Stereo or Joint Stereo? 44100 or 48000?

I've been using LAME and I'm wondering if I should do everything in Stereo, Joint Stereo, or if it depends on the soundtrack.

Obviously, 320 Kbps is what I want for best quality.

Also, should I do everything at 44100 Khz or 48000, or will LAME even let me decide? I'm wondering how that factors into quality, if at all.

Responses will be greatly appreciated.

Joint Stereo is what you call it when the same sound comes out of both speakers. It's like monaural multiplied by two. It sucks, go with stereo. With regards to sample rate, CD audio is recorded at a sample rate of 44.1Khz, so going above that will not bring better results unless you have a source which is better than CD audio.

320Kbps is nothing short of a waste of your disk space. If you're going to go that high, you might as well just start using a lossless format anyway.

As much as I realize 320 Kbps really isn't noticable, I haven't heard anybody tell me the point where it IS noticable. Some people claim "I can hear artifacts all the way up to 256 Kpbs!" I could have sworn somebody on these boards set that, actually. So I just go with 320 because then nobody can argue that this is a perfect rip.

I don't like lossless formats, they're a pain in the ass.

And thanks for the info on the stereo thing, especially since I was actually going to go with joint just because it sounded cooler.

KHz I'll just leave alone.

Originally Posted by Soluzar

Joint Stereo is what you call it when the same sound comes out of both speakers. It's like monaural multiplied by two. It sucks, go with stereo.

Wow, that's just plain wrong! Think of Joint Stereo as a way to encode the stereo signal losslessly. It fully preserves the stereo channel information! Full Stereo encodes both channels seperately, thus reducing the effective bitrate of the encoded material. So using the same bitrate, a JS encoded file will sound superior to a FS encoded one.

LAME's method of encoding Joint Stereo is superior to Full Stereo with virtually any material. That's why knowledgable people usually suggest using Joint Stereo over Stereo (at least when encoding with LAME) any time.

The way JS does it is to fully encode one channel while the other is just a difference. Since most music will appear to be the same on most recordings for both channels the difference should be negligible hence less data. JS should use more CPU time to decod,e however that's a non issue nowadays.

The LAME authors have already stated that there is no quality hit when using Joint Stereo. In fact, regular Stereo may sound worse then JS because you are encoding both channels seperatly.

Just use LAME 3.97b2 with the commandline "-V 0 --vbrnew". It's the top quality VBR. You won't hear any difference between that and 320kbps cbr.

And you don't need to worry about the sampling rate, just use whatever the original files were.

I beg your pardon. I was going on what I had read, and I can't apologise enough. Since reading your responses, I've found further information that confirms what you are all saying. It does seem to be a popular myth that Joint Stereo is exactly what I said, but it's not apparently true. I've even conducted my own test.

In answer to your other question, I find that with MP3, 192kbs is about as good as it gets. Above that, I'd rather use lossless.

Good to see that's settled.

About the sampling rate (kHz). It's best to keep the same sampling rate when encoding. Meaning, if your source is 32kHz, then encode to 32kHz. If it's 48kHz, then encode to 48kHz.

Or you can take compatibility into consideration. In that case you would want to indiscriminately encode everything at 44.1kHz. That way old/crappy MP3 players can play the MP3's.

http://flac.sourceforge.net/documentation.html
Look under 'INTER-CHANNEL DECORRELATION' -> Joint-Stereo is in general a lossy process. It can be lossless, but only when Middle/Side-Stereo encoding is meaned by Joint-Stereo. In case of the the 'intensify stereo' algorithm phase information is lost during the encoding process. If thats audible is another question, but in general joint-stereo is not lossless.

cya
liquid

Originally Posted by LiquidAcid

http://flac.sourceforge.net/documentation.html
Look under 'INTER-CHANNEL DECORRELATION' -> Joint-Stereo is in general a lossy process. It can be lossless, but only when Middle/Side-Stereo encoding is meaned by Joint-Stereo. In case of the the 'intensify stereo' algorithm phase information is lost during the encoding process. If thats audible is another question, but in general joint-stereo is not lossless.

cya
liquid

LAME is lossy by nature as it is a mp3 encoder. The point is that joint stereo is more effective compression and saves bandwith, yielding higher quality audio. Similarly to how ABR 128kbps will sound better then CBR 128kbps, because you are using more effective compression. It's used in the -V system for a reason.

From the lame docs:

Quote:

joint stereo
In this mode, the encoder will make use of correlation between both channels. The signal will be matrixed into a sum ("mid"), computed by L+R, and difference ("side") signal, computed by L-R, and more bits are allocated to the mid channel.
This will effectively increase the bandwidth if the signal does not have too much stereo separation, thus giving a significant gain in encoding quality. In joint stereo, the encoder can select between Left/Right and Mid/Side representation on a frame basis.

Using mid/side stereo inappropriately can result in audible compression artifacts. To much switching between mid/side and regular stereo can also sound bad. To determine when to switch to mid/side stereo, LAME uses a much more sophisticated algorithm than that described in the ISO documentation, and thus is safe to use in joint stereo mode.

Originally Posted by evilboris

LAME is lossy by nature as it is a mp3 encoder.

I wasn't talking about LAME, wasn't I? I was talking about the term joint-stereo in general. That LAME/(every other mp3 codec) is always lossy should be clear to everyone that listens to music on his computer.

Originally Posted by evilboris

The point is that joint stereo is more effective compression and saves bandwith, yielding higher quality audio.

I didn't doubt this. But you should add that efficiency is decreased if the channels don't correlate much (normally they do).

Originally Posted by evilboris

From the lame docs:

I know the LAME codec and that it is using the Middle/Side-type of joint-stereo. But this process doesn't introduce artifacts (and therefore is completly reversible). What degrades quality is the quantization of the resulting bitstreams (different amount of bits are allocated).

Wow, lots and lots of replies, thanks all.

It's all right for the mistake, Soluzar, I hadn't started yet. Good thing I came back here before I did. Also, my Ephemeral Fantasia rips are all mystically ending up on Joint Stereo by default so I guess that's a good thing.

And since most everything is 44100 KHz anyway, I guess I don't have to worry about that too much. Although come to think of it, Unreal Tournament is, for some strange reason, in 48000 KHz, now that I look at Winamp. But oh well. Thanks for the help in achieving ultimate quality.

Originally Posted by Trench

And since most everything is 44100 KHz anyway, I guess I don't have to worry about that too much. Although come to think of it, Unreal Tournament is, for some strange reason, in 48000 KHz, now that I look at Winamp.

Hmm, well, to be honest, I'd expect a lot of VGM to be at 48kHz these days. And older VGM could be anything. The only thing I'd ever really count on being 44.1kHz is CD-audio.

Looks like you're doing good for yourself.

Hey you are ripping Ephemeral Fantasia too????? I ripped it a while ago. Glad to see someone else likes the music as much as I do because virtually noone knows about the game. If you can make a rip in joint stereo I would be interested in checking it out to hear the difference since mine is just in regular stereo.

I use vbr-new with a forced stereo. First, joint-stereo uses a single channel. Have it at you will, but the other channel only "echo's" the single original one. vbr solves all of the problems with file size compression because it naturally tries to find the suitable bitrate for each second of the song.

Thus, stereo remains higher quality in this case. Also, the truth is, if you use any mixing or effects on your sound card (usually higher quality ones), stereo will end up sounding better because it keeps the original CD's data the same (except compression).

Originally Posted by arch_slayer

I use vbr-new with a forced stereo. First, joint-stereo uses a single channel. Have it at you will, but the other channel only "echo's" the single original one.

Wrong.

Quote:

Thus, stereo remains higher quality in this case. Also, the truth is, if you use any mixing or effects on your sound card (usually higher quality ones), stereo will end up sounding better because it keeps the original CD's data the same (except compression).

Also wrong.

Originally Posted by arch_slayer

Thus, stereo remains higher quality in this case.

Well, no. Did you even read the thread? Joint stereo does not use a single channel and seperate stereo is a waste of bandwidth (at least with Lame).

Originally Posted by garthvadr3

Hey you are ripping Ephemeral Fantasia too????? I ripped it a while ago. Glad to see someone else likes the music as much as I do because virtually noone knows about the game. If you can make a rip in joint stereo I would be interested in checking it out to hear the difference since mine is just in regular stereo.

This forum has a Private Message system. Use it.

Originally Posted by Soluzar

...I find that with MP3, 192kbs is about as good as it gets. Above that, I'd rather use lossless.

192k is certainly not as good as it gets. I had a rip of a score in 192k and played it almost every day for a long time. I got used to it and thought it sounded great. I then got the CD and did a re-rip using API. WOW. What a difference! A much better, clearly, fuller sound with more high-end and less artefacts.

192k still cuts off a lot of high end. If it was "as good as it gets", higher bitrate encoding wouldnt have been invented!