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Re: [ARSCLIST] Soundcard/iTunes phollies
Hi Dave:
You are addressing something I didn't think of -- clarity at the low end of bitrates. Here are a
couple of lessons learned thru experience.
1. rip mono files to mono MP3. Mono 64kbps is the same clarity as 128kbps stereo. You can get away
with 32kbps, as many podcasts I listen to are at that low rate. I actually prefer 56kbps or higher
but 32 is workable if you do a treble rolloff or have very low background noise -- otherwise you get
audible digiswishies in my experience.
2. your clients might also want to investigate Apple's AAC (MP4), non-copy-protected version for
small-size files. MP4 seems to crunch better and perform better at low bitrates, at least to my
ears. Same for Windows Media Format, if you're not in the hate-everything-Microsoft camp. Of course
AAC needs the Real Player or iTunes/Quicktime or one of several small-share players and WMF needs
the WinMedia Player (which I would argue is ubiquitous since 95% of desktops run Windows but I'm
sure the Mac and Linux niches will pipe up against that).
3. I believe I did read somewhere that LAME has a more efficient way of doing variable bit rate at
low-file-size settings, so your results may well sound better than the typical execution of the
official German MP3 codec. I think something like iTunes or MusicMatch or even Sony Soundforge is
optimized to rip "CD-like" quality (ie 128kbps or greater). I have had very good results with
MusicMatch setting it to mono 64kbps with old radio programs. The sound quality seems to me to be
90+% of the original Radio Spirits CD's.
One more thought on this. If you can, see if you can find someone at NBC's podcasting/web group.
Might all be through MSNBC. I find Tim Russert's podcast of "Meet The Press" to be among the
best-sounding podcasts out there. I get all the Sunday politics shows' podcasts. My listening
observation is Fox News Sunday is the worst because it's low-bit-rate and stereo. Bob Scheiffer's
CBS podcast is just as good as the NBC. The ABC This Week podcast frequently suffers from
overmodulation distortion. McLaughlin Group has a very low bitrate and thus digiswishies abound,
especially with female voices. NPR's On The Media has improved the quality of their podcast to
where it's very good. That's done at WNYC so maybe Andy Lancett will chime in about how exactly they
do it. PBS's Washington Week podcast and the extra 5-minute "webcast" answering e-mail viewer
questions is excellent audio quality as well. Note that all of these are spoken word, and I'm not
sure if your client is music or spoken word oriented. With music, I think you just have to bite the
bullet and spend on the server bandwidth if you want good quality. I believe the most efficient
bandwidth-to-perceived quality format at this time is probably Real but Windows Media has made
serious improvements in recent versions. For instance, "Riverwalk Jazz" is streamed at 128kbps
Windows Media and it sounds really close to CD quality to me. I actually record the netcasts because
my local NPR station over-processes and mangles the sound quality. What kind of an NPR station turns
an Orban up to "11"? I can't figure that one out!
Anyway, I hope I didn't replough all the fields you've already walked. Have a nice weekend.
-- Tom Fine
----- Original Message -----
From: "Dave Nolan" <davenolanaudio@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <ARSCLIST@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, January 19, 2007 12:21 PM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Soundcard/iTunes phollies
Tom -
I mean just that... Better results. As in noticably cleaner audio with
fewer artifacts - especially at the lower kbps rates that many clients want
to take advantage of.
Again, I have not had the time/energy to do extensive testing of different
codecs and pieces of software. I beleive there is also a way to make Lame
work with iTunes -- http://blacktree.com/apps/iTunes-LAME/ -- but haven't
had time to test it out...
And FWIW, the suggestion (from Jeffrey Kane)of visiting the
http://www.HydrogenAudio.org forums was great! Now I can forsee several
late nights in a row up at the computer reading through the many many
discussion threads of different codecs and how they play nicely with
different software packages...
Me & the family cat (who seems to enjoy my lap when I surf into the night)
will be googly-eyed with lack of sleep by Monday I,m sure...
o,0<~~~
dave nolan
92nd St. Y
nyc
On Thu, 18 Jan 2007 18:08:54 -0500, Tom Fine <tflists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
Hi Dave:
What do you mean by "much better results"? I'm curious.
I've had very bad experiences with LAME on any of my PC's. It's slow,
deadly slow and the MP3 files
don't sound any better to my ears than just letting iTunes do the work.
Sometimes LAME produces a
little bit smaller file, not sure why. I used to MusicMatch to do the
ripping but iTunes is just as
fast and takes care of putting into the library and my iPod. MP3 saved out
of Sony Soundforge seem
to sound just fine but for some reason are always larger file size for the
same bitrate than iTunes
or MusicMatch. I can't understand that since all three use the official
German codec as far as I
know.
-- Tom Fine
----- Original Message -----
From: "Dave Nolan" <davenolanaudio@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <ARSCLIST@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, January 18, 2007 11:34 AM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Soundcard/iTunes phollies
Eric -
Just wondering where you might have heard these "anecdotes" about WMP vs.
iTunes?
Is there any good resource/online discussion about different MP3 encoding
techniques / players / etc... that you've found to have a good "signal-to-
noise ratio"?
I've done minimal testing comparison of encoders for Mac, and am currently
using Peak with LameLib (much better results @ 128kbps stereo on my intel
Mac than iTunes)...
dave nolan
92nd St. Y
NYC
I've not tested this hypothesis to a great extent, but anecdotally it
seems that iTunes is much less efficient at handling VBR encoded MP3s
than Fixed Bit Rate MP3s, whereas WMP seems to handle VBR and FBR MP3s
equally well.
Anyone else notice similar VBR/FBR difference between iTunes and WMP?
Eric Jacobs
The Audio Archive
tel: 408.221.2128
fax: 408.549.9867
mailto:EricJ@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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