How many CDs can I put on a 1G MP3 player?

[tonus]

Hey,

My partner is going to India and I want to buy her an MP3 player and fill it full of music.

Does anyone have any idea how many CDs I can put on a 1Gig player?

Thanks!!

[Green Chemist]

Well if allow for each song to be 3 or 4 megs then you can fit about 300 songs on a 1 gig player. So about 15-20 cds. Hope this helps

Cheers

GC

[alkatrope]

^ Yep.

Note that file size changes with sound quality.

I have a 1gb player and I fit about 9 albums, but I always have bitrates between 200-250kbp/s.

You could probably get away with 128kbp/s quality. I don't use it because I'm a fussy bastard and like good quality music. At 128k you could probably fit the 15-20 albums as GC suggested.

Although I'd recommend 129kbp/s quality, whyich would give you 10-15 albums I'd guess.

Just depends whether you're after quality or quantity

[spiders]

quality isnt always a big issue, since most of the compressed formats like mp3 etc only usually take off the top end which in most tracks you will barely notice if at all. But some tracks do sound ordinary.

[alkatrope]

At 128k I definately notice it.. Though many don't seem to.

At 192k the quality loss isn't too bad for personal listening..

[Green Osiris]

Just depends whether you're after quality or quantity

I agree. So why MP3 at all ? It's a shithouse bastard as a reproduction format if you have your ears tuned in. And I say this not just from varying limewire rips, but also from my own max-bitrate burns from CD to MP3 via Soundforge and Wavelab studio-centric professional editing software.

Convenience is the only thing MP3 has going for it. To speak of 'quality' within the format is open to question....

[apothecary]

I don't know why you are so angry about it GO, using a lossy format and expecting lossless quality seems a bit silly to me.

Convenience is a broad brushstroke to paint, I consider stuff like pretty decent variable compression rates, sound quality that let's me listen to music on the bus, the high probability of mp3 remaining a supported format for many years to come, and the fact that my music collection has been entirely in mp3 format since 1998 the main factors for using it.

I guess you could call all of that 'convenience' if you liked

[alkatrope]

I disagree, GO.

A 320k rip compared to wav, I can tell no difference. Nor can most od everyone else I know.

An 18mb 320k mp3 compared to an 80-100mb wav, with pretty much no noticable quality loss - I think it's a pretty good compression.

[sobriquet]

I use lossless formats on my iPod for anything I've ripped and with the type of music I enjoy there's enough finnicky bastards out there who are similar and rip in lossless formats that I can download top notch stuff. Classical, jazz and flamenco in case anyone's wondering.

Disk space is cheap these days.

A five minute lossless Apple encoded file takes about 20 megs. The lossless formats are essentially interchangeable - so if you encode to APE or FLAC (other lossless) formats then you can convert to Apple lossless for iPod use.

I have the luxury of a 60 GB iPod though.

So here's a tip for the audio snobs. Instead of searching for "MP3" in your search lines of your favorite P2P programs like eMule or bittorrent. Try using the tags "APE" or "FLAC" or 'lossless' and you might be surprised to find a whole new world of audio downloading.

Essentially when you download the APE or FLAC and burn to CD you'll have a bit for bit copy of the original

[coin]

128kbs is absolute crap, i can always hear the difference...some tracks the artifacts are so obstrusive it's grating

what do people think of variable bitrate with mp3's?

[alkatrope]

Yeah I don't mind VBR MP3, most of the music I listen to is in that format and the quality isn't bad.

[occidentalis]

Yeah I don't mind VBR MP3, most of the music I listen to is in that format and the quality isn't bad.

Agreed - I hadn't heard of this until recently when I downloaded some tracks and noticed the bitrate was changing. Sounded good.

[naja naja]

I've found it has alot to do with the stereo and how u connect ur cd player to it. I have a pioneer 120w X 7 amp with bose 301 speakers. It has motorola 48bit dsp and i connect a sony DVD player to it via coax (digital) MP3's sound great, just as good as originals, but if I plug the dvd player in via L/R audio cables is sounds like absolute crud!!! because the dvd player is actually decoding the audio signal before it goes to the amp. By using coax digital connection, it send the signal RAW to ur amp and the amp does the decoding. My amps 3+ years old now, so I rekon they'd be even better now.

As for an MP3 player, creative Zens have a good sound, whereas the cheaper ones sound like crap. I will havta try this lossless and VAR. sounds promising.

Edited November 19, 2006 by naja naja

[faslimy]

320 kbps mp3's are heavenly

[tonus]

Thanks for food for thought and the ideas guys!

[Green Osiris]

My portable player is of better quality than my MP3 (or M4a) player, and it consists of a german made 'Dual' turntable housed in a 1inch thick oak box, twin vintage Acoustic Research cabinets, a Krell broadcast quality amplifier and four truck batteries running into a 220v converter. With this I only play 'first pressing' vinyl releases whilst sitting in a perspex bubble-carriage in which the monitors are mounted inside, whilst the rest of the gear trails alongside to reduce the temperature variance in my portable listening studio.

Of course I need three sherpas and a donkey to follow me around town, but it's still portable.

Hmmm, how convenient is that ?! BUt seriously:

My previous comment is from my experiences with blind-testing many MP3 vs 'original' CD & albums, using various software options, both amateur & professional, and listening through both mid-level audiophile gear and home studio set-ups. Not only myself but two others over a period of time presented results in the range of approx. 80% accuracy in picking the compressed data over the 'original source'. Of the other compression formats I have no such experience, thus I have not commented on anything other than MP3.

Surely I cannot be denied my own ears' experiences !

Whilst typing this, I must wonder if results may be varied dependant on the original material, ie; whether being traditional analogue recordings vs material in which was created digitally, with digital instruments ? Admittedly, most of our source material was rock/metal/blues/folk/jazz, both old and new.

Perhaps I shall try it with Shpongle and see how it fares.

As a footnote, it must be agreed that much of the limewire-style public downlaods are crap, owing to the CD 'owners' lack of care in reproducing their music for public domain. And for the vast majority of those who know no other way to source these higher quality reproductions as mentioned above, there is the very real risk that many people will only ever get to experience a band/artist in a less-than desirable audio quality.

[alkatrope]

I did a frequency spectrum analysis on the same segment of a track, but one in wave and the other in 320k mp3.

It showed a little compression mostly between 1-2khz, everything after 16khz was pretty much gone (not that there was much there to start with) and strangely it was higher in the 25-50hz region.

That doesn't relate to any post specifically, but someone might find it interesting..

I still stand that 320k mp3 and wav are close to identical, to the human ear.

[Green Osiris]

and the source material was.......?

[alkatrope]

A track from a CD called Psychedelically Yours 3.