Got my 128 duo a couple of days ago and must say that the p800 (using Unrealplayer) now truly has replaced my 128 dedicated mp3 player.
But afther having read the thread about Ogg player and the religious war on different music formats, I started to fool around with converting mp3s to much lower bitrates than I usually use. Just to see and hear the results in terms of quality and size.
After a day of fooling with the bitrates, I now have 4 albums stored on my 128 (and nothing else really) using 64 kbits bitrate!
I can't hear any difference btw 64 or 96. And between 64 and 128 I tell myself there has to be a difference...but playing the files on my pc or p800 I can't really hear any difference!!!!? I know if I put the same files through my high end stereo it would be another story - but I am not.
Is it because I have lame ears or is it just due to limitations of the hardware (p800, earphones)?
Could any of you more tehcnical guys come up with an explanation on the relation between bitrate, frequency, format and music quality and file size?
I would like to optimize sound quality and file size even more if possible.
Bitrate is how clear or cystal clear your quality of your mp3 the higher the better of coz the bigger it's size.
[quote="Contour"]between bitrate, frequency, format and music quality and file size?[/quote]
I don't know much about the tech. specs. But I notice that the quality of treble will degrade faster than bass as the bit rate decrease.
to notice the difference on your pc, turn the volume up when lsitening to the mp3's, you'll notice there are differences soon after
All lossy formats have the problem of noise distiorion on low bitates some even have it on higher bitrates due to the acustic model being "broken" or un tuned. The thing to remember is that even though audiophiles may whine about this and that error its YOU that listen to the music. If it sounds good to you then its fine. --alt-preset is transparent for me on lame mp3.. but pretty useless on a p800..
mp3
The things that I hear first when the bitrate is to low is that the hihats starts to disolve, they "slosh" a lot. There's a metallic clattering in the background all the time and sharp hits gets a pre sound ramping (pre echo)
Vorbis/ogg
Silent music can have some problems.. and there's a horrible hollow/echo sound on very low bitrates.
WMA
All of the above and some very bad phasing sound.. its like there's a third channel a bit to the left.
whats the file size before and after ? i use ogg and 64 ogg sounds the same as 128 mp3 .. the mp3 3.7mb .. when converted to ogg, 1.7mb ! worth it ..
The lower the bitrate the les detail, i can hear the diference between recording rates, and i find WMA lossless quit nice, but takes up space (lucky i found a 60GB drive for free!) I record in 128+Kbps, mostly in WMA at 192 lossless and sounds good to me throu marantz/kef setup. If you're using the headphones supplied you wont notice much, if using some decent ones like sennhieser or koss you might, tho to use those you need an adaptor like from maplins (uk at least) from 2.5mm to 3.5mm. if your after some i reccomend the sennhieser mx 500, i got some koss the plug but they lack a bit of low end clout.
Spf: naturally you're right; if I like what I hear it's all good. And I do but since I normally consider myself a rather high-end audiophile I was puzzled by the fact that I couldn't really hear the difference. My plan though is to get much better ear phones and most likely I will be able to hear the difference then..thx for your explanation though.
Simply258: "The good die Young" by 50 cent is 4.02 min long. At 192kbits it's 5693 KB big, and at 64 kbits it's only 1903 KB!!
And if it wasn't because I would violate a shitload of rules and regulations I would upload those 2 files for everybody's comparison purposes - just to see for yourself if you have better ears than mine....(most likely :-? )