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64k vs. 128k bitrate

gregg75

gregg75

Ok I decided to take the station from 64k to 128k (people seem to take your music more serious at that bitrate). I'd say it's about a 25% sound upgrade......more than I thought it would be. At least now I can get on iTunes (whoopie) which won't take 64k music stations.
 
gregg75 said:
Ok I decided to take the station from 64k to 128k (people seem to take your music more serious at that bitrate). I'd say it's about a 25% sound upgrade......more than I thought it would be. At least now I can get on iTunes (whoopie) which won't take 64k music stations.
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I have 50 Mbps download speed and I listen to music at 320k, and I won't settle for anything under 192k unless I have economy internet.
 
willdav713 said:
I have 50 Mbps download speed and I listen to music at 320k, and I won't settle for anything under 192k unless I have economy internet.
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Seriously, 48k HE-AAC pretty much matches 128k mp3. So you'd be happy with even 128k AAC.

R
 
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To me, 128kbps sounds considerably better than 64kbps mp3/wma. 64kbps aac sounds okay (the birate Pandora uses on their webplayer) but 128mp3 still sounds better if you know what to listen for. I always prefer 128kbps+ when I am on a wired/wi-fi connection. For mobile phones though I prefer 32kbps aac as it is the lowest bitrate that still sounds acceptable in the car and doesn't eat through data caps as quickly.
 
I guess it all depends on how much bitrate you can afford to put out (if you have to pay by the byte) and also the way most people listen to you. High bitrate stations absolutely devour mobile data, and seeing as I do most of my listening through my mobile device, high bitrate streams are a turnoff. Keep in mind that some of your potential listeners have crappy older phones with stingy data allowances. Fewer people than you think have Galaxy S and iPhones with unlimited 4G data that never cuts out. Remember, Berry Gordy sold a ton of records because he produced them to sound good on crappy radios.

All that said, I think 48-64k AAC+ sounds good enough for me. Better than hearing constant buffering while trying to choke down a 320k stream, or getting my data throttled down because I shot my limit mode listening to excessive bitrate stations.
 
The number of people with unlimited data is actually very low. There is a reason Pandora streams their mobile service at 32-64kbps aac. From my testing, the default is 32kbps (with possibly rare 48kbps tracks) and high quality is 64kbps aac.
 
FightingIrish said:
I guess it all depends on how much bitrate you can afford to put out (if you have to pay by the byte) and also the way most people listen to you. High bitrate stations absolutely devour mobile data, and seeing as I do most of my listening through my mobile device, high bitrate streams are a turnoff. Keep in mind that some of your potential listeners have crappy older phones with stingy data allowances. Fewer people than you think have Galaxy S and iPhones with unlimited 4G data that never cuts out. Remember, Berry Gordy sold a ton of records because he produced them to sound good on crappy radios.

All that said, I think 48-64k AAC+ sounds good enough for me. Better than hearing constant buffering while trying to choke down a 320k stream, or getting my data throttled down because I shot my limit mode listening to excessive bitrate stations.
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Ditto. I just put my station on the air (for testing purposes) last week, and Streamlicensing.com informed me that they were having problems with the audio cutting in and out. I heard it too but chalked it up to hitting a couple areas where cell reception is weak. They told me to go the other extreme and take it all the way down to 32 bit mono and listen if I had more cut-outs. This time there were no cutouts, but the sound was terrible. So I asked around and just about every engineer told me that 64k was pretty much the standard...not the best in terms of audio quality, but it didn't eat up too much data. This is especially important among cell phone users.

I was told that if I moved to Icecast instead of SHOUTcast and went with AAC coding, I could go to a 128 bitrate with a much more efficient use of data, but SHOUTcast appears to be the industry standard and I'm sticking with that.
 
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