Can You Burn a 192 KBPS Audio CD with Mixed MP3 File Qualities?

[Nusc]

If you want to burn a 192 KBPS audio CD do all the .mp3 files have to be 192 KBPS? I use Nero and I burned a CD with all but one .mp3 that was 199 KBPS and thus I produced a CD that was 128 KBPS.

If not then how do you burn one?

Thanks

 

[thebored]

Quick Dirty Solution: Use a converter to convert the other mp3 to a 192KbPS mp3. It want hurt/help the quality, but maybe it'll stop it from pestering you.

But are you burning some sort of weird audio cd, or are you burning a regualr audio cd you can play in any cd player? If the latter, than you aren't burning a 192KbPS CD, its using a different codec with only one rate(much higher than 192, but without the compression), that the mp3 is being converted to.

 

[Nusc]

So how do I burn one?

 

[russ_watters]

I think he's trying to say that you most likely are burning normal cd's. There is no such thing as a 128 kbps or (kB/s) cd.

Fyi, lower-case "b" is bits, upper-case is bytes. CD's are encoded at about 150 kBytes per second and mp3s are encoded at 128, 160, 192, etc. kbits per second.

 

[Nusc]

Well there is a quality difference between a 128 KBPS .mp3 and a 192 KBPS .mp3. But when I play them in a CD player they are converted to 128 KBPS.

So essentially there is no point in burning a 192 KBPS .mp3 file onto a CD when it's converted to 128 KBPS anyway?

 

[russ_watters]

Well there is a quality difference between a 128 KBPS .mp3 and a 192 KBPS .mp3.

Yes, but there is only one type of cd and it is encoded at 150 kBps. This quality level is higher than any mp3, so you will not lose quality when burning an mp3 to cd.

But when I play them in a CD player they are converted to 128 KBPS.

No, cd players play them "raw" at 150 kBps. Since they are not compressed, cd's will have whatever quality level the mp3 they were burned from had.

So essentially there is no point in burning a 192 KBPS .mp3 file onto a CD when it's converted to 128 KBPS anyway?

No! Mp3s are converted from whatever bitrate mp3 they are to cd format at 150 kBps. They are not first downsampled to 128 kbps.

 

[Nusc]

Interesting, thanks.

 

[Curious3141]

I agree with Russ about the math of it. CDs essentially hold audio files encoded at a much higher bit rate than any compressed mp3 file. I think it's closer to 44.1 kHz sampling rate * 2 bytes/sample/track * 2 tracks (for stereo)= 176400 bytes/sec, but that's the same order of magnitude.

When you pop an audio CD into your computer drive, you'll find that the files are listed as .cda files This is Windows' way of representing the data, CDA standing for CD Audio. Those entries are not the files themselves, just pointers to locations on the CD, hence you cannot copy the .cda files directly to your HDD and expect to be able to play them back.

I know the theory of compression, and how you can never get back the "lost" quality and all. But I had a funny experience when I used to do this a long time ago. I used to use Adaptec/Roxio CD creator to burn .mp3s onto an audio CD. When I let the Adaptec wizard do the conversion automatically for me onto CD audio, I found the sound quality somehow poorer than when I did it manually using WinAmp's wave write module. The CDs I produced with the latter seemed to have a boomier, richer bass and more "power" (very subjective, I know, but there you go). So I continued to take the time to do that every time, just using the Adaptec to burn the wave files onto the CD.

Doesn't make a whole lot of sense since both conversions should just be filling in the "blanks" with null bits or something, but it did seem to make a difference which method I used. Can't explain it.

 

[russ_watters]

I know the theory of compression, and how you can never get back the "lost" quality and all. But I had a funny experience when I used to do this a long time ago. I used to use Adaptec/Roxio CD creator to burn .mp3s onto an audio CD. When I let the Adaptec wizard do the conversion automatically for me onto CD audio, I found the sound quality somehow poorer than when I did it manually using WinAmp's wave write module. The CDs I produced with the latter seemed to have a boomier, richer bass and more "power" (very subjective, I know, but there you go). So I continued to take the time to do that every time, just using the Adaptec to burn the wave files onto the CD.

The difference is that with winamp's wav writer you get the same sound as is being sent to your speaker - meaning it goes through the winamp pre-amp and graphic equalizer.

 

[Curious3141]

The difference is that with winamp's wav writer you get the same sound as is being sent to your speaker - meaning it goes through the winamp pre-amp and graphic equalizer.

Yes, that would explain the subjective difference in quality.