Ableton Forum

was wondering

is there nowadays any difference between different mp3 encoders? i remember LAME used to be golden word like 15 years ago, what about today?

and how come i remember hearing a big difference between 128 and 192kbps 15 years ago and now soundcloud streaming (128kbps) sounds more or less acceptable even though we are all used to 320kbps mp3.

edit: maybe this shouldve gone to The Lounge section

MP3 compression has kind of taken a back seat to AAC and FLAC lossless at this point. Web streaming (even SoundCloud) is pretty awfully compressed, but most compression is VBR now so you don't have as noticeable a quality drop. VBR is more like cutting something with a sharp steak knife rather than a dull hatchet.

andresnol wrote:was wondering

is there nowadays any difference between different mp3 encoders? i remember LAME used to be golden word like 15 years ago, what about today?

and how come i remember hearing a big difference between 128 and 192kbps 15 years ago and now soundcloud streaming (128kbps) sounds more or less acceptable even though we are all used to 320kbps mp3.

Improved encoding and pretreatments most likely. LAME MP3 has been more well sounding for decades and is still somewhat of a watershed, but I think there's some problem with the license if you want to distribute it in certain ways. I think also Fraunhofer and others continued to develop their encoders. At least I remember it was extremely expensive to sublicense (I tried), so I assume many companies did their own as needed. I know at least one smaller label that I believe did that.

So in short, it differs and each source could use something slightly different for encoding even if the final format is the same.

My view is that even LAME 320kbps MP3 encodings are inferior to lossless formats, certainly when DJing. Add loudness wars, playback clipping and speaker distortion to that at 100dB SPL and you got a toxic mush.

There are DJs and artists out there that know about the subconscious importance of audio quality for the experience of their art. There are also those that simply put are too stupid.

Stromkraft wrote:

andresnol wrote:was wondering

is there nowadays any difference between different mp3 encoders? i remember LAME used to be golden word like 15 years ago, what about today?

and how come i remember hearing a big difference between 128 and 192kbps 15 years ago and now soundcloud streaming (128kbps) sounds more or less acceptable even though we are all used to 320kbps mp3.

Improved encoding and pretreatments most likely. LAME MP3 has been more well sounding for decades and is still somewhat of a watershed, but I think there's some problem with the license if you want to distribute it in certain ways. I think also Fraunhofer and others continued to develop their encoders. At least I remember it was extremely expensive to sublicense (I tried), so I assume many companies did their own as needed. I know at least one smaller label that I believe did that.

So in short, it differs and each source could use something slightly different for encoding even if the final format is the same.

My view is that even LAME 320kbps MP3 encodings are inferior to lossless formats, certainly when DJing. Add loudness wars, playback clipping and speaker distortion to that at 100dB SPL and you got a toxic mush.

There are DJs and artists out there that know about the subconscious importance of audio quality for the experience of their art. There are also those that simply put are too stupid.

Developers need a license to distribute Fraunhofer codec in their apps. It guess that's pricey. MP3 does suck at higher listening levels. Years ago there was a product called MP3 Pro which compressed them even more.

Stromkraft wrote: My view is that even LAME 320kbps MP3 encodings are inferior to lossless formats, certainly when DJing. Add loudness wars, playback clipping and speaker distortion to that at 100dB SPL and you got a toxic mush.

There are DJs and artists out there that know about the subconscious importance of audio quality for the experience of their art. There are also those that simply put are too stupid.

true, lower quality files really stand out on a quality club system.