What bit rate/codec do you encode in? [Archive]

wrldwzrd89

Nov 10, 2004, 02:27 PM

I searched the forums and found an old thread on this subject, but it had been archived and could not be replied to; therefore, I started a new thread.

I encode my music using AAC at 80 kpbs (stereo, using iTunes 4.7). Yes that's right - 80 kbps! I haven't yet found a song that sounds bad to my ears at that bit rate. The only reason I didn't go with 64 kbps is because I don't like the quality at that low of a bit rate.

MacDawg

Nov 10, 2004, 02:29 PM

SilentPanda

Nov 10, 2004, 02:41 PM

I'm a "default" person... 128 bit AAC.

wordmunger

Nov 10, 2004, 02:42 PM

I rip AAC at 160 kbps because that's where I can hear a difference. I mainly listen on the stereo, though, not through computer speakers or headphones, so that may account for the difference.

munkle

Nov 10, 2004, 02:46 PM

I go for AAC 192 kbps - best compromise between quality and file size for me, and I can't really hear any difference above that.

Jovian9

Nov 10, 2004, 02:59 PM

My favorites are in Apple Lossless
Near favorites higher than 128AAC
Most music is 128AAC
Music not listened to very much is a little less than 128AAC

Blue Velvet

Nov 10, 2004, 03:00 PM

320 kbps MP3s.

Would love to go to Apple Lossless but will need a new hard-drive or two for that...

320: because I listen a lot on Sennheisers and to me, the difference is noticeable between CD & MP3.

MP3: because I do occasionally share my music and some mixes end up in friends cars.

paxtonandrew

Nov 10, 2004, 03:08 PM

128 KBPS AAC. I don't like Mp3, Apple Lossless takes up too much space, and AIFF is one to experiment with.

I honestly don't notice a drop in quality between the 128 Kbps, and 192+ Kbps AAC.

wrldwzrd89

Nov 10, 2004, 03:11 PM

128 KBPS AAC. I don't like Mp3, Apple Lossless takes up too much space, and AIFF is one to experiment with.

I honestly don't notice a drop in quality between the 128 Kbps, and 192+ Kbps AAC.
I was using Apple Lossless before, but my music library was just growing too darn quickly in size, so I switched to 80 kbps AAC. You might want to consider trying out AAC+ once Apple makes it available to iTunes users (which I suspect won't happen until either iTunes 5 is released or Tiger is released).

jxyama

Nov 10, 2004, 03:14 PM

i use AAC 160 kbps to rip the original CD. they are like an archive now. if i ever want regular music CDs, i'd make them from these.

i then converted some of those archived ones to AAC 128 kbps to fit more songs on the iPod mini.

evil_santa

Nov 10, 2004, 03:33 PM

192kbs mp3, (have os 9 mac at work so only plays mp3). All music is played from itunes or ipod, original CD are boxed away, to save space in the house!

MattG

Nov 10, 2004, 04:09 PM

320kbps AAC...even if I can't hear the difference between 320 and a lower bitrate, what the hell -- I've got the space for it. I can always go down from there if I have the need to.

PlaceofDis

Nov 10, 2004, 04:28 PM

i can tell the difference between apple lossless and 128AAC, but i dont have the room for the lossless, and im sure a higher bit rate might be just a bit better, but i dont have that much room left on my 15gig ipod and its too much of a hassle to figure out what i want on there and what i dont, so i will stick with 128AAC for the vast majority of my music for now, who knows if i get a nice new ipod or a huge external hardrive eventually i might consider it, but im satisfied

mc68k

Nov 10, 2004, 04:34 PM

128 AAC

mp3 is too old a technology for me to use it anymore

anything high quality like pink floyd or radiohead i burn to CD

for listening at home i listen to the actual CD through headphones. for car driving i listen to the AACs because its hard to tell subtle differences in the audio with road noise

russed

Nov 10, 2004, 04:44 PM

192kbps aac all the way! just seems nice without taking up too much hdd space

dotnina

Nov 10, 2004, 04:49 PM

So almost everyone here uses AAC?

I just started encoding in MP3 Variable Bit Rate (VBR) ... most of my songs end up being about 200 kbps.

jxyama

Nov 10, 2004, 04:56 PM

So almost everyone here uses AAC?

I just started encoding in MP3 Variable Bit Rate (VBR) ... most of my songs end up being about 200 kbps.

kind of a strange statement... VBR varies the bit rate (as the name implies) so that most bitrates are used in parts of music where they are most needed. you supply the target overall bitrate, so i don't understand what you mean by songs "ending up about 200 kbps." :confused:

MattG

Nov 10, 2004, 05:13 PM

kind of a strange statement... VBR varies the bit rate (as the name implies) so that most bitrates are used in parts of music where they are most needed. you supply the target overall bitrate, so i don't understand what you mean by songs "ending up about 200 kbps." :confused:I think she's saying in terms of the size of the songs, on average, they end up working out to being 200kbps...she's not talking about the sound quality.

pooky

Nov 10, 2004, 05:44 PM

AAC 160.

jalagl

Nov 10, 2004, 05:52 PM

192Kb mp3, so I can listen to them on my car. I actually used to do 128Kb mp3s, but I moved to 192Kb because they sounded really bad on my car (even though I couldn't tell the difference on my computer's speakers).

jxyama

Nov 10, 2004, 05:52 PM

I think she's saying in terms of the size of the songs, on average, they end up working out to being 200kbps...she's not talking about the sound quality.

but the size of the songs is directly related to the target bitrate, which you provide. size of the song should approximately be target bitrate times the length of the song. it was my understanding that when you use VBR, you specify the target bitrate yourself. that's why i found the statement of bitrate "ending up" to be a certain value to be kind of funny because it should be provided by the user.

Xtremehkr

Nov 10, 2004, 06:26 PM

190kbps, but eventually I'll go to Apple lossless. Hopefully ITMS will eventually offer Apple Lossless downloads too. When I can get all of my CDs on my computer in the lossless format I'll trade them in. Woo hoo, less crap.

wrldwzrd89

Nov 10, 2004, 08:19 PM

Woohoo, just bought a 250 GB external HD today. Back to Apple Lossless I go! (Unfortunately, I must re-rip everything now. All my effort to convert my files to 80 kbps AAC was wasted.)

dotnina

Nov 10, 2004, 09:36 PM

but the size of the songs is directly related to the target bitrate, which you provide. size of the song should approximately be target bitrate times the length of the song. it was my understanding that when you use VBR, you specify the target bitrate yourself. that's why i found the statement of bitrate "ending up" to be a certain value to be kind of funny because it should be provided by the user.

Oops, sorry jxyama, you're exactly right. I don't know what I was thinking when I posted! I looked at my iTunes songs and felt compelled to report a bitrate! ;)

Indeed, I do have a target bitrate ... 192 kbps. :)

Inkmonkey

Nov 10, 2004, 09:53 PM

Great Squinting Squirrel Monkeys! 192 MP3. I struggled with deciding. I think I decided on MP3 because I at times burn MP3 cds that play in stereos or DVD players.

applemacdude

Nov 10, 2004, 10:04 PM

360 AAc

Vector

Nov 10, 2004, 10:24 PM

I encode everything at 192 aac.

AmigoMac

Nov 11, 2004, 12:34 AM

128 AAC... MP3 looks old-school

Mechcozmo

Nov 11, 2004, 12:51 AM

128 AAC. It makes my friends use iTunes (what few don't use it already).

And it fits onto an iPod better as well as a laptop's hard drive.

paxtonandrew

Nov 11, 2004, 01:11 AM

I was using Apple Lossless before, but my music library was just growing too darn quickly in size, so I switched to 80 kbps AAC. You might want to consider trying out AAC+ once Apple makes it available to iTunes users (which I suspect won't happen until either iTunes 5 is released or Tiger is released).

AAC+ sounds interesting, and with the low size, high quality structure of the files, it looks like a goer, but...

Will it work on the older versions of iPod? I have a Gen 3, and if it dosen't work in them, I will be rather disappointed.

Loge

Nov 11, 2004, 04:42 AM

160 aac. Seems a good compromise for iPod use, but I know my ears are not what they were :o

rade

Nov 11, 2004, 08:26 AM

Lame --alt-preset standard (average bitrate 200-210 kbps)

Diatribe

Nov 11, 2004, 08:32 AM

224 AAC

That's the first bit rate where the difference to a CD is marginal on my headphones. Besides that it's the last bitrate that makes sense for my 80GB HD size-wise. I have about 5000 songs, so at that rate it makes up about 35GB, which is the most I am willing to sacrifice of my HD.

brap

Nov 11, 2004, 08:38 AM

wrldwzrd89

Nov 11, 2004, 12:36 PM

It generally depends on my mood ;)

When I'm on my PC, archiving CDs, I generally use Monkey's Audio. It's lossless, and I find better compression than Apple Lossless. If I want to put it onto my Powerbook, I use dbPowerAmp on my PC, again because it's got brute force for these things. Usually ends up as 256k MP3, although I have toyed around with ~200k/sec quality-based AAC using the same application. The snag with that is, iTunes full-on refuses to play anything without a certain file extension, regardless of filetype. I hate iTunes sometimes.

OK, I hate iTunes most of the time. But it's a necessary evil.
Actually, iTunes is supposed to enforce proper file extensions - most Apple software does this, in fact. Remember that Apple's fairly strict about human-interface things like file extensions. You're not creating .aac files, are you? Those won't play in iTunes because they're MPEG-2 AAC, not the newer MPEG-4 AAC that iTunes understands (which uses the .m4a extension).

Mr_Ed

Nov 11, 2004, 01:33 PM

For use in my iPod: 192 AAC.

That's what I originally used to encode my CD collection and I have not had a chance to try the new "Apple Lossless" encoding yet. If I can tell the difference, I will probably re-encode some of my tracks that way.

dubbz

Nov 11, 2004, 01:50 PM

Ogg Vorbis -q6

As soon as I'll get a (much) bigger disk, I'll be encoding more to FLAC.

madmaxmedia

Nov 11, 2004, 02:24 PM

LAME alt preset standard (192 kbps)

It's nice and easy with this free iTunes plugin from the QuickSilver dev-

http://blacktree.com/apps/iTunes-LAME/

I get 2.5x on my 1 Ghz eMac. So it's slower than any of the default iTunes methods, but not too bad. Should provide much better quality than the iTunes mp3 encoder, and by many audiophile accounts comparable to AAC, etc.

I would rather stay as multi-platform as possible, plus I own a Rio Karma.

brap

Nov 11, 2004, 03:36 PM

You're not creating .aac files, are you? Those won't play in iTunes because they're MPEG-2 AAC, not the newer MPEG-4 AAC that iTunes understands (which uses the .m4a extension).
I'm creating AAC files using the PsyTel MPEG4 encoder. It creates AAC files, which can either be AAC, or MP4. iTunes understands the file format, but refuses to play the track until it's had it's extension changed.

+1 for the list of reasons iTunes p****s me off.

Noted, though, that newer versions of dMC will write directly to m4a, which is useful. edit: HE support is read-only. No such luck.

Redboy

Nov 12, 2004, 01:57 PM

dubbz

Nov 12, 2004, 02:24 PM

192 AAC - good compromise for me.

Is FLAC available on the mac yet? Last time I checked (admittidly, quite a while ago), you couldn't play FLAC files in OS X. There are some live shows available in FLAC that I'd love to hear without using my stinkpad.

There's a FLAC plugin available for iTunes... maybe that whould help? I'll see if I can dig up a link.

Edit: Here ya go. QuickTime FLAC Plugin (http://damien.drix.free.fr/qtflac/) -- It's beta software, and can be kind of slow, but it works.

Redboy

Nov 15, 2004, 02:04 PM

Excellent! I'll have to give it a listen when I get home. Thanks.

daveL

Nov 15, 2004, 02:22 PM

I have our entire CD collection encoded with Apple lossless on my 2x2.5 GHz G5. I can stream it from there to the house stereo system. On my PB and iPod I use 192kbps AAC.

wrldwzrd89

Nov 15, 2004, 02:27 PM

AAC+ sounds interesting, and with the low size, high quality structure of the files, it looks like a goer, but...

Will it work on the older versions of iPod? I have a Gen 3, and if it dosen't work in them, I will be rather disappointed.
We won't know until Apple reveals the details, and nobody really knows when THAT will be, either. Anyway, Apple's not going to call it AAC+; instead the name HE-AAC (http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=97481) (High Efficiency Advanced Audio Coding) will be used.

ocellnuri

Nov 15, 2004, 02:27 PM

Absolute favorites are FLAC

Anything else is either Ogg -Q6 or MP3 -192.

yuc7zhd2

Dec 31, 2004, 12:54 AM

I started re-encoding my collection for the big trans-atlantic move (won't ship cd's for a while). I decided on 192 kbps AAC and lossless for a few. I forgot how terribly long it takes to do this though. It's been all late nights (4-5 am) since sunday. Ouch. So far I've 3251 songs encoded, but it's going to be a while. I think that I'm going to need a bigger iPod. Does anyone use the iPod photo's yet?

JeffTL

Dec 31, 2004, 05:08 PM

All my iTMS stuff is obviously in 128k AAC, and that's the baseline for my rips -- though sometimes I use higher bitrate AAC, and sometime I might experiment with Apple Lossless.

ChrisBrightwell

Dec 31, 2004, 05:59 PM

mp3 is too old a technology for me to use it anymore
I'm curious, then ...

Do you still use electricity? Light bulbs? Telephones? Internal-combustion engines?

ChrisBrightwell

Dec 31, 2004, 06:02 PM

I use 160k MP3. It's a good balance between quality and filesize (for me) and I work with a lot of hardware and applications that don't support AAC files.

I also find comfort in being able to use my old Rio500 or RioVolt if my iPod were to ever fail on me.

stubeeef

Jan 3, 2005, 02:47 PM

Took many of you'alls advice and just put in 2400+ songs and counting at 192 aac. thanks for the advice.

Used Christmas $$ and put in airtunes with optical cord from monster to the surround system. As much as I love it, the wife thinks I know majic now!

JonHimself

Feb 23, 2005, 02:16 AM

I just started ripping all my cd's again... I use to use MP3-VBR but now I'm going to rip it all in Apple Lossless first then burn those files to DVD's to archive and then rip the cd's in 192 AAC to keep in my library/iPod... it'll be a lot BUT if I ever have to re-rip my entire collection I can just use the Apple Lossless DVD's. I figure that each DVD will have one Artist's discography (or at least all of their cd's that I own) It's definitely going to be a long process...