How to convert ogg files to mp3

Dotan Cohen dotancohen at gmail.com
Sat Feb 17 01:14:29 UTC 2007


On 17/02/07, Tim <ignored_mailbox at yahoo.com.au> wrote:
> On Fri, 2007-02-16 at 14:32 +0200, Dotan Cohen wrote:
> > I'd actually like to note that my music collection is in mp3 as I feel
> > it's slightly better sounding than ogg.
>
> Interesting, as you're the first person I've seen state things that way
> around.  What bit rates do you encode things at?

Most of the collection is at 256bps, but I've a few 320's for the
problematic stuff.

> For my own purposes, I've always found ogg to sound better than MP3,
> even when the MP3s were encoded at higher bit rates than the oggs.  I
> find strange squeaks, swooshing noises, wierd distortions in the bass,
> phase errors that sound like a cross between bad shortwave radio
> reception and playing a chewed compact audio cassette in most MP3s.
>
> Granted that some encoders are better than others, but I've not being
> able to find a good MP3 one (Windows or Linux).  Seeing as the only
> non-computer devices around here that can play MP3s are my DVD players,
> I've never really bothered about improving it.  I'll drag out the
> original CDs and play them.  Or use one of the PCs as an ogg jukebox.

They were all ripped back in my windows days, I don't remember what
the program was called but if you really want to know I can dig up an
old backup.

> My music tastes are varied, everything from classical, to jazz, to
> abstract, to 50's and 60's pop, but very little modern pop.  I haven't
> found any particular type of music to be better or worse on one of the
> other encoding format.  Even on cheap audio gear the deficiencies in
> most MP3s are noticable, and on moderately expensive audio gear oggs
> sound very close to the originals, and that's at the standard 128kbs
> rate.  Comparatively speaking, MP3s need encoding well above 256kbs to
> get close.

Yes, that's why I encoded at a minimum of 256.

> You mentioned guitars being a problem, I've listed to accoustic guitars
> played normally, and electric with heavy fuzz, I can't say that either
> has a problem with oggs, though anything with heavy distortion will need
> a high sampling rate to decently cover the higher harmonic frequences
> produced by clipping at the original source (heavy distortion, or
> square-waving of the guitar, means you need to record the odd harmonics
> above the fundamental note to quite some degree, unless you deliberately
> want a mellow sound).
>
> The only problem I've noticed with ogg is (sometime) audio clipping on
> playback if I've turned the player volume up high on the PC.  For some
> strange reasons MP3s don't do that.  Even when they've apparently got
> the same volume levels in the files.  I was beginning to wonder if some
> audio players don't just play with the audio mixer, but do some bad
> number crunching on the digital audio.

If I ever get in the mood of reripping, I'm going to do it in flac.
Then I'll be able to automate a conversion to whatever format is in
style that particular decade.

> I'm not a rich audiophile, just an audiophile.  I work in audio/video
> production, I play musical instruments, I have moderately priced HiFi
> gear (gear that has some reasonable claim to the moniker, with things
> like 0.0001% THD, etc., not the 1% distortion that some just ordinary
> stereo gear has, and a reasonably nice set of Wharfedale bookshelf
> speakers), and I still have reel-to-reel gear (Revox A77).  ;-)
> Distortions and other noises are still annoyingly obvious, even if my
> ears do have a brick wall filter at 16kHz.
>

My equiptment is nowhere near that level of quality. But my Sony
headphones are quite enough for me.

Dotan Cohen

http://lyricslist.com/lyrics/lyrics/124/108/carey_mariah/emotions.html
http://easy-answers.org




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