terrible sound quality with lame mp3 48Khz

[beg]

Hi,

dbpoweramp was recommended to me by users in the winamp forum, because I had to convert about 25000 .ape and .flac files into mp3 and I was looking for a converting programm for this task.

After testing dbpoweramp pro I was very happy, because everything worked perfect.

14 days later after converting (and I am very sorry to say deleting the original files) I noticed that the quality of the produced mp3 is awfull/terrible absolutely not useable.. :-( I am really shocked, because I deleted the orignal files.. :-(

The problem is this:

I tested the with 320kbps, CBR, normal quality and 44Khz converting .ape to mp3 - everything perfect.

But to do sth. good to my music collection I decided to convert in high quality and 48 KHz. This was a big mistake...

Using 48 Khz produces terrible sound quality with kind of overmodulation/overamplifying sound - can not describe that in english, but can provide converted sound files..

I know that it is my own fault to some point, but I am really lost, stunned that I have ruined my music collection by converting it without testing the last setup... (I had to delete that fast, because the harddisk was running out of space...)

But I had no idea that the change from normal to high quality and 44Khz to 48Khz might do sth. like this... :-(

Bernhard

[bhoar]

Re: terrible sound quality with lame mp3 48Khz

Hi,

dbpoweramp was recommended to me by users in the winamp forum, because I had to convert about 25000 .ape and .flac files into mp3 and I was looking for a converting programm for this task.

After testing dbpoweramp pro I was very happy, because everything worked perfect.

14 days later after converting (and I am very sorry to say deleting the original files) I noticed that the quality of the produced mp3 is awfull/terrible absolutely not useable.. :-( I am really shocked, because I deleted the orignal files.. :-(

The problem is this:

I tested the with 320kbps, CBR, normal quality and 44Khz converting .ape to mp3 - everything perfect.

But to do sth. good to my music collection I decided to convert in high quality and 48 KHz. This was a big mistake...

Using 48 Khz produces terrible sound quality with kind of overmodulation/overamplifying sound - can not describe that in english, but can provide converted sound files..

I know that it is my own fault to some point, but I am really lost, stunned that I have ruined my music collection by converting it without testing the last setup... (I had to delete that fast, because the harddisk was running out of space...)

But I had no idea that the change from normal to high quality and 44Khz to 48Khz might do sth. like this... :-(

Bernhard

I'm not an expert on this, but I think I know what happened. By choosing 48KHz you triggered three different things that reduced the audio quality.

1. The MP3 codec is best tuned for 44.1kHz audio. Using it at other bitrates has been known to introduce substantially more artifacts than expected.

2. If you aren't running dbpoweramp reference (or if you are, and have not enabled the "Professional Frequency Conversion (SSRC)" option in the Music Converter setup), then bitrate conversions (such as 44.1 to 48) are performed using a rather simplistic algorithm that can lead to an audible loss of quality even before it is fed into the lossy codecs such as the MP3 codec.

3. Increasing the bitrate that the MP3 codec has to handle caused it to have throw out more data to fit into the 320kbps stream. It would be somewhat equivalent to compressing 44.1k audio but choosing 294 CBR (were that an option) - you basically force the encoder to never use a frame larger than a certain size.

It's always best to stick with the default settings - most bad audio conversions are due to trying to adjust the settings to get better results.

-brendan

[Spoon]

Re: terrible sound quality with lame mp3 48Khz

Always when converting, keep the frequency the same unless choosing a lower frequency (because a smaller file is required, that is of lower quality).

RE 2 above: if Professional Frequency Conversion is not checked, then Windows built in freqeuncy conversion routines are used, the quality of these vary from one Windows version to another.

[beg]

Re: terrible sound quality with lame mp3 48Khz

thx for the answers..

it's a pity I did not check this beforehand.. :-(

so what setting can you recommend for best quality in mp3, no matter of file size converting from wav, ape, m4a, flac?

320kbps, CBR, high quality encoding, Khz as source, Stereo?

Bernhard

[Spoon]

Re: terrible sound quality with lame mp3 48Khz

Yes