What's the best type of file to download for storing on your PC and for burning to play on CD players?
Stevie

I've heard that mp3's are usually the best but I've downloaded .wma files before and I've had no problems with them.

Well for audio, lossless formats are the very best. Those such as AIFF & WAV. These take up about 10 MB/minute of music. Then you have the compressed lossless formats such as Monkey (APE), FLAC, Shorten, or Apple Lossless (m4a files that are larger than 320 kbps.) More mentioned HERE. These latter ones reduce the file size to about 55-60% of original WAV size. They are identical to the originals when uncompressed/burnt!

Then you have mp3 which has been around for a long time. Then you have mp3pro which is only good for smaller bit-rates as it increases higher frequencies for such files. But at larger bit rates is not as good as other formats. Then you have Ogg Vorbis. It's a reasonable format. I won't comment upon wma or realplayer formats. Then you have m4a/mp4 audio which is the newer format. It is supposed to be better than mp3. More about m4a HERE.

More about audio formats HERE

mp3's that are at the higher bit-rates & been encoded with a good quality encoder such as Lame, & Variable Bit Rate (VBR) are the ones to aim for. Those below 192 kbps are patchy. They may sound ok on the computer or portable player, but when played on a full stereo hifi system up loud, their lack of high & low frequency sometime shows. Even the heavy bass lines sometimes distorting. Any way this is IMHO. Everyone has their own opinion on this topic.

But then again, I've downlded mp3 files at 320 kbps & that someone had obviously reconverted a low bit-rate song to a higher bit-rate with the thought it would improve the quality. In fact it made it worse than the original 128 kbps they probably downlded.

Depends on what you are using to play the music.

CD music is recorded at 128kb/s 44hz stereo (2 channel)

Use of higher bitrates than this in mp3's etc etc is an attempt to compensate for the lossy compression format, and it works to some extent, the arguements being generally at what level it no longer adds any value.

DVD music or Digital TV (SD) is usually 192 to 384kb/s 48hz, It may be 2 channel through to whatever the latest and greatest surround sound format is. There are several formats the sound can be in Mpeg2 and AC3 being the most common.

So if you are playing the music back over a DVD home theatre system, 5.1 or 6.1 sound, it may be more of interest to you to look for Video clips of the music you want, in original format (720 x 576 mpeg2 or whatever x 480 if you live in NTSC land), at around 300meg a pop. Then with the better quality sound, you also get the film clip as a bonus. You might get the video clip reduced to 320 x 240 2 channel sound for around a 60 meg download, but the sound is unlikely to be anything but 2 channel.

CD music is not 128 kbps. When audio is extracted into wav/aiff as uncompressed it is 1411 kbps 44 Hz. That's a big difference from 128. It's 1/11th of the bitrate. And before it's been made into a CD, I'm sure it will be much higher. Probably 32 or higher (96) sample rate, etc.

DVD ac3 audio is either 48 or 96 Hz sample rate, & bit-rate anywhere up to 448 kbps for stereo. My A.Pack AC3 encoder only goes down as far as 56 kbps but I wouldn't use less than 192 kbps.

Thanks for that folks. I think I will stick with the mp3s for the time being.
Cheers.
Stevie

I will stand by the lower rate, but will acknowledge that it varies between 128 and 150 depending on the source, and whether or not they are taking into account the built in error correction.

IE

http://www.gnuware.com/icecast/chap_02_06.html

http://www.mediatechnics.com/redbook.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compact_disc
(See under data structure)

Have a nice day

It's not mentioned in either of those links! I stand to be corrected but if you're suggesting an mp3 is equivalent to cd quality, then I think you should go to university & study audio. I have studied graphics & multimedia. Video, audio & image formats; there's lossy & lossless formats. mp3 is a "Lossy" format in that it throws away information to help reduce in size. It throws away frequencies above 15 KHz, it also approximises other information such as when some data is simple, it is able to throw away some of that information. Can you explain why a CD has above 15 KHz but mp3 doesn't? Exactly! mp3 is NOT cd quality!!! Why do some 128 kbps files show distortion when played thru a hi-fi system ... particularly the very low bass lines on some songs. Why do some sounds sound "thin" compared to the original CD. You convert a cd to 128 kbps & make your own comparisons. Choose music with a broad spectrum of frequencies, particularly very high & very low frequencies.

Compare mp3 to other graphic lossy formats. If you take a hi resolution scanned photographic image saved as TIFF (Lossless format), then re-save it as a jpeg quality 1 or 0, then compare the difference. That's like comparing WAV to mp3 128 kbps. It's just that visual comparison is a lot easier than one by sound.

128 kbps was the standard for mp3 some time ago because at one time, that was the maximum mp3 could convert to. (The maximum was even as low as 64 kbps at one time!) Likewise, mp2 had a similar maximum bit rate. It was not until recent years that mp3 allowed up to 320 kbps. I've also read old articles of people claiming 128 kbps is the same quality as CD quality; Propaganda for laymen or the ignorant.

Ask any audiophile which he'd prefer to have, an mp3 at 128 kbps or a FLAC/WAV file converted directly from CD? Good day to you too.

So Ferral is basically trying to say an mp3 at 128 kbps is better quality than a WAV file extracted from a CD. Despite it being 1/8th or 1/10th the size of a WAV file. Or that an audio concert or Jam recorded digitally to WAV is not as good as one recorded to mp3 at 128-150 kbps. Well that's fine for you but just don't promote such ideas on this forum thanks!

CD audio is always 44100Hz resolution at 1411 kb/s total in 2 channels.
Anything less is, well, less.

128 kb/s audio could just about drive those cheap headphones but any better
hardware will reveal just how much less clarity you're getting.