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DATA
COMPRESSION |
mp3 Encoding Examples
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DATA
COMPRESSION |
ENCODING BITRATE
Size reduction
Satie Piano
Waves on beach
Stormy beach
Original
256 kbps
19%
192 kbps
14%
128 kbps
9.3%
96 kbps
7%
64 kbps
4.7%
48 kbps
3.5%
The degradation of the sound becomes quite noticeable at and below the 128 encoding bitrate. This is largely because the sounds chosen are not what the encoding is normally used for. The sustained piano resonances in the Satie, the delicate, high frequency components of the waves, and the broadband textures of the stormy beach, are quite vulnerable to this kind of data reduction, even though the sound remains recognizable. However, given the significant reduction in size of the original, it is easy to see the original advantage of the format. With digital transfer rates getting faster, though, these compressed formats are less necessary.
Source: piano (Barry Truax); waves: Vancouver Soundscape 1973, track 1
Reference: J. Sterne, MP3: The Meaning of a Format, Duke University Press, 2012.