MP3 WAVE MP3 Ogg Vorbis WMA WAVE MP3 Screenshot WAVEMP3WMAOgg VorbisAIFFAPEM3. U CD WAVE MP3 Ogg Vorbis 0. AB MP3 LAME. Hayaemon. exe RAREWARES LAME 3. Comparison of audio compression using ogg vorbis, mp. CBR VBR, flac and wma at different bit rates. Namely. MP3 constant bit rate and VBR, windows media audio, ogg vorbis, AAC. My intention is. you can use this to work out the lowest bit rate at which the audio. I firmly believe that if you cant hear the difference. I discuss re encoding from one format to another below. Notation k means kilo which is 1. B means Byte. Bandwidth. As you can imagine this page is quite bandwidth intensive, for me as well as you. Id ask you to be sparing. That is to say if youve decided that MP3 at 1. Lame.Exe 32' title='Lame.Exe 32' />Finally i would ask that you try and only download the larger files once. Right click Save As. If you would like to download all the samples in one zip file there is a 5. US only or Google Drive here. Both are full speed downloads, you dont need an account or anything. Details of the sample and the various encoding techniques used can be found below the table together with some. Lame.Exe 32' title='Lame.Exe 32' />Below the table is a Blind Test, its been pointed out to me that some of the differences you can hear maybe because you already know, so it seemed worth while to create a test where you listen blind. MP3. WMAAACOgg. Vorbis. FLACWAV3. 2kbps. 15. B. CBRVBR1. 58k. B1. B4. 0kbps. 18. 6k. B. CV1. 87k. B4. 8kbps. Want to change the bitrate on your MP3 files This can be useful if you need to reduce the size of your MP3 files, for example. A MP3 file at 320 kbps, the. Oem. B. CV2. 35k. B2. 26k. B2. 20k. B5. 6kbps. B. CV2. B6. 4kbps. B. CV3. B2. 98k. B2. 97k. B8. 0kbps. B. CV3. B3. 75k. B3. 70k. B9. 6kbps. B. CV4. B4. 41k. B4. 37k. B1. 12kbps. B. CV5. B5. 09k. B1. 28kbps. B. CV6. 01k. B5. 89k. B5. 87k. B1. 60kbps. B. CV7. 49k. B7. 34k. B7. 40k. B1. 92kbps. B. CV8. 96k. B8. 88k. B8. 82k. B2. 24kbps. B. CV1,0. 38k. B1,0. B2. 56kbps. 1,1. 66k. B. CV1,1. 85k. B1,1. B3. 20kbps. 1,4. 57k. B. CBR1,4. 85k. B1,1. B4. 67kbps. 2,1. 10k. B9. 68kbps. 4,3. 84k. B1. 4. Mbps. 6,3. BA Blind Test Ive also added a blind test, the first 1. CBR MP3 files and converted back to wav so the files appear identical, the first 1. Can you tell which one is which The full 3. HERE outside US only or from Google Drive HERE 3. The Sample also WAV file The Sample contains three songs Dido My Lovers Gone, Daft Punk Short Circuit and R. Vss Microsoft Exchange Writer Missing more. E. M. Everybody Hurts the Tracks were ripped from cd using CDex 1. And joined using Audacity 1. The sample is 3. 7. MP3. The CBR MP3s were encoded using the Lame MP3 Encoder Version 1. Beta 2 MMX, constant bit rate CBR, J Stereo, quality factor 2 high this is my encoder of choice. The variable bitrate MP3s were encoded with lame. Variable rate encoding adjusts the bitrate many times a second depending on the complexity of the sound currently being encoded. There are two methods of variable bitrate encoding available, one uses target quality and the other uses a target bitrate. The target quailty method will produce a consistent quality, the file size changing depending on the complexity of the sample, the target bitrate method will produce a consistent size, the quality varying with the nature of the sample. CBR encoding. The target quality method uses a notation V0 best to V9 worst, i also encoded the sample using this method, the resulting file is directly comparable to a target bitrate file of the same size. The bitrates are given here. V0 2. 32kbps, V1 2. V2 1. 82kbps, V3 1. V4 1. 38kbps, V5 1. V6 1. 14kbps, V7 9. V8 8. 9kbps and V9 6. Its worth stating explicitly, if it is not obvious, that these quality level bitrate comparisons are unique to this file, though the may server a a rule of thumb guide for other files. WMAMicrosofts Windows Media Audio encoder v. AACThis is not a codec i know much about but many of you will be familiar with it because it is i. Tunes native format. AAC, CBR. I havent included apples lossless format, simply because i do believe them if they say its lossless. B corresponding to around 8. FLAC. Ogg Vorbis. Ogg Vorbis 2. 00. The audio was encoded using the quality factor technique rather than artificially specifying minimum maximum and nominal bit rates, as this is recommended for ogg vorbis. The quality factor shown was then adjusted so the file size most closely matched the mp. The last Ogg file is a quality factor of 1. FLACThe FLAC codec allows a compression level from 0 to 8. I encoded the sample with all of these levels which resulted in files with bit rates from 9. Since this represents a variation of less than 1. I should mention that the only difference is the encoding time. Re Encoding TranscodingIt is generally accepted that re encoding from one lossy form of compression to another, transcoding is undesirable as each algorithm will have its own set of rules when it comes to eliminating different aspects of the source audio, meaning you get the worst of both worlds you have sounds eliminated by both codecs. Worse than this, the second codec will waste effort trying to mirror the aspects of the first codec that may be undesirable. For instance if you have that familiar mp. VHS noise. Whilst Ive always taken this as fact i thought it would be interesting to demonstrate it so i converted the above 9. Compare the first and last files. MP3.  WMA OGG. MP3. Conclusion. When not really a conclusion so much as some thoughts. Its immediately clear that at very low bitrates the MP3 codec does not produce the clarity of WMA, AAC or Ogg Vorbis. This may lead you to conclude that the MP3 codec is inferior. However, the codec was not designed to work at this level, and you would never use it so. One more thing it is also immediately apparent that the MP3 codec is infinitely better when used in variable bit rate mode. It is designed to work this way, and you do have to wonder why so many people encode in cbr.