Audio Bitrates
Bitrate is the average number of bits in one second of audio. The higher the bitrate, the higher the quality. Most MP3 music has a bitrate of 192 kbps (kiliobits per second). This is CD quality.
- 64 kbit/s — low quality, fine for voice recordings but not for digital music files
- 96 kbit/s — FM radio quality, also low quality
- 128–160 kbit/s — medium quality; difference between this and CD quality can be heard by most people, bass quality is particularly low
- 192 kbit/s — standard MP3 quality. CD quality sound.
- 224–320 kbit/s — high quality, but takes up more memory space
Different bitrates have different sound quality and take up different
amounts of memory. Most people can't tell a difference for anything
above 192 kbps, but it is easy to tell the difference below this
bitrate.
The quality of sound and size of music files must both be considered when you are loading a portable device like an mp3 player. If you only want to listen to talk shows for example, you could use a bitrate of 64 kbps and it will sound fine. If you want to listen to music, you should probably use a bitrate of 96 kbps or higher.
192 Kbps and up
MP3s encoded at this setting take up the most space but have CD quality
sound and can take up to 2MB of space per 60 seconds of music. Music
bought from online stores or music download
services will have at least this high of a bitrate.
160 Kbps
MP3s encoded at 160 Kbps have a 9:1 compression ratio. One minute of
music will is about 1.5MB of disk space.
128 Kbps
MP3s encoded at 128 Kbps have an 11:1 compression ratio. One minute of
music is about 1MB of disk space.
96 Kbps
MP3s encoded at 96 Kbps have a 15:1 compression ratio. One minute of
music will be about 700KB of disk space.
64 Kbps
MP3s encoded at 64 Kbps have a 15:1 compression ratio. One minute of
music takes around 400KB of disk space. This bitrate is not recommended
for digital music but is okay for voice-only recordings.
Variable Bit Rate (VBR) - MP3 encoding method that's used when file size is not an issue. VBR encoding will give highest audio quality. Not all encoding programs offer this setting.