Quality of Commercial MP3 CDs

[pakecc]

hi all,

Happened to visit some stores where they keep huge collection of Music CDs. Though the number of Audio CDs are more, overall 70% of their music collection compromises of MP3 CDs from companies like Aditya Music, InReco, Sony, Star Music and others. Since I have not purchased any Mp3 CDs till date as I always download from Nokia Music store which are all @256kbps, I want to Know, what is the bit rate of these MP3 CDs distributed by the Music companies. Is it @320kbps or 256kbps.

And where can we get MP3 CDs @320kbps.

Thanks

 

[az2325]

Hi,

Nice topic. I had the same impression while visiting Music shops recently.

Most of the shops keep more of MP3 CD's than original Audio CDs. Atleast in my place -Tvm, Kerala.

Checking the cover of such CD's, i was not able to identify the bit rate directly. May be we can count the songs to know the size

Most of the CD's have around 50 songs from what i have seen.

I went ahead and purchased one such rahman collection MP3 CD from a shop.

The quality of audio was very poor. On checking it with foobar, found the bit rate as 128 kbps

Filpkart link of the product --> A R Rahman - His Greatest Hits - Price In India. Buy A R Rahman - His Greatest Hits Online at Flipkart.com


It's better not to buy such crap. Better continue your current mode of purchase

Regards,
Antony

 

[umapati]

Mostly all Mp3 CDs from Saregama & other companies releases are of 128kbps..only Universal Music has released Mp3 cds in 320kbps format..

 

[abhicreative12]

very nice thread..!!!!!

 

[omishra]

These MP3 CDs are good for playing in car, nothing more than that. Nobody bothers about the SQ in that environment.

 

[ajay0722]

Very nice topic.....

I have bought few CDs from 'temptation M' store, which were marked with 'Super MP3', less songs per CD, good packing quality (costly though). The SQ I feel they are marginal better than the conventional (source) one , any one has technical knowledge about 'super mp3', please throw some lights

BR
/Ajay/

 

[pakecc]

hi ajay0722, did you see the bit rate of these MP3s

 

[Hassan Khani]

AGI Music MP3s I have bought (Tamil Songs) are 320Kbps most of them if not all.

 

[pakecc]

AGI Music MP3s I have bought (Tamil Songs) are 320Kbps most of them if not all.

Thanks. I Will try with one CD. Nothing to loss.

 

[rsjaurr]

These MP3 CDs are good for playing in car, nothing more than that. Nobody bothers about the SQ in that environment.

I know its your opinion and I respect it but still I would like to strongly disagree with your statement. Please visit some of car audio related section of various online forums to see if you find someone who cares about SQ even in that environment.

BTW coming to OP, I know almost all Bollywood film songs are encoded at 128kbps. I have few English MP3 albums but even these are encoded at 128kbps.

 

[ajay0722]

hi ajay0722, did you see the bit rate of these MP3s

I checked for 2 super MP3 CDs, both by "Sony BMG Music company", Bit-rate is 192kbps for both. just to add, after some more listening to these, i can feel the SQ difference with 128kbps.... it is more than marginal

 

[vikashdubey]

Mostly all Mp3 CDs from Saregama & other companies releases are of 128kbps..only Universal Music has released Mp3 cds in 320kbps format..

Yes even I bought multiple companies mp3 cds and only Universal Music had 320Kbps CBR mp3.

 

[efernand1]

Hi

My personal experience. Years back I used to visit Music stores to purchase CDs / MP3s. Somehow the Disc quality provided for music albums was not that great and one always ended up copying the original to a better CD. So..immediately after a new purchase, I used to backup the music CD to a better quality blank Disc and give away the purchased CD to friends.

Nowadays, almost everything is available over the internet and I am better off downloading my music which is in mp3 format. There are sites which give you the music files in 128 kbps, I use converters to make them minimum 160kbps if not 320kbps. It all depends on how much quality you want and how much space you are ready to use.

In this manner you can create your own Discs or store mp3s in a pen drive and play the same in the car or home system etc.

 

[hemantwaghe]

hi

my personal experience. Years back i used to visit music stores to purchase cds / mp3s. Somehow the disc quality provided for music albums was not that great and one always ended up copying the original to a better cd. So..immediately after a new purchase, i used to backup the music cd to a better quality blank disc and give away the purchased cd to friends.

Nowadays, almost everything is available over the internet and i am better off downloading my music which is in mp3 format. There are sites which give you the music files in 128 kbps, i use converters to make them minimum 160kbps if not 320kbps. It all depends on how much quality you want and how much space you are ready to use.

In this manner you can create your own discs or store mp3s in a pen drive and play the same in the car or home system etc.

so you download 128 kbps mp3 and upconvert is 160 or 320 ??? How it is useful??

 

[pakecc]

Hi

My personal experience. Years back I used to visit Music stores to purchase CDs / MP3s. Somehow the Disc quality provided for music albums was not that great and one always ended up copying the original to a better CD. So..immediately after a new purchase, I used to backup the music CD to a better quality blank Disc and give away the purchased CD to friends.

Nowadays, almost everything is available over the internet and I am better off downloading my music which is in mp3 format. There are sites which give you the music files in 128 kbps, I use converters to make them minimum 160kbps if not 320kbps. It all depends on how much quality you want and how much space you are ready to use.

In this manner you can create your own Discs or store mp3s in a pen drive and play the same in the car or home system etc.

hi, reconverting from 128kbps to higher quality is just waste of space as well as time. Quality lost while converting to 128kbps cannot be retreived by reconverting the same 128kbps. regards

 

[Saket]

Hi

My personal experience. Years back I used to visit Music stores to purchase CDs / MP3s. Somehow the Disc quality provided for music albums was not that great and one always ended up copying the original to a better CD. So..immediately after a new purchase, I used to backup the music CD to a better quality blank Disc and give away the purchased CD to friends.

Nowadays, almost everything is available over the internet and I am better off downloading my music which is in mp3 format. There are sites which give you the music files in 128 kbps, I use converters to make them minimum 160kbps if not 320kbps. It all depends on how much quality you want and how much space you are ready to use.

In this manner you can create your own Discs or store mp3s in a pen drive and play the same in the car or home system etc.

And how much improvement in the sound quality you can hear from those converted 160 Kbps files over the original 128 kbps? I have a 96 kbps audio file, do you think converting it to FLAC will make it lossless?

 

[balajeem]

On a different note, are there good sites from where you can *buy* - I repeat buy , songs that are of good quality - I am not sure if some old Tamil hits can be obtained in CD nowadays and even if it's so, may not be interested in full movie rather only selective songs.

In such a case, would be great to hear such sites where I can buy @320Kbps bit rate.

 

[balajeem]

Hi

My personal experience. Years back I used to visit Music stores to purchase CDs / MP3s. Somehow the Disc quality provided for music albums was not that great and one always ended up copying the original to a better CD. So..immediately after a new purchase, I used to backup the music CD to a better quality blank Disc and give away the purchased CD to friends.

Nowadays, almost everything is available over the internet and I am better off downloading my music which is in mp3 format. There are sites which give you the music files in 128 kbps, I use converters to make them minimum 160kbps if not 320kbps. It all depends on how much quality you want and how much space you are ready to use.

In this manner you can create your own Discs or store mp3s in a pen drive and play the same in the car or home system etc.

128->160 Kbps ? why would you do that as already 128kbps is a compromised bitrate.

Playing in a marantz player such songs would only bemean the player :-(. However , if you feel that you like that way, can't comment further.

 

[pakecc]

And how much improvement in the sound quality you can hear from those converted 160 Kbps files over the original 128 kbps? I have a 96 kbps audio file, do you think converting it to FLAC will make it lossless?

Hi, no question of improvement from 96kbps/128kbps upconverting to any format/ higher bits execpt larger size files in your disc.

And Lossless to Lossy conversion can be done but not vice versa

 

[pakecc]

And Lossless to Lossy conversion can be done but not vice versa

hi, here I mean restoration of sound quality of a lossless file cannot be done when you convert a lossy format again to any lossless format