Optimum Mastering Peak Level?

[mikehalloran]

Hey Mike… do you mean 128 or 192 VBR and 320 CBR?

Yeah I guess I’m dense. So what you’re saying is that people don’t hear the difference between a 320 variable bit rate file or a 320 constant bit rate file?

VBR is exactly that — 320 when it needs to be, 16 during silent passages and everything in between. There's no 320 VBR, 128 VBR or anything in between, only VBR. TwistedWave greys out the window when VBR is selected but really should clear it. VBR can take longer to convert but I don't notice much difference.

Depending on the complexity of the source, there may be little difference in the file size between 320 CBR and VBR. It's generally acknowledged that VBR sounds better than 256 and the armchair expert boards usually have a few posting "I can't hear the difference but 320 is better…" and the like. It's a much bigger issue with AV where the streaming services including YouTube are doing VBR only. Here's the AT&T Developer paper on video VBR streaming: https://developer.att.com/video-optimiz ... streaming.

Back to audio. For kicks, I took Revolution 9 off the 2018 White Album remaster CD and bounced it to different formats in TwistedWave:

44.1/16 — 88.4 MB

VBR — 17.7 MB

320 CBR — 21MB

256 CBR — 16.8 MB (the audio on my 256GB iPod 7)

128 CBR — 8.4 MB (the audio on my 2MB iPod Shuffle)

m4a Apple MPEG-4 audio (lossless) — 52.3 MB (the audio on my 1TB iPhone 15 Pro Max)

[monkey man]

I use LAME from within Audacity (free).

320 CBR
Normal Stereo

Joint Stereo was shown years ago to have imaging problems.
...

Although I don't hear problems with Joint Stereo anymore (2003 was different), I agree that normal is probably better. Unfortunately, I deal with too many Luddites who only know email to transfer files. JS gives a smaller file size.

Here's a good article on that.
Joint Stereo

I don't think the "True Peak" version of bx_limiter's been out that long Mike.

Nevertheless, I have it. Thank you brother.

You're right. I bought it in 2021, not 2020. My steel trap of a mind has become a rusty sieve with age.

All-good Brother Mike.

FWIMBW the my settings are for my iTunes library; that's the only place I store my music collection.

Everything's converted to 320 CBR / normal stereo.

Had I gone with FLAC or anything else the total footprint would've been too-high-to-justify.

Been really happy with these settings since 2011. I refuse to use iTunes to execute the actual conversions of course; I hear HF loss and general "smearing" / lack of definition, probably because the boffins at Apple had to please the masses by finding a compromise between quality and speed of conversion.

[James Steele]

VBR is exactly that — 320 when it needs to be, 16 during silent passages and everything in between. There's no 320 VBR, 128 VBR or anything in between, only VBR.

I guess that’s what I didn’t understand. I thought the number, 320 for example, indicates the maximum rate that will be used but as you indicated it will be throttled back during less complex material or silence. So, by the same token there could be 192 VBR, where the maximum bit rate would be 192 and then throttled back from there if not needed, but it would never *exceed* 192. Whereas, 192 CBR would be using 192 even during silence which would be inefficient.

Maybe I have that totally wrong?

[monkey man]

That sounds about-right Jimbo.

AFAIK the VBR figure refers to the max rate.

The thought of VBR gives me the jitters (get it? Uugghh...) quite-frankly, which is why I've always stuck with CBR.

[EMRR]

Have been using -1 here.

Latest example: set for -1 in Izotope RX loudness, then use Gain to remove anything below 10Hz (think mp3 filters), peak level is now -0.7.