Question bout mp3 and blah

[abu_has_the_power]

i just bought one of these babies: Iriver H320

and i'm transfering my entire music collection to this thing. i have a few questions

1. most of my music are encoded @ 320 kb/s. how much better is it compared to say 192kb/s or 128kb/s?? other than that it takes a hell of a lot of space

2. I have bout 1 gig of classical music at 320kb/s. is that good or bad? should i just re-encode them down to 192 or soemthing?

3. If I re-encode all my mp3's down to 192 ish, is there a software that can do that quickly? the iriver i bought is like a portable hdd. so it doesn't come with encoding software or anything like that (drag and drop in regular windows explorer)

[Skillian]

It all depends on your ears really. Convert a couple of tracks to 192 VBR and see what you think. Personally I can't tell a big difference between 320 and 192, but I wouldn't go any lower than that.

Personally I'd keep the classical stuff at a higher bitrate - it tends to use a wider frequency spectrum than pop music and suffers more from compression.

http://www.dbpoweramp.com/ does a job job of converting between bitrates and is nice and easy to use, but there's a lot of software out there for that and you'll probably get a few other suggestions.

[abu_has_the_power]

i used Advanced Mp3 converter. is db converter better?

[Skillian]

Well they both use Lame so that's a good thing.

Dunno though really, I used dbPowerAmp and liked it so stuck with it, haven't really used a lot of other programs.

dbPowerAmp does have a reputation for being fast though.

[abu_has_the_power]

does the mp3 player i bought (the iriver h320) play vbr mp3's?

[abu_has_the_power]

does the mp3 player i bought (the iriver h320) play vbr mp3's?

anyone?

[Tifosi]

does the mp3 player i bought (the iriver h320) play vbr mp3's?

Only one way to find out

[Afronaut]

Keep in mind that encoding from 320kb down to 192kb is not the same as
encoding from wav to 192kb.

I dont know how much difference there is since I dont re-encode files.

The best judgement for what rate you like your files is your own ears.
Do some testing on a quiet evening, encode different type of songs to different
rates and just listen.

[abu_has_the_power]

Keep in mind that encoding from 320kb down to 192kb is not the same as
encoding from wav to 192kb.

I dont know how much difference there is since I dont re-encode files.

The best judgement for what rate you like your files is your own ears.
Do some testing on a quiet evening, encode different type of songs to different
rates and just listen.

done that. the only difference i notice is that the 320kb mp3's are a bit deeper and louder. but how much of a difference would that make when played through headphones??

[Afronaut]

I dinno man, I got a lot of stuff at 192kb here,
but I still wouldnt re-encode or delete the 320kb files.
If the space is really an issue, I would probably DL
the 192kb versions of my favorites or something...

You just have to make a decicion what is more important,
size or quality.
The loudness is not really a problem, if you got the
volume-button nearby.