# What .mp3 Frequency, & Bitrate still sound good?



## bamhm182

I was going to compress some .mp3s the save some size on my PSP, what can I compress it to and still sound good?


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## PC eye

The 128kbps is pretty the standard across the board. However 196kbps and 256kbps are considered for the most part the better CD Quality bitrate. The quality also depends on the software used to compress mp3 files.


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## jancz3rt

*Yup*

I would definitely not recommend, as suggested, going below 128Kbit. However I would say that anything at or above this level is good sound for almost everyone who listens to it. 

JAN


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## Archangel

If ind 128Kbit/sec sound horrible.  even 196Kbit doesnt sound right (imo)
I have all the music on my pc at 256Kbit..   and its ok. (yea,... I'm the kind of person that can tell you weither its a normal CD or a SA-CD..   so don't listen to me  )     as for MP3 players, 128Kbit is usually fine.. since you have a lost of background noise anyway


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## {LSK} Otacon

Dude, anything under 192 is crap.  192 is like meduim.  I run all my mp3s at 320, the bass response is 100% better then 192.


Anyone ever heard a 61kbps song? Sounds effin funny, its all alienated.  I had one on my mp3 cuz it didnt compress right and the mp3 player played it at 61kbps, and it was all chopped up and crap.  Was funny.


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## bamhm182

Okay, thanks, and yeah it does soud funny, I was messing with the settings earlier, I think I'll just delete some stuff off my memory cards if I want more songs. For Christmas, I was thinking about getting a 80 GB Ipod, if I do, all my music is going to be at the highest it can be because it won't matter how much space I use, lol.


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## {LSK} Otacon

Dude, with 80gb, you can run all your songs at about 2.1mbs!

If thats even possible to go that high.


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## PC eye

Did you know that if you record an mp3 at 128kbps along side a wav file at the same bitrate the wav will win out? The mp3 will have gaps and take up twice as much hard drive space.


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## jjsevdt

Sorry but I have to disagree with part of that.  A wav will take a lot more space than an MP3.


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## gamerman4

I have my program to compress MP3s to these settings and they sound fine enough:

VBR
VBR Quality 6 (V6)
44.1Khz
Encoding Quality: 1 (or 0 if yours has that option)
bitrate min: 96 (128-160 if you are an audiophile)
bitrate max: 160 (160+ for audiophiles)
and if your compression utility has different VBR methods...go with the newer one.

I realize this will degrade the quality somewhat but that is what compressing does, it saves space and reduces quality. Now I'm not sure what his version of "still sounds good" is but I think these sound good enough on my headphones on my MP3 player. I play all music on my computer at 192kbs+ because ANY fault in audio will be obvious on my speakers.

Also, does a PSP support MP3Pro?
If it does then you can really get into some small MP3 filesizes while keeping the quality.


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## Jet

I run all my mp3s at 256Kb to 320Kb, I can't stand 128Kb!


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## Lord Of The Ming

I have everything on my Zen Micro at 192kbps and i can't tell the diff, but if you're getting an 80 Gb iPod, just go lossless...


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## tlarkin

I don't encode anything less than 192.  I also archive music using OGG and FLAC.

It really depends on the music itself.  Most rock/punk/hip hop music sounds fine at 192 because it doesn't use a wide range of audio signals.  I can't really explain it in all music guru tech speak, but I have done plenty of work on digital recording studios for my friends.  So, I understand how audio works, I just can't really explain it in any better terms lol.

With how cheap hard drives are these days I just archive all my music in OGG/FLAC which is completely lossless.  If I wanted to transfer them to say, like an ipod I can just convert to MP3 and choose my bitrate/vbr/etc options.


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## The_Other_One

I encode all my songs at 192.  But really, if you keep the encoder at high quality(some have a speed/quality setting) the drop isn't as bad as some people think when using lower settings.

But more commonly, 44.1kHz and 192kbps is my norm.


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## PC eye

The_Other_One said:


> I encode all my songs at 192. But really, if you keep the encoder at high quality(some have a speed/quality setting) the drop isn't as bad as some people think when using lower settings.
> 
> But more commonly, 44.1kHz and 192kbps is my norm.


 
 You are more likely to see 44.1khz with WMA not mp3 files unless you rip them off of cds with WMP 10 or 11. Someone wrote a good comparison between those two file types at http://www.lisashea.com/hobbies/music/formats/audiobitrates.html


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## OvenMaster

Because of the lack of treble response in my ears, anything higher than 128kbps is wasted on me.  At least it saves space on my drives.
Tom


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## bumblebee_tuna

You know I used to think there wasn't much of a difference of quality between a CD and an mp3 but up recent observation, I can hear so much more in a higher bit rate......  The only real big draw back is the huge file size.....


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## PC eye

High quality audio will chew up drive space just like video files at times. There are a few other things that will impact sound quality besides the bit rate however. The player and speakers used will have a direct bearing no matter how good the original is. If you have crap speakers and a garbage software without a good equalizer or good equalization your ears will hurt!  You'll notice that the music in games always seems to have the better sound for the most part. They always seem to get that just right.


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## maroon1

Variable bitrate (VBR) MP3 produces a better quality-to-space ratio compared to an  constant bitrate (CBR)


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