How Bit Rates and File Types Affect the Quality of Music Files

Most of us possess an iPod, a Mirosoft Zune, a Creative Zen or any type of MP3 player. However, it would be a very difficult task to have a high-quality music files to listen but still save space in the MP3 player.

As you have experienced, there are some music files that have the same file type (*.MP3 for example) and same file size. However, their qualities are completely different. One is very clear and makes you want to listen repeatedly. Other is faint and sounds like somebody's screaming. That is because they have different VBR (Variable Bit Rate) and CBR (Constant Bit Rate). So, how do those rates affect the quality of your files? In addition, how are qualities different in different file type? If you understand those problems, it would be very easy to have a great music file.

At first, let's take a look of file type. According to many experiences, *.mp3 file have the lowest quality when compared with *.wma, *.ogg or *.acc. Especially, in a low bitrate, mp3 files are very unclear. A wma file with the bitrate of 96 kbps has same quality of a mp3 file with the bitrate of 128 kbps. Therefore, most of the music website use wma file to provide the best quality. However, be aware that some MP3 player only supports mp3 files (just like its name "MP3" player).

After choosing your file type, the next problem is bitrate, measured by kbps. The higher the bitrate become, the better the quality of sound is. However, high bitrate can cause the music file to be very big and occupy a lot of your system resource. Normally, bitrate from 128 to 192 is considered good. Nevertheless, it would be very difficult to realize the different between a 160 kbps bitrate and a 190 kbps bitrate. I also have a file with the bitrate up to 320 kbps. It is about five-minutes song that occupies 10.56 MB. So, depending on your need, you can choose your suitable bitrate.

There are two different types of bitrate: Constant Bit Rate and Variable Bit Rate. Constant Bit Rate applies only one constant bitrate from beginning to the end of a song. Otherwise, Variable Bit Rate uses different bitrate depending on the file. Variable Bit Rate may give out a higher quality of file and a smaller file size. You can also choose Average Bit Rate (similar to Variable Bit Rate but the bitrate is chosen on average). Besides, you should be aware of frequency and channel. When ripping music from CD, a frequency of 44.1 KHz (original frequency of CD) is recommended. Frequency can be higher when ripping from DVD. Stereo and Joint Stereo are the two recommended channel.

As I experienced, converting music files from a lower bitrate to a higher bitrate only makes the files bigger without increasing quality. When copying music from CD or DVD, you should choose the original bitrate. Bitrate should be set 128 kbps or higher. In addition, avoid to convert file type as much as possible because the converting process would decrease the quality.