160 vs. 320

i felt a little experimental today, and decided to put somewhat of an end to something i've wondered about for a few months.

when radiohead "leaked" in rainbows on october 10th, there was much griping in the e-world about the release being in mp3 format and only 160 kbps bitrate. personally i thought it a moot point, as people should be arguing more about the music itself than the bitrate of the files. i thought 160 kbps (considering that it was not a re-rip) was very good balance between quality and bandwidth demands. if they had decided to release via torrent, then yes it would have been nice to get higher bitrate files, but in the end the files were quite decent to my ears.

i also knew that in december i would be receiving the cds and 45's in the box set. to me, analogue has a totally different sound from digital, but that doesn't make the music any less enjoyable.

anyway, today i did an experiment. i popped open a (tall) can of guinness and poured it into a glass. once i had a slight buzz going, i compared the 160 files to the 320 files i ripped from the box set cd that came december 24th. i use audiograbber to rip and the freebie lame mp3 codec.

i was very surprised that with headphones on I COULD NOT TELL THE DIFFERENCE. in the end, i'm attributing it to only slightly-better-than-decent headphones and a not so great sound card on my laptop. when playing on my Zen Nano Plus mp3 player connected to my car, i've felt like the higher bitrate has a difference to it. i've never been able to pinpoint it, but i feel like my speakers distort less. yet, through my laptop and in a buzzed (and therefore more passionate about music state), i really couldn't tell between the two files.
its quite possible that because the lame codec is available freely that it is somehow inferior. i suppose its also that a direct mp3 is better than one ripped off a cd.

i suppose i'll delete the 160 and keep the 320. my mp3 player has an input, and i plan on using it to encode 160 files directly from the 45's. 160 is the max it can encode it, but it does a fairly decent job of encoding and its much less hassle than connecting the record player to my desktop (which has the better sound card out of all my machines).

so my final verdict is that you shouldn't worry too much about the bitrate and pay more attention to the music itself. i'd also like to say that i was very surprised, because normally my ears are pretty good when it comes to being picky. i can normally tell the difference between a 128, 160, and 192 file. i can normally tell when a song is playing at a slightly slower or faster speed than it should.  maybe i'll try the experiment again tomorrow using my mp3 player instead of the laptop...

anywho, i've babbled on long enough. its 216 and i should be awake in about 5 hours. the guinness hasn't totally worn off though....

have a great weekend!

technorati tags:in, rainbows, radiohead, 160kbps, vs, 320kbps