Different mp3 Qualities

[Daniel Jackson]

Hey guys,

I heard about mp3 files, having a bitrate of "VBR0" and that this should supposed to be one of the highest quality possible concerning music files.
Is this correct?
Unfortunately I couldn't find some useful information about that topic on wikipedia.
I was googling for a website containing some audio samples in different bitrates from 128 kbps over 192kbps to 256kps until "VBR0" in order to have the opportunity to make up my mind what kind of bitrate to use in the future.
Does anyone know a good website about this? I would really appreciate it!

Best regards from Germany

Daniel

 

[skers_54]

Did a quick search and it seems to be a variable bit rate encoding format used in the LAME encoder. VBR tries to retain the highest quality by letting the encoder decide the bit rate to use for any porion of a song.

 

[FatStrat85]

I recently did some listening tests concerning MP3 bitrates and encoders. LAME at the highest VBR setting is the best that I'm aware of. It eliminates 99% of audible artifacts, even on exceptionally difficult tracks. Basically, with that setting, I typically get files ranging anywhere from 170kbps to 300kbps with an average of around 240kbps. The encoder determines the difficulty of each track and encodes at the bitrate it determines is necessary to make the MP3 transparent. The only setting higher than that would be a flat CBR 320kbps, but the improvements in sound quality are arguable and you're essentially just wasting space at that point. You can get good LAME encoders on PC, Mac, and Linux.

 

[jcPanny]

Audio formats

For the highest audio quality, store your music in a lossless format like WAV, Apple Lossless, or FLAC. All of the MP3 variants involve compression.