PTE 5.6 unable to work with WAV sound clips suddenly

[Ed Overstreet]

Ed,

Because of the file sizes, I would SERIOUSLY consider sticking with 256 kbps MP3 files.

DaveG

Hi Dave. I've noticed over the past couple of years that various people more knowledgable and more experienced than I seem to recommend 128 kbps for MP3, which is what I've been using. The 128 kpbs MP3s sound OK on my cheap sound system, but also sound OK on our club's much better sound system. Is there any particular reason why you're suggesting 256 instead of 128? Not arguing, just curious.

[Conflow]

ED,

What Dave is refering too as 256.bit Mp3 Quality is:-

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Similar to the 'Hi-Fi Quality' one would get from an expensive Quad Stereo Amplifier System. (Less compression)

Frequency response about 16.0 Khz ~ if you turn on the VBR Button (variable bit-rate) you will get up to 20.Khz.

*

In comparison 'CD-Mp3 Quality' (128.bit) one could hear the quality difference if played through the Quad System.

Frequency response around 8.O ~ 10 Khz and with VBR on it should achieve 10~12 Khz frequency response per CH.

Brian.

[fh1805]

Ed/Dave/Brian,

Firstly let me apologise to Ed for getting him into his "hole". When I wrote the Audacity User Guide, I never gave a thought to the possibility that settings which were working OK for me on my Vista system, would not work for a user on an XP system (Live and learn!). I'll try within the next few days to issue a revised version of the User Guide that makes this point clear. I may not achieve this as I'm going to be having some alterations done at home which will mean being off the Internet and without access to the computing suite for a five-day period.

Secondly, I'll now join in the discussion about MP3 bit levels. I have always used 128bit for my MP3 files because I was told that it was equivalent to CD quality. I have carried out a comparative test: playing back through Audacity the WAV and MP3 versions of the same music track and using the Mute/Solo buttons to switch between them. To my ears (damaged only by my advancing years and not by exposure to industrial noise or excessively loud music) I can just make out the difference - but it is only a very slight difference. The MP3 is lacking in a little "brightness" and sounds a touch "muddy" - or as Brian explained in a more technical way, the high-frequencies dont go as high.

(If Ron West reads this, he could add his knowledge and experience from his hospital radio broadcasting activities).

Once again, sorry for getting you into the mess, Ed.

regards,

Peter

P.S. I've also used Audacity to test my ability to hear high-frequencies. I generated one second pure tone tracks at 10KHz, 12KHz, 14KHz, 16KHz, 18KHz and 20KHz. I could hear everything up to and including the 14KHz tone quite distinctly. I could hear something at 16KHz but it sounded like a lower frequency harmonic. I heard nothing at 18 or 20KHz. The only thing left to do is check the frequency range of my speakers. Did they give up before my ears gave out? Later in the spring I'll carry out my annual "high-frequency hearing" test. In the UK we have a tiny songbird called a Goldcrest, which has a very high-frequency song. If I can still hear the Goldcrest then I know my ears are in good working order.

[davegee]

Hi Ed,

The reason for suggesting 256kbps is that it is, to my way of thinking, a good compromise between the "ultimate" (?) quality of a WAV file and the file size of the MP3.

320kbps is even better but to my ears, which have taken a hammering over the last 40 years both in my daytime job and my part-time musical career, I can't tell the difference between 256 and 320 (on my system and without earphones).

Being a musician, I have a respect for other peoples work and wouldn't want to degrade it by choosing a quality which is too low. I have tried to emulate the recording quality achieved by Les Paul in his recordings from the 50's and early 60's which still stand up today as being amongst the finest ever produced.

It's like using RAW in the camera. I have to convert to JPEG at some stage to get images into PTE so I use quality 12 wherever possible and only lower the quality when PTE begins to grumble (on my system). Others will approach things from the opposite angle - they use the lowest quality they can get away with and raise it when they begin to see (or hear) problems. That's OK too - each to his own.

DaveG

[Ed Overstreet]

Quick replies to Brian, Peter and Dave:

again thanks so much for your help and advice!

Peter, not to worry, I learned something too -- it never occurred to me that I couldn't use a 32-bit WAV file on my XP system, now I know better ... Also taught me a) problems aren't always unidentified gremlins, there's usually a reason for them, and any change one makes to Project Options in any software can result in mysterious problems suddenly, one needs to remember these things ... I'd forgotten that I'd made those changes until I did a little more digging yesterday after Dave queried why I was showing 32-bit WAV files when I'd said I hadn't changed the default. Yes I had changed the default, I'd just forgot. (It happens at my age!)

Thanks also for the explanations about 128 vs 256 kbps on the MP3s. I have tinnitus in both ears, have had since I was a teenager a) because my father and I used to trigger very loud fireworks annually in our yard, very close to my ears in fact, that left my ears ringing for hours or days afterwards, and neither he nor I realized this could lead to permanent hearing damage, and in the late 1950s I went to a summer camp where we all fired M-1 carbines at a rifle range for an hour or so with NO hearing protection at all, something that no one would ever permit today, but back then even if anyone had thought to suggest ear protection they would have been laughed off the firing range. And as a result I have severe hearing loss at certain high frequencies, I usually can't hear crickets or some song birds at all, never mind those little tree frogs (are they still around? I haven't heard them for decades, but that doesn't mean they aren't there) ... hence I never notice any difference between MP3 and WAV, never mind different MP3 compressions. But it sounds like, in respect to the composers, performers and audiences I maybe ought to be using 256 instead of 128, for the benefit of people out there whose parents were more knowledgable than my Dad was about what very loud sounds can do to your hearing for the rest of your life ... or who grew up in a place and time where the powers that be were a little more conscious and conscientious about those things.

All's well that ends well, just wish sometimes I could hear those crickets on a warm summer evening Not to mention having to sit through beautiful chamber music in a quiet church while wondering who let the bloody cicadas into the rafters - though of course the buzzing is all in my head not up in the rafters.

Off topic, but be ruthless with your kids and grandkids about not listening to headphones at too-high volumes nor going to "music" concerts where the sound is so loud you feel physically assaulted. They may think that's 'cool' when they're young, but they'll learn otherwise when they're older and have trouble hearing conversations three feet away in a noisy room. They'll either thank you for your nagging when they're older, or at least will regret not having listened to you ... perhaps cold comfort if you're no longer around by then, alas.