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mp3 pro vbr vs mp3 320k cbr?
I've been playing around using adobe audition to convert various bootlegs from FLAC and other sources to MP3. It seems to me that a 320k MP3 CBR's are all the rage on the torrent sites, but when doing a spectral analysis you can really see the drop on the high end. When converting the same file to MP3 PRO VBR, I see very little (if any) drop on the high end, and the file size is MUCH smaller, and incredibly smaller than FLAC. I'm thinking about encoding only in MP3 Pro VBR from now on, unless someone can tell me why I should stick with 320 CBR. Is it s legacy compatibility issue? Will a Pro VBR file play on a IPOD or other MP3 Players? Plays fine on mine, and I've got a $20 Hong Kong MP4 Player. Thanks
I think that FLAC should be the only format that people use as lossless. It's basically universally supported. The thing about mp3PRO is that it requires a download of (yet another) codec. There's your legacy issues. BTW: If more people thought of things like the way you are, iTunes and Zune would have nothing.
PS: Send me a few of those mp3PRO files and I'll see if they play fine on my Zune...post them here so others can try as well...this is the way that mp3 itself, and many other things as well, was tested...multiple people testing it multiple times.
Nevermind, did a side by side comparison, mp3PRO @ 64 kbps is just like mp3 @ 128 kbps, destructive to the higher ends. The only true lossless formats are WAV and FLAC (and SHN and APE as well). Other than that, they all seem to fall short.