MP3 kbps vs sound quality

[Superhuman]

Hi All,
I usually don't venture out of the Guitars and Bass section of the boards so please excuse the post if its in the wrong section.
I'm working on a website at the moment that provides web pages for bands and musicians with an embedded media player. The entire site is being overhauled and I wanted to get some feedback as to what you guys would consider 'good quality' in terms of kbps for MP3. Is 320 overkill? I keep reading that 160kbps is where the sweet spot is at and that most people go with 128kbps becuase it 'was' the norm. I just want to offer the best audible quality - so any advice would be very helpful and much appreciated.
Thanks again,
Dave

[NL5]

Very few people can distinguish between 320 and a 16/44.1 wav. 160 is still getting hammered pretty hard. If you can swing 320, I'd stick with that - if not, as close to that as possible.

[Mart[1001]]

Well I usually try to go for 320kbps if I'm only uploding one track for someone to listen to...like a mix etc. But if I'm handeling multiple mp3's, 10mb is a bit big and so I normally always use 160kbps(5mb). I feel 160 is a good all round figure for quality and filesize.

Mart.

[mattr]

Despite all the hate that it receives, MP3 is a great format for music distribution. The compression can be more than transparent on well encoded files at respectable bitrates. I'd usually try to go for a minimum of 192kbps.

If these MP3s are going to be streamed with an embedded player then I wouldn't go any higher than 128kbps. You will hear some audible sound quality loss, but many people still do not have internet connections fast enough to stream anything greater than that without interruptions. Pleasing the largest audience possible should be your main priority, and so this may involve making some sacrifices to quality.

People complain about the quality of the myspace player, but it doesn't a good job right? The majority people with an 'ok' internet connection can listen to it and get a good idea of the music that an artist has to offer. Its only meant as a taster anyway.

You could then offer the chance to download the MP3 in a higher bitrate (192kbps or 256kbps), or develop the embedded player to allow users to chose the bitrate the music is streamed at depending on the speed of their internet connection.

[Mart[1001]]

Originally Posted by mattr

Despite all the hate that it receives, MP3 is a great format for music distribution. The compression can be more than transparent on well encoded files at respectable bitrates. I'd usually try to go for a minimum of 192kbps.

If these MP3s are going to be streamed with an embedded player then I wouldn't go any higher than 128kbps. You will hear some audible sound quality loss, but many people still do not have internet connections fast enough to stream anything greater than that without interruptions. Pleasing the largest audience possible should be your main priority, and so this may involve making some sacrifices to quality.

People complain about the quality of the myspace player, but it doesn't a good job right? The majority people with an 'ok' internet connection can listen to it and get a good idea of the music that an artist has to offer. Its only meant as a taster anyway.

You could then offer the chance to download the MP3 in a higher bitrate (192kbps or 256kbps), or develop the embedded player to allow users to chose the bitrate the music is streamed at depending on the speed of their internet connection.

Some excellent advice there. Talking of the MySpace player...I hear a lot of people running the quality down but I'm sure that I read somewhere that when the player was updated some 6-7 months ago, so was the bitrate....but I could be wrong.

[Waltz Mastering]

If you HAVE to deal/upload with MP3's and the site will accept 320 or 256, I would go for that. (also check out flac and other lossless formats)

For me I would hate to put anything on the internet below 192, and that's only if forced to. Below that and you really start to get into that under water/flange/space gremlin/cyborg monkey thing.

[mattdee1]

I bet the vast majority of people that stream audio off the web are listening to it through crappy laptop speakers or at best some $80 desktop PC speaker kit.

It takes some pretty solid audio gear to really bring out the shortcomings of MP3's. Going with 128 would probably be a good compromise of economy and quality.

[Superhuman]

Thanks for the feedback guys - artists will also have the option to sell their tracks plus a number have done deals with tv, movie and gaming companies so being able to offer the highest quality downloads would probably be attractive. I'm investing some extra resources into providing the best solution for the media player plus the v2 relaunch will hosted on cloud so download speeds depend only on the users broadband speed. I might post back for some crits on the player at a later stage if that's ok. Some kind of variation of the Soundclick method of low-fo and hi-fi could be a solution - depends on whats possible with the player.
Thanks again for the feedback - some good info in there.

[.guitar]

I hate using anything less than 192. For a lot of stuff, most people can't tell the difference between 192 and 320... 128 sucks. I think 192 is the best compromise between file size and sound quality.

None of that matters if you're uploading to a site that only supports a certain bitrate, like MySpace, or SoundClick, etc. Then, you should render your song as an MP3 at whatever bitrate/quality the site makes you use.

[MikeNovy]

Most people do not know, that there are even within the same "kbps" differences.

It is like a JPG image:
Depending on the used compression degree on a certain kbps,
the quality becomes good or worse.

So 128 kbps with the highest compression quality may be fine for lot of people,
but 192 kbps in the worst compression may be sound worse.

It is not only a thing of the used kbps setting, but also the compression degree.

:-)

Best wishes,
Mike
______________________________
www.the-composers-approach.com

[Superhuman]

Interesting, anyone out there have any recommendations on player software by any chance? I havent decided yet on what to go with but I am assuming Flash is the best option. Thanks again for the additional info guys.

[furntree]

Originally Posted by Superhuman

Interesting, anyone out there have any recommendations on player software by any chance? I havent decided yet on what to go with but I am assuming Flash is the best option. Thanks again for the additional info guys.

A flash music player would be cool, there are some good tutorials online about how to make them.

http://www.thegoldenmean.com/technique/mp3player01.html

As far as adding to the bitrate conversation, variable bit rates are a serious competitor for digital music lately. A good comprimise of quality/size would be V2 (220 kbps variable)

[TheGuitarMan]

Originally Posted by furntree

A flash music player would be cool, there are some good tutorials online about how to make them.

http://www.thegoldenmean.com/technique/mp3player01.html

As far as adding to the bitrate conversation, variable bit rates are a serious competitor for digital music lately. A good comprimise of quality/size would be V2 (220 kbps variable)

Yes, use variable bitrate files if possible. I find that vbr files which average around 192kbps sound very good...for mp3. Certainly more than good enough for streaming media.

[c_olin]

Originally Posted by Waltz Mastering

...Below that and you really start to get into that under water/flange/space gremlin/cyborg monkey thing.

That is the best description of how low bitrate mp3's deteriorate the quality.