You down woth OGG? No MP3!

[E-waste]

MP3 just sucks.  It sounds awful, unless you go tp 160 kbps.  At that point mp3 is great, and I won't complain about it, but anything less, especially 128 kbps and lower is garbage.

How many 160 kbps mp3 files dp you have or have ypu listened to, I bet not many.

 

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xbw3ItwCrv

 

Error occured on m.youtube embed, it's a great Thin Lizzy music segment, comparing lossless, OGG Quality 0, and MP3 64 kbps.

 

OGG Vorbis is an open-source audio format superior to mp3.  Not only does it sound incredibly good, even at quality 0 (64 to 74 kbps average bitrate) but the file sizes are smaller for higher quality playback.  It's a no-brainer.

Spotify uses OGG, except on the lowest setting.  Apples audio format (although nearly apple only--except for spotify users) AAC is alsp a high quality.  HE-AAC is absolutely mind boggling, spotify says the "equivelant bitrate" is 24 kbps.  You don't want to ever hear what a 24 kbps mp3 sounds like, there is no point, 128 kbps is bad enough, 64 kbps is just not listenable.

So it is amazing that for 24 kbps, that I cannot tell the difference between low quality on spotify vs high, which is quality level 5 (160 kbps average) OGG.  That's incredible.

So, let's please stop using MP3--youtube doesn't use it either, they use opus, some kind of OGG Vorbis variant.

Play pandora free (64 kbps MP3 streams), then open spotify with data saver enabled.  Then turn it off and restart the app just to be sure the setting takes effect. Can you tell the dofference?

I have $80+ headphones, high quality with a mostly flat frequency response, a well respected model.  I cannot hear the difference between low quality spotify data saver mode on or off.

OGG doesn't go below quality level 0, and I still just can't believe the quality acheived with a 24 kbps audio file, Apple really does care about audio quality--they helped with the loudness wars, and their audio format is not something to complain about quality-wise, but it does annoy me that I can't use it on non-apple hardware/software outside of spotify.  For that reason, OGG has the edge.

 

[manikyath]

oh lord.. this is some pent up beef you got here..

 

from what i recall from back when i cared.. what it comes down to is when limiting bitrate or filesize is important, ogg is superior. but if peak quality is what you're after, MP3 does better at the higher bitrates.

[8tg]

10 minutes ago, manikyath said:

what it comes down to is when limiting bitrate or filesize is important, ogg is superior. but if peak quality is what you're after, MP3 does better at the higher bitrates.

Music compression in general has three uses, one defunct, two questionable in 2024.

Originally it was for the dawn of flash media and portable flash media based music players. When your smartmedia card is 64mb, and an uncompressed CD album is 700mb, you make some sacrifices.

As time went on and flash storage got far cheaper, it makes less sense. You can get 256gb micro sd cards these days for dirt cheap and hold entire uncompressed libraries for less than the cost of one album.

 

Then comes online retailers. MP3’s hit two important features for them, it’s a recognizable format for the consumer and its size means it stores with less space, and requires less download time. For a site selling music, it’s far more economical for them to sell MP3’s as they don’t take up much server space or bandwidth/network capacity.

 

And for streaming, compressed formats are just a bandwidth concern. It’s beneficial for both the supplier and the consumer to reduce network usage. Save mobile data for people with finite data, reduce the effects of limited connectivity. On the suppliers end it’s cheaper to run as well, much like retailers.

 

However this still ties into the same sentiment about downloaded media. Storage is cheap and the internet is fast. Anything less than a 320kbps mp3 in my eyes is not good enough. 320k MP3’s are already tiny, if someone is going lower than that, it’s just distasteful to the consumer. There is an advantage cutting down on average file size by 3/4, but to try and scrape away individual megabytes of storage space and network usage is insane penny pinching.

And for that reason, media compression at this level is unimportant. I don’t care if a 64kbps ogg sounds better than a 128kbps mp3, both of those files sound like utter dog shit.

Though I am an outlier, I don’t have $80 headphones and I don’t stream any music. I have $1000 iems and an amp and a large music library of cd quality flacs at minimum with a bunch of stuff in higher resolution. I couldn’t care about different music compression formats if I tried. A 24kbps ogg doesn’t even play on my hardware because it’s programmed to play a voice recording saying “bruh” on repeat if anything less than a 44.1khz 16 bit flac is played.

 

Its more about the consumer treatment than anything. Any music compression is bad for the consumer because it shows the platform is trying to cost cut so severely that they would impact the quality of the art they present to save fractions of a fractions of a penny.

[Needfuldoer]

All my MP3s are at least 256k, many are 384k. Well past the point of diminishing returns, but drive space is cheap and MP3 support is damn near universal. I ripped CDs at 128k way back in the day, but all those CDs have been re-ripped in the two decades since.

 

I don't think I have a single Ogg file. That was always the weird format only Linux and VLC handled.

 

[manikyath]

56 minutes ago, 8tg said:

 

Its more about the consumer treatment than anything. Any music compression is bad for the consumer because it shows the platform is trying to cost cut so severely that they would impact the quality of the art they present to save fractions of a fractions of a penny.

i find that a rather harsh line.. for platforms like spotify a theoretical cut of 30% bandwidth is a HUGE cut in their costs, because while one stream is a very small amount of data, they have potentially millions of concurrent streams, they have to store all that, they have to have worldwide infrastructure for that.

people like you exist, i'm not gonna question the validity of your actions, what i'm saying is that people like you are not the target audience for those platforms that *actually have to think* about the size of their music library, because it is a very large impact to their bottom line.

it's all good talking about how they treat consumers, but if spotify suddenly had to be a $60/mo subscription because "only serving high bitrate flac is the right thing to do", that would be prohibitively expensive, and actually be problematic for people's data plan.

fact of the matter is 99% of their target audience doesnt hear a difference between 320k mp3 and your flac files, and i'd dare wager a good 90% of said target audience wouldnt even notice of it were suddenly 128k mp3 again, because even my "very gamer" headset is better quality than what the majority of spotify users listen to their music on.

 

or to put it very short and blunt...

 

to you it's art, but for the majority of spotify users it's "not silence". in the same way you might spend hours to appreciate a fine painting, but the majority of paintings are used as "not an empty wall".

at work we have a good old FM radio, and when we plug in too many chargers it starts to get static-y.. that's the market spotify is in.

[Doobeedoo]

Uh why compare low kbps MP3 even, why would one use that. Also streaming lol? 80$ headphones ok. If you want better quality don't use low bitrate files or stream or cheap headphones. Anyone mainly streaming music doesn't care or know better. I use local files.

[E-waste]

Yeah, I'm nit too down with the mp3 status-quo, I like to support open standards who develop out of passion.l, I don't see that from mp3, judging by horrible quality under 160 kbps.

 

I share this because of the technocal abilities of the audio format, and I just learned how much more superior an open-source format is, than a proprietary.

 

18 hours ago, manikyath said:

what it comes down to is when limiting bitrate or filesize is important, ogg is superior. but if peak quality is what you're after, MP3 does better at the higher bitrates.

I don't want to believe this.

 

At quality 0 (74kbps average) ogg vorbis, cymbal clashes are significantly more realistic sounding than a 128 kbps mp3.  It takes a 144kbps mp3 to get past that and 160 is very good.

 

OGG Vorbis is open-source.  It gets improved not by a corporation, but programmers who release an audio format for the sole benefit of the world, I wonder where their revenue is from.

 

18 hours ago, 8tg said:

A 24kbps ogg

On spotify, on low / data-saver, ogg is not used.  It doesn't get that low.  Instead it's HE-AAC version 2.  Give it a go with your higher quality equipment, and let me know your thoughts on what elements of music in a song are most noticable to degredation in this format (24 kbit equivelant using data-saver on spotify).

 

The Xiph.org has now released another format that Youtube uses.

 

Opus.  It is incredible.  I can play a 12 kbps, yes, and all elements of a song from a flac source are in the song.  It sounds scratchy and the sound wavers like a worn out tape, but a 12 kbps mp3 won't be able to do this.

 

So, I would like to think, that if this opus format can have an audible song at 12 kbps, what it can achieve with 256 kbps.  I would like you to test the opus format, on your $1000 speakers, and try to hear the differences between a 320 mp3 and a 256 opus.. To me and my equipment, 64 kbps opus is great, and I don't see a great reason to go much larger than that, but I MUST be missing some details, and I genuinely want to know what those details are.

 

I encourage you to download opusenc / opus tools, and output a (I know it sounds disgusting) 128 kbps opus file.  You'll be quite impressed with the quality, and I'd like you to compare that with a higher bitrate mp3 and flac.

18 hours ago, 8tg said:

Anything less than a 320kbps mp3 in my eyes is not good enough. 320k MP3’s are already tiny, if someone is going lower than that, it’s just distasteful to the consumer.

Great point--but doesn't it make sense to use a format (like OGG or now, opus which is also used by youtube) which is developed by the same developers who create .FLAC?  I want to believe that they must know what they are doing and care far more about audio quality than the mp3 devs.  OGG goes up even higher than 320.  I don't know the exact bitrate average equivelants, but at quality 10, it is in the range of 400+ kbps.

 

Opus usually only goes up to 256 kbps, but give that a try and compare it to MP3 320.

 

18 hours ago, Needfuldoer said:

All my MP3s are at least 256k, many are 384k.

 

18 hours ago, Needfuldoer said:

I don't think I have a single Ogg file. That was always the weird format only Linux and VLC handled.

I find this rude, not only to Linux userd, but to the Linux developers and all Linux servers worldwide that make it possible for you to access this forum.

 

Since you like high bitrate files, OGG has a higher possible average bitrate, over 400, at quality 10.

 

If quality 5 is 160 and 10 is over 400, then 7 must be close to 250-284, 8 above 300-320 and 9 between 320-384.  So, why not support a better sounding fornat at similar bitrate levels?

 

Rip a wav cd file or flac into mp3 320 constant.  Then try 320 average bitrate.  Do you hear a difference?

 

Next try OGG Vorbis at quality 7, quality 8 and then quality 10.

 

Finally, Opus is a new format, made by the same devs of flac and vorbis.  It is used by youtube, so it's not some loser nerdy linux-only obscure format.  It has, because of youtubes size, become the world's most widely heard and listened to audio format.

 

I'm on Linux, so audacity doesn't have a gui for exporting opus, nor does it open them, but the music program bundled with the system plays them, and I haven't installed vlc on this system, so I have no idea what will support the format.

 

Opus uses bitrate settings, and the default is average, but you can specify hard constant or constrained limits.

 

Documents say it only goes up to 256 kbps, so you could use this setting and compare your 256 mp3 files with opus.

 

To all posters, not anyone specifically, if you like FLAC for archival, great!  Guess who makes .flac--the same devs who develop Vorbis, and their newer format, opus.

 

If you have high bitrate MP3 files, you can save some space using a lower bitrate for nearly identical quality, or step it up past 320, with OGG Vorbis at encoding level 9 or 10.  We all agree , well most of us, that 320 kbps is excellent.  There very little point going above this, so why not test open-source audio formats?

 

If you care that much about audio quality, why not use a format that has your passion at heart?  If a 48 kbps opus file is significantly better than a 128 kbps mp3, imagine what it can do with five to six times the amount of audio data!

 

I'm all for flac files, they are the best, but for sd cards and smartphone DACs and headphones, I doubt that combination will be beneficial for more than 256 kbps of any format, so the extra space is wasted, where you could fill it with podcasts that have important information.

 

Re-encoding could allow superior music quality for 25+% less space used per song.

 

So a 256 GB sd card could hold 20,500+ 320 kbps mp3 files, if average file size is 12MB for 5+ minute songs.

 

For a more common sd card size of 32 GB, this would be close to 2,400 songs.  That's a decent amount of music, and to have that in a physical media format would be approximately:

 

110+ 120minute cassette tapes holding 20+ songs each, 10 - 11 per side.

 

More than 150 CDs.

 

Amazing.  But imagine extending the capacity by 25% for no monetary cost, just re-encoding time.

 

That means you can store 3,000 songs or more, as many songs are not five minutes.

 

I just want to help spread awareness of Xiph.org, who develops .flac, and their other lossy formats, vorbis (up to 400+ kbps, and opus, up to 256 kbps, per channel.

[manikyath]

22 hours ago, manikyath said:

MP3 does better at the higher bitrates.

1 minute ago, E-waste said:

At quality 0 (74kbps average) ogg vorbis

did you read my post at all? at higher bitrates

 

3 minutes ago, E-waste said:

I'm on Linux

ah.. so this is what it's about..

 

look.. i'm sorry to bust your FOSS bubble here... there's benefits to FOSS, there's benefits to OGG in particular, but fact of the matter is that music files are very small in today's standards, so outside of streaming platforms where that bandwidth really matters, it's either 320k MP3, or FLAC for the people who spend 4 digits on their headphones. since MP3 has kind of become a de-facto standard it makes no sense to migrate away if there is no clear benefit. low-bitrate quality is not a benefit in the majority of usecases.

oh - and for streaming services.. they use what they deem is the most interesting format to use. they have control over the backend, they have control over the frontend, they can stream in .txt for all i care, as long as the quality is good and the bitrate is acceptable.

 

believe it or not.. my entire music library is stored as both MP3 and lower bitrate OGG, because i used to have a phone with very little storage and it supported OGG so i used the 'more quality at lower bitrate' format there.. literally havent touched any of that since i've upgraded my phone.

[Needfuldoer]

3 hours ago, E-waste said:

If you care that much about audio quality, why not use a format that has your passion at heart?

Because all my devices play MP3 files, and not everything plays Ogg Vorbis files. Even fewer things play Opus files.

 

I'm at a point in my life where I just want my stuff to work without a bunch of tinkering or clunky workarounds. (Unless it's a plaything meant to be tinkered with.)

 

3 hours ago, E-waste said:

Since you like high bitrate files, OGG has a higher possible average bitrate, over 400, at quality 10.

 

If quality 5 is 160 and 10 is over 400, then 7 must be close to 250-284, 8 above 300-320 and 9 between 320-384.

3 hours ago, E-waste said:

If you have high bitrate MP3 files, you can save some space using a lower bitrate for nearly identical quality, or step it up past 320, with OGG Vorbis at encoding level 9 or 10.

Did you miss the part where I said over 256k is the point of diminishing returns for me? I don't hear a difference between 256k and 384k MP3s. I do hear a difference between 128k (bare minimum for music in my opinion) and 256k.

 

The whole point of ripping them at 384k was so I'd never have to go back and rip them a third time, in case any better playback hardware came my way. (The first was "up to" 128k for the 2 GB iPod I had back in the day.)

 

3 hours ago, E-waste said:

Re-encoding could allow superior music quality for 25+% less space used per song.

Drive space is cheaper than I value my time.

 

So what if a $20 flash drive can "only" store 100,000 songs instead of 125,000?

 

3 hours ago, E-waste said:

so why not test open-source audio formats?

Again, because MP3 works on everything and OGG Vorbis doesn't.

 

I don't care about FOSS ideological purity, I just want something that works.

 

3 hours ago, E-waste said:

If you care that much about audio quality, why not use a format that has your passion at heart?  If a 48 kbps opus file is significantly better than a 128 kbps mp3, imagine what it can do with five to six times the amount of audio data!

Take as much disk space as my MP3s for no discernable difference in playback quality? Only now the files are yet another non-mainstream format that even you yourself said doesn't have universal support on a FOSS platform.

 

3 hours ago, E-waste said:

Amazing.  But imagine extending the capacity by 25% for no monetary cost, just re-encoding time.

I have better things to do with my time than re-rip stacks of CDs to theoretically save a few pennies' worth of disk space. If I'm going to go through all that effort, I'm ripping them to FLAC.

[Omon_Ra]

3 hours ago, E-waste said:

 

I'm all for flac files, they are the best, but for sd cards and smartphone DACs and headphones, I doubt that combination will be beneficial for more than 256 kbps of any format, so the extra space is wasted, where you could fill it with podcasts that have important information.

 

The answer here is FLAC. There's no getting around it, FLAC is what anyone should be using for locally stored audio files (ignoring streaming behemoths like Spotify, Apple Music, etc). I have a 512GB microSD card in my smartphone that I put all my music on. I DJ, and I record my mixes in AIFF (only because that's what the software records in) which I then convert to FLAC. The large majority of my source files for DJ'ing are FLAC, while some are still 320kpbs mp3 (depends on what the producer publishes; I get FLAC when I can, some I can only get mp3 but as long as it's 192kbps or better, it's fine). I'm using 227GB for all the music on my phone (my DJ library is about 1.5TB..it's everything I've collected digitally since pretty much high school, re-ripping/replacing lower quality files when I could). There's no need to transcode to a compressed file type when mp3 works just fine if it needs to be compressed. Not to mention compatibility with DJ software/hardware. And if I have FLAC source files why bother converting to a compressed format when storage space is so cheap now? Let's say I did transcode everything to OGG, I'd free up ~50GB? My 512GB microSD is only ~50% full as it is..and that's including all of the photos/videos and other junk on there besides my music. It just doesn't make sense why I'd take the time to do that.