The Bit Rate Dilemma Diary (Its an addiction)

[Toddz]

Dear All

I dont know about the rest of you good people on the forum,but lately i keep recording to hi-md on hi-sp mode from md simple burner... then some days it is at hi-lp then hi-sp then hi-lp i cant make my mind up what b****y bit rate to use sometimes i think i want quality some days quantity,some days i can hear a big difference some days i cant,its driving me round the bend at the moment,sometimes my sony MDR-EX71 headphones sound superb on some music other times pants,one day i use my grado sr60 and i think i have found the right balance with hi-sp,then for some reason lets just check the same music with my mdr`s again

hang on i prefer these now... awwwwwwwwwwwww!!!!!!!!!!!

It must drive my partner up the wall,"Iam just going upstairs again to record a couple of cd`s be about 20 minutes,3 hours later am back down the evening over,spent a couple of hours on the forum,spent an hour looking at reviews of my sony mznh-900 just to see how good it is,and then complain to my partner that i have missed vincent or the last part of afterlife,or the other evening the blowing up of The house of lords reconstruction by guy fawkes!!!!

Mini disc taken over my life,and glad for it I THINK!!!!!!!!

Sorry for the post was bored and thought i would tell the forum my innermost thoughts....

regards

toddz

[Ishiyoshi]

For future reference, please post such topic in off-topic please.

[Sparky191]

My bitrates are creeping up. I'm using HiSP or 352kps most of the time now.

[dex Otaku]

I tend to use HiSP. This reflects the average bitrates of the MP3s I both download and distribute [of my own work].

In the future I'm likely to use a3+ 352kbps for making demo compilations or discs for shows [to be played on location]. Up to now I've used both PCM and HiSP for this purpose.

I find that HiSP is of sufficientmy high quality to not annoy me when using HiMD for portable listening. It's possible that if a3+ 352 support was added to Simple Burner, I might use it more often, but until that happens [which seems unlikely as even SS 3.3 was an unexpected release] I'll continue using primarily HiSP.

[Herri]

Lately I've become accustomed to using Hi-SP for everything. I've attempted a3+352 but it started getting annoying to have to rip as WAV and then convert. Since LP2 doesn't satisfy my ears much, and there aren't any other a3+ bitrates compatible with Hi-MD (Hi-LP my ass!) Hi-SP has remained the the de facto standard for ripping via SonicStrage.

But... I always have an itch to want to be able to fit more on a single Hi-MD, and at that point, I wonder if ATRAC is really worth it. Especially since a lot of my music has already been encoded in AAC or MP3 format (these files include CD's that I used to own, but got lost in the process of moving to a new apartment).

I have two MZ-RH10's that will gladly accept MP3's, which will give me more control over bitrates in the never-ending battle of size-vs-fidelity. I can employ a more space-efficient bitrate of 160 or 192... all I would have to is pimp a custom equalizer setting to combat the buggy MP3 playback.

So I made several proposals to combat the issue.

[Proposal 1]

Use MP3 exclusively and take advantage of more flexible bitrate options. Since I am a Mac-user, this has the added effect of being able to use iTunes to organize my music library. There is a really neat AppleScript that exports playlists to .M3U format, which can be imported into SonicStage and transfered to Hi-MD with not too much hassle. To allow SonicStage and iTunes to share the same music library, I just mount my iTunes directory on the network, and have SonicStage import the music library from that directory periodically.

Pros: More flexible bitrate options. Allows me to use my iBook and iTunes to sort out my library and playlists.

Cons: Buggy MP3 playback. Discs not compatible with 1st gen Hi-MD players. Takes a little bit extra effort, in having to deal with network file-sharing and having to bounce between two programs. No gapless playback with MP3. iTunes playlist -> .M3U AppleScript is only available on Mac OS.

[Proposal 2]

Use Hi-SP and LP2 mutually. I understand that certain types of music is suited well to LP2 and produce reasonable transparency. To be able to use any of these bitrates on-the-fly, you would have to rip your CD's to WAV, and then manually convert each file to all respective formats. What I would do is just leave those converted files and then delete the WAV. This way, I can choose what bitrate I want transferred to Hi-MD that suits my application. Or, you can choose to keep the WAV in SonicStage and convert to different bitrates on-the-fly (without preserving the "optimized files").

Pros: You can now choose between bitrates. What dilemma?

Cons: Takes up more space to have multiple formats or to retain the lossless WAV files. The resulting ATRAC files converted from WAV are not gapless. If only ATRAC lossless was "for real" and allowed you to convert to any bitrate from the original lossless source audio...

[Proposal 3]

Stick to one "magic bitrate." I say, just use Hi-SP and be happy. It sounds great and offers predictable amount of playback per disc if used consistently. Converting from WAV to a3+352 is a hassle and is a detriment if you enjoy gapless playback.

Pros: You're happy.

Cons: None. See "Pros."

Edited November 23, 2005 by Herri

[Sparky191]

I think your 100% right Herri