F7 Sound and Vision's mp3s sound better. Here's why.

podcast "the Difficult Listening Channel"

Experience "the Difficult Listening Channel" podcast where the sounds in my head become the sounds in yours.

Thunderstorms 2006
You've asked for more thunderstorms. Here they are! My best storm recordings from the 2006 rainy season are now on CD.

Mountain Streams and Waterfalls CD
Relax to the sounds of nature's beauty. Expertly captured and presented in this 56 minute uninterrupted CD are the pure and natural sounds of... mountain streams and waterfalls.

F7 Sound and Vision's mp3s sound better!
Here's why - and how you can make your mp3s sound better too.

First, I am "plugging" my own recordings here, but the information on this page is useful whether or not you buy my stuff. You may have noticed that I've made some of my CDs available as mp3 downloads. This is the 21st Century, so, why wait for a CD to crawl to you via snail mail?

And, why pay for a CD when, many times, what you end up doing is ripping the audio from the CD and loading it on an mp3 player like an iPod or your computer? But, mp3s really don't sound as good as a CD (see sidebars left and right for why). Well, actually, mp3's can sound pretty danm good if they're produced properly.

What's an 'mp3'?

An mp3 is a compressed file format for audio and music (MPEG I, layer III). It reduces the file size significantly (and makes downloads much faster) by 'disregarding' certain audio information that we, the listeners, supposedly don't hear. But, when you 'throw away' information, you lose sound quality.

There is a trade off between the end file size and sound quality. The smaller end file, means more information has been thrown away. It is "generally" accepted that 128kbps is "almost CD quality" as far as mp3s go (most mp3s that you purchase are 128kbps) But the "CD quality" part, that's debatable.

What is certain, is that 128kbps data rate ends up being close to 1/10th the file size of the original 16 bit, 44.1 kHz "full quality" sound file where a 600 Mb CD becomes a 60Mb mp3 - more or less.

Bottom line is that the HIGHER the data rate, the BETTER the mp3's sound quality should be.

Where did your mp3 come from?

I'm talking about LEGAL mp3s, ones that you purchased or were given without violating any copyright laws.

Most mp3s were probably "ripped" from a CD. But, there are other "places" that an mp3 could come from, such as:

- ripped from a CD where the original file on said CD was an mp3 that was converted to that CD before "ripping". Oh, and let's add some scratches and finger prints to the CD too. Makes sense?

- converted from another "lossy" audio file format - where "lossy" format is something like ATRAC (minidisc), Quicktime, ogg, or other.

- a recording on cassette or other tape that's been digitized, then saved as "mp3".

- the soundtrack of a video found on the internet

- DIRECTLY from the MASTER audio file - the same file that became the MASTER CD release.

Guess which mp3 would be the best sounding...(assuming the same data rate for each).... Do you care? Should you care?

Below: A simple diagram that shows what most mp3s go through to get to their final destination (you). There are plenty of opportunities for quality loss on the way (such as corrupted or interpolated data).

The final product is 128kbps "almost CD quality". This is one reason why you might not be too happy with the sound quality of many mp3s.

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You can see why F7 Sound and Vision's mp3s sound better....

my way of producing mp3 files is to convert directly from the master audio file.

No, it's not rocket science or some "magic solution". But, it's very easy. I went to the master audio file (the one that I would burn a replication/duplication master CD from). That's the file I converted to (and saved as an) mp3. When you convert directly from the digital master you bypass any chance of data corruption due to CD errors (and there are always errors on CDs).

I used a higher bitrate too (192kbps). More data means a better representation of the original. The tradeoff being a larger file size, but still manageable. A 600 Mb CD becomes a 90 Mb mp3 (more or less).

I didn't even talk about eq or compression. I know that some people recommend cutting all the frequencies below 20 Hz. I don't think that's absolutely needed at higher bitrates.

Get them FAST!
Visit my store on lulu.com to purchase premium-quality, 192kbps mp3 downloadable versions of several of my CD releases.

Iguana Invasion!
Thousands of giant lizards call Gasparilla Island home. But are they welcome there?

Want to be an Audio Engineer?
Fame, Fortune, Women.... Yeh, right! :-)

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Copyright © 2008 Michael Oster all Rights Reserved.

For comments and suggestions, e-mail: F7sound@gte.net
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