBR in your collection, see if you can find a system that doesn't support it.

[Agent_Koopa]

You know it is. Most of my Stuff on my iPod is .flac, the rest is usually 320 for friends to listen too. Only reason I use 320 or lower on my iPod is if I can't find a better torrent.

That's possible?

[Slasher]

Generally 128kbps or higher is okay for me.  If it's a bootleg I plan to burn to CD then I'll almost always search for .flac and only settle for .mp3s of any quality as a last resort.

[Ulala]

Put a test .mp3 with VBR in your collection, see if you can find a system that doesn't support it.

How does one get VBR format?

[perihelion]

@ Agent_Koopa: Yes, if you use a modified firmware such as Rockbox.  iPods in general have a good deal of processing power, so they can be used to decode just about any format out there as long as you tell it how.

@ Ulala: LAME mp3 encoder can do that, and does it far better than any other mp3 encoder I've tried.  Lots of rippers (CDex comes to mind) can be used as front-ends for the encoder so you don't have to worry so much about getting the command line right, but just search around a bit and I'm sure you can find a tutorial.  I don't encode in MP3 anymore, so I can't remember the command line options exactly.  They may have changed  since I switched to Vorbis anyway.