A friend tells me...(true or false)?

[joel89]

That most speakers and headphones can, in effect, only play a maximum bitrate of 320 kbps because their response rate limits them to this, and therefore anything higher is irrelevant.
Is he correct?

Thanks

 

[HiJon89]

Speakers and headphones can only playback analog signals which don't have a bitrate, or I guess you could loosely say have an infinite bitrate

 

[joel89]

Hi, thanks for your reply. I suppose what I mean is, if you compare the sound quality of an mp3 encoded at 320 kbps with, say, an uncompressed wave of the same song played through my Shure E4s for instance. According to my friend there would be no physical difference in sound, whether or not you could hear it for yourself. I disagree with him.
Sorry, I don't know a hell of a lot about the subject, I just like quality music

 

[markw]

Sorry, I don't know a hell of a lot about the subject, I just like quality music

Don't worry. Neither does he, but at least you're willing to learn.

As for what I THINK he's trying to say, is that while music recorded at lower bit-rates can sound cheezy, the higher the bit-rate goes, the better it sounds until your ear can't hear any further improvement.

And that. my friend, is not a function of the speaker. It's a function of your ear.

You both night want to ask yourselves what's the bit-rate of an analog signal from a tape deck or a vinyl record (remember those?)?

 

[joel89]

Thanks Mark, it makes more sense to me now.

I think basically what my friend was saying is that the amount of information per second in CD audio is beyond the physical means of reproduction by a speaker; like it can't vibrate fast enough due to fundamental design and material limitations, supposedly.

 

[markw]

Speakers have a defined range of frequencies they can reproduce.

CD's have a defined limit of 22 khz. Some speakers are speced to go well above that although I wonder why. Odds are we can't hear much above 16 khz to begin with. Most music is below 14 khz and what's not are merely harmonics which we can barely hear anyway.

What's the frequency range of the music recorded in MP3? (hint: It's not the bit-rate)

 

[joel89]

Isn't it something like 20 - 20000Hz? (I'm in over my head, haha)

 

[markw]

Isn't it something like 20 - 20000Hz? (I'm in over my head, haha)

Ask yer buddy. He's the one spouting all these numbers off, not you.

Yeah, it's speced from 20 - 20k although I don't see a +- db range listed.

Besides, there are other things that affect MP3 sound as well, compression artifacts mainly.

 

[fmw]

I did some blind comparative listening tests with the same music files encoded as 320 mp3 (lossy) and FLAC (lossless.) After 1/2 hour of it I got pretty weary. I was able to tell them apart perhaps 2 times out of the 15 files I tested over that period of time. My conclusion was that, since 320 mp3 files take 1/2 the space of a FLAC file and sound virtually identical to me, I would rip my CD collection using 320 mp3 and have done so. No regrets. I've recommended the same thing to others with cries of woe and horror over it. But the proof is in the testing. It isn't hard to test since you can rip a track to various formats in seconds and have someone else do the switching during playback so you don't know which one you are hearing.

Basically, I agree with your friend that the 320 mp3 is 99.99% as good as the lossless formats. Take care.

 

[joel89]

Okay, thanks guys.

By the way, I rip my music to wave using EAC. Plenty of hard drive space so no worries there. I just want to have full backups of my CDs.

 

[mtrycrafts]

Thanks Mark, it makes more sense to me now.

I think basically what my friend was saying is that the amount of information per second in CD audio is beyond the physical means of reproduction by a speaker; like it can't vibrate fast enough due to fundamental design and material limitations, supposedly.

You may want to pin down your friend what he really means by what he stated or tried.

Bit rate and speaker response are two different things altogether. If a speaker can vibrate, as you indicate at 10,000 cycles, that is what it will vibrate at whether that tone is digitally recorded at 320kbits or at CD resolution, it will vibrate properly.