Is 128 kbp/s enough ?

Well tough question...You have probably read that 128 kbp/s isn't CD quality and that you lose debt etc...bla bla bla. A lot of people claim there is a significant difference between 128 kbp/s, 190 kbps and 256 kbps. So we decided to test it.
We didn't use state of the art material or nifty programs that measure output, frequency etc...No we decided to test it according on how the majority would listen to an mp3 file.
We used the same song (My Heart by Neil Young) which has a very calm and bare intro (good for picking up hiss and noise) a very full-sounding chorus and musical (lots of instruments) end piece. We used three test subjects, Victor Oorland, Mp3King and patricia, Mp3King's girlfriend.

We encoded the track in three modes using BladeInc and this is the data

Test Subjects had no idea which song was recorded in which mode. They had to write down the specifics on 'songA(128)' 'songB(190)' and 'songC(256)'
First of all we ran the three songs through a pair of 150W computer speakers. Not surprisingly none of the three test subjects could hear a clear difference, although Patricia thought that SongC (the 256 kbp sounded 'louder')
The we moved on to the stereo test. Our test stereo is probably 'the norm'. It is a $900 Pioneer 60W midi unit. We believe that most users have a similar setup, the high -end stereo systems would probably yield a different result, but let's face it, how many people out there have a $3000+ stereo system.
The Pentium 233 system uses a soundblaster PCI Audio 64V, again not a high end soundcard, but a very popular and representative one.

Again the results were puzzling, Victor didn't hear any difference at all...he thought SongB was better, then changed to SongC before finally giving up..He never however expressed a preference for SongA. I must ad however that Victor is getting on a bit in years hehe...
Patricia thought there was a real difference between SongA and SongC. But surprisingly enough she preferred SongA !! She did say that songC sounded fuller, but more bombastic...women
Mp3King did pick out which one was the 256kbps ! After only 10 seconds he shouted out 'SongC is encoded in 256'.
Now this is a man who has encoded nearly 10.000 songs, so he has had experience. However he said he will not be switching over to a higher bit rate as the difference is quality isn't nearly large enough to warrant the more than double the time it takes to encode and the much larger disk space needed.

Encoding a 60 min full CD would take about 4 hours and take up 120-130 MB, Now it takes about 1 1/2 hours and takes up 60 MB.
So there you have it...objective ? Of course not...but we don't think objectivity is an issue here. If everybody would like the exact same settings and sound levels, what a boring place this world would be

Chameleon
Chromium dESIGN