[Music] So why did MP3 become the most popular format?

[Sinistriel]

My wife and I own a recording label and have had this pet peeve for a very long time. I detest mp3s. They just sound terrible compared to beautiful lossless formats. If people could listen to studio masters before any sort of conversion they would be blown away at the difference that exists. Even untrained people in the studio can tell a large difference from the crisp beautiful highs and sharp lows. To me an mp3 is like smearing a thin layer of mud on a window....yes you may still be able to see out of it...but it is dull.

[Deleted]

this reminds me of video format, where we're still using .avi's over the MUCH better .mp4 or the godly .mkv

*.mkv is a container, not a video format, where you can have one video format, with one audio codec and with embeded legends.

[Xuvial]

Alright, here are my findings: My MP3 encoder sucked balls.
MP3 sounds more or less just as good as the converted WMA and WAV files but it's still around ~40% larger than the WMA equivalent.

: /

[semaphore]

Alright, here are my findings: My MP3 encoder sucked balls.
MP3 sounds more or less just as good as the converted WMA and WAV files but it's still around ~40% larger than the WMA equivalent.

: /

You should try them at the same bitrate and/or VBR. I doubt you'll actually be able to hear a difference between WMA and MP3 even when they are the same size. AAC should beat them both, if you use a proper encoder like say Nero or Itunes, and if you used a good setting. Also the point of AAC is that its good quality at a low bitrate, so using max bitrates like you did in the OP will kinda defeat the point.

BTW, why are you converting to WAV anyway? You do realise that uncompressed PCM is the same as FLAC right? That's the whole point of a lossless codec.

[Marooned]

Its all about licenses...

[Xuvial]

He needs studio headphones with flat frequency response. Not sure if these sennheisers are, googled them, it just says they have phat bass.

BTW, why are you converting to WAV anyway? You do realise that uncompressed PCM is the same as FLAC right? That's the whole point of a lossless codec.

I didn't mention WAV in there :P in my original post it was just for comparison purposes.

[Phobiosa]

I've always been interested in audio and what sounds better than what, so on and so forth. Alas, it all means nothing due to having ears that have suffered so many infections by now that any subtle nuances in music is lost on me. =P

[semaphore]

in my original post it was just for comparison purposes.

Yeah that's what I meant lol. It's exactly the same as FLAC, which is just compressed PCM.

[Deleted]

http://graphs.headphone.com/graphCompare.php?graphType=0&graphID[]=2861

Well, compared to my headphones, which are labelled as monitoring(studio) headphones, yours are pretty similar, so I guess they're neutral.

[Asera]

So why did MP3 become the most favored format around the world?
My guess is probably the same reason QWERTY became the most popular keyboard layout.

Mostly correct, QWERTY was designed originally to keep typewriter heads from jamming. Typewriters took off in popularity for creating documents, etc. Carried over to computers fairly easily and no one felt the need to relearn DVORAK just because there are no heads to jam anymore. What sealed the deal is every program having keyboard shortcuts more accessible on a QWERTY layout (undo, cut, copy, paste, select all, etc). DVORAK literally has no chance to overtake QWERTY, despite being superior for full stroke typing.

Why MP3 took off? It was built on a foundation that had been present in desktop computer systems for a long, long time. MPEG. Every other format came out later, and ones that didn't were plagued with licensing restrictions and no one could use them as openly as the MP3 could.

QWERTY keyboard was intentionally designed to help build strength in the fingers of the people who used typewriters. Just saying...

Yes, create lopsided strength in your left hand and unevenness through the fingers.

QWERTY was not designed to do that.

Alright, here are my findings: My MP3 encoder sucked balls.
MP3 sounds more or less just as good as the converted WMA and WAV files but it's still around ~40% larger than the WMA equivalent.

: /

Which, considering the DRM in WMA files, and lack of playback support for WMA abroad, the 40% increased size is well worth it.

[Diaxx]

this reminds me of video format, where we're still using .avi's over the MUCH better .mp4 or the godly .mkv
The most likely reason? Well if memory serves, the two competing audio filetypes in the early 90's were .mp3 and .wav. Why did .mp3 win out? Well you try moving a .wav over the internet back then.

Give it time and we'll most likely completely move to .aac for sharing and .flac for quality. It just takes time for the entire community to get onboard.

If only popular video players supported .mkvs without spending 4 hours installing plugins.

[semaphore]

If only popular video players supported .mkvs without spending 4 hours installing plugins.

>_> What video players are you using? MPC at least supports MKV straight out of the zip file. For the others it's just a quick download/install.

[Sensei_Sin]

Yes, create lopsided strength in your left hand and unevenness through the fingers.

QWERTY was not designed to do that.

My QWERTY gives me the strength to kill dragons.

Seriously though, I had heard what Asera said before and I think it's the truth too.

Which, considering the DRM in WMA files, and lack of playback support for WMA abroad, the 40% increased size is well worth it.

Exactly right! I mean, using WMA on non-Microsoft technology was hard and it still isn't very straight forward and MP3 is just much more malleable on which platforms use it.

[TheDesertDragon]

Try OGG Vorbis. It's even better. It sounds fucking amazing and takes like 1/3rd of the space that MP3 does. It's even smaller than AAC. It's used by for example Spotify.

And even better: It's free software! Every Linux nerd and "anti-software-patent"-ist on the planet will love you for it. Me included.

But no, I'm not biased. OGG Vorbis is amazing, no question.

[dlouhys]

So why did MP3 become the most favored format around the world?
My guess is probably the same reason QWERTY became the most popular keyboard layout.

Take a look at when MP3 took off and compare it to the size:cost ratio of storage at the time. Then take into account that 90% of the user base isn't hearing the difference for the reasons you listed.

[Veyne]

It's been known that MP3 is a pretty lossy compression. However, simply being MP3 doesn't automatically make it inferior. I've heard some very, very well produced MP3s in my lifetime. But the reason why MP3 is the standard is probably because 10 years ago, when portable MP3 players starting becoming popular, MP3 was likely the better of the formats at that small of a compressed size. So they caught on. For the longest time, devices couldn't play anything other than MP3, and that perpetuated it even further. Luckily, most decent audio devices (hell, probably even iPods) can play a wide variety of audio file formats, so it's largely irrelevant and becomes more of a matter of how the hardware of the device processes the sound.

But it's sort of like asking why Jpegs are so much more popular than other file formats when you can get less lossy image compression in other file formats nowadays without huge differences in file size.

[skrump]

I remember back in the early days of the mp3 format when 128k was considered "Near cd quality" and the geeks were all saying the human ear cannot hear the additional sounds from 160k+.

I do tend to stick with mp3 though considering just about every device made in the last 15 years fully supports it.

Either way If Itunes gave me the option to download my music onto my ipod as a decent format without all the bullshit security that comes with Wma I would, until then I am stuck with mp3 or stuck buying cd's that only have 1-2 songs I like.

[semaphore]

I remember back in the early days of the mp3 format when 128k was considered "Near cd quality" and the geeks were all saying the human ear cannot hear the additional sounds from 160k+.

Who said that? IIRC 192k was the magical sweet spot where MP3 becomes almost transparent, though.

Either way If Itunes gave me the option to download my music onto my ipod as a decent format without all the bullshit security that comes with Wma I would, until then I am stuck with mp3 or stuck buying cd's that only have 1-2 songs I like.

Actually you can burn the songs you downloaded onto a CD, and then rip it back with itunes, to remove the security on AAC (I don't think iTunes ever used WMA). Also, didn't Apple introduced a DRM-less scheme for some iTunes songs?

[Badpaladin]

He copy-pasted a troll post from head-fi forum:
http://www.head-fi.org/t/451369/why-flac-is-better

Just read the thread.

Hey, look at that. Took care of it.

[vesseblah]

A FLAC file was taken and converted into the highest bit-rates available in other common'ish formats - 320k MP3, 192k WMA, 155k AAC and 1536k WAV. Keep in mind that bit-rates are largely irrelevant after 192kbps onwards, after that it's all up to how the format handles things.
The conversion program used was Total Audio Converter v3.0.88, one of the best as far as home use goes (sorry I don't own a studio powered by Apple computers :P).

After literally an hour of listening to that song in different formats, I concluded this:

1) FLAC = WMA = AAC = WAV

Total Audio Converter is a decent program with countless others like it. If you known of one which does the job "better" please recommend it to me.

Can anyone recommend me a solid program that can reliably convert FLAC to MP3? And don't just Google it, recommend it from experience :P because my MP3 encoder could possibly be doing a terrible job. I'll be happy to test.

That's the reason why people use known good encoders like LAME for mp3 instead of somethingwhatever you pulled out of hat. "Decently" is not enough if you want to present absolute truths like that.

They were ripped at 48khz sample rate, the highest available for me : /
Considering the card supports sample rates up to 192khz, I'd really like to get my hands on something running at that rate for comparison purposes :P

Ripped from what and how at 48KHz?

WMA and AAC literally beat the SHIT out of MP3 in in every way (compression and quality). All MP3 players can play WMA files, it's been around for a very long time. iTunes converts WMA into AAC and both sound exactly the same i.e. excellent, so don't give me that "cuz ppl wanna listen on portable devices" reason.

So why did MP3 become the most favored format around the world?

Because mp3 decoding can be done on simpler hardware. Playing WMA or AAC files literally needs 10x more expensive chip running the hardware player in your pocket. Not 10x more expensive device, but the processor, which in turn can increase the price of the player by $15 for example, which will show in market shares.

I know I'm a bit late to the show, but after skimming over all the graphs and articles and what-nots I decided to do a small test of my own (now that I finally own a semi-decent pair of cans and a sound card).

You should have read the articles bit more thoroughly, especially the section that discusses testing methodology. How these things should be actually tested is something like this:

1) Use actually high quality source, not "I sampled this from whatever using whatever hardware". Something like digitally ripped 24bit 192KHz SACD. These can be obtained in various ways since most people do not actually have SACD player available. Also make sure from reviews that the source disc used was good and not a flawed recording in any way. This might need to be downsampled to something like 48KHz 16bit for all of the encoders to handle it correctly.
2) Use all popular and most highly rated encoders in the test. Like for example produce mp3 file using winamp, iTunes, Total Audio Converter, LAME etc. Make sure to get the right versions, for LAME for example not the newest but the previous version is considered to be the best one.
3) Use many settings on all encoders, like for example WMA lossless vs WMA 192kkbps vs WMA 128Kbps etc
4) Decode all files back to WAV
5) Have some friend rename all the WAV files into random garbage and write down what the files originally were
6) Now that you have 20-40 WAV files of identical size, listen through all of them and rank them in order from best to worst ("bubble sort" is good way to do it... compare two files and choose which one of those is better, then compare the best file against next random one etc)
7) Ask your friend to rename the WAV files back to the originals to get the real results out of your listening test

Steps 2-3 are required to eliminate out issues like you had with poor quality mp3 encoder mentioned above. So for example if you would rate mp3 produced by lame best and mp3 produced by iTunes worst with same 320kbit rate, it would mean there's something wrong with iTunes.

Step 4 is required to eliminate all playback issues like equalizer settings.

Steps 5-7 is the so-called "double blind test" where you can not be affected by subjective things like "oh it's mp3, it must be shit" and you can actually rate the encoders in objective way.