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Better audio files worth it?

TheAndyPanda
By TheAndyPanda
in Audio
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Hi everyone,

 

I just bought some Beyerdynamic Custom One Pros, which will arrive in the mail soon. As these are the first really good pair of headphones I have ever owned, I was looking at my music library and wondering if some better file formats will benefit me in any way. All of my music to date has been bought on the iTunes store, as this was what was available to me. So two questions:

 

1) Is there somewhere I can buy better quality music files just as easily as iTunes? 

 

2) Will I be able to tell the difference between these new files and my current one? In other words is it worth switching over?

 

Keep in mind I am in no way an audiophile, but I would like to increase my understanding of whats out there and if it's easy to do and worth it I will for sure put in the effort to increase my overall experience with my music.

 

Thanks!

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I don't know much but the best audio file type I can think of would be FLAC because it is lossless. You would also need tons of space for the large audio types. My music is always 320kbps in mp3 which is the highest mp3 goes. It sounds fine to me but I don't have super headphones.

 

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Generally, 320kbps VBR is the best to go for. If you have enough storage though, FLAC is nice but it's ~3 times larger in file size.

 

There are 3 types of 320kbps to get - CBR, VBR & ABR.

 

VBR = Variable Bitrate

CBR = Constand Bitrate

ABR = Average Bitrate

 

Out of those 3, VBR is the best imo, between quality & file size. CBR is the 2nd best, i'd avoid ABR as a whole but people rarely use that.

 

Also, isn't itunes like 192kbps?

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I just checked and my iTunes music is 256 kbps and 44.1 kHz.

So that's pretty good then?

Also side note, I know what the 256 bitrate means, what is the 44.1 kHz a measurement of?

You take that number and divide it by two. That number gives the peak frequency of how high the music can go. 44.1/2 = 22.05khz. Since the human ear can only head up to 20khz, the music can reach beyond the range of human hearing. (Which means you're good).
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Grab lots of CDs and rip them with FLAC L8. Then play them through foobar2000. Make sure you have a decent amp/dac. If you run out of disk space, build a NAS.

 

You take that number and divide it by two. That number gives the peak frequency of how high the music can go. 44.1/2 = 22.05khz. Since the human ear can only head up to 20khz, the music can reach beyond the range of human hearing. (Which means you're good).

Well said.

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Grab lots of CDs and rip them with FLAC L8. Then play them through foobar2000. Make sure you have a decent amp/dac. If you run out of disk space, build a NAS.

 

As much as that is great advice, that plan is out of my price range by a bunch as in I don't have an amp/dac and I don't have a nas.

 

EDIT and I'm a student :P

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As much as that is great advice, that plan is out of my price range by a bunch as in I don't have an amp/dac and I don't have a nas.

 

EDIT and I'm a student :P

Aww :P Well, then, you can forgo the amp/dac/nas and just use whatever's built into your computer. Foobar2000 is free though, and I strongly recommend it if you want to aim for higher levels of quality in listening.

 

I don't know about electronic/modern music, but there are tons and tons of gigs of classical music files available online in various levels of quality, from mp3-128k to flac. Some classical CDs are online for cheap as well. (see Freiburger Barockorchester edition and the similar "edition" series box sets - amazing playing, amazing recording, amazing price) You WILL get MUCH better quality out of CDs than out of iTunes. (or LPs if you're so inclined, but you said you're not an audiophile, so I guess that's out of the budget too xP)

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I just checked and my iTunes music is 256 kbps and 44.1 kHz.

 

So that's pretty good then?

 

Also side note, I know what the 256 bitrate means, what is the 44.1 kHz a measurement of?

 

It's the sampling rate, or how often the frequency of the audio signal is measured per unit time. As Mayflower explained, it determines the maximum frequency (pitch) that can be recorded.

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If you have cds laying around you can rip those into Flacs but it's not really worth it to spend more money on a it.

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Look for better quality music. Don't worry about the file format too much.

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I didn't check, I was driving. 

 

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