Re: [ARSCLIST] MP3 bit rates and usage factors for Web pages

[Tom Fine <tflists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

OK, here are some more reference points.

1. this archive -- aside from having a LOT of interesting content -- has
mostly 96k MP3's. I thought they were fine for voice, even for the
produced-this-year interviews.
http://www.albany.edu/talkinghistory/arch2005jan-june.html
So minor artifacts but nothing terrible. The archival stuff, particularly
from transcriptions, also sounds OK. Of particular interest to our Canadian
friends: the January 6 show at the bottom. Prime Minister King's address was
very eloquent indeed! I wish they had the whole CBC drama instead of an
excerpt. It sounded like a good listen. Also of great interest to me was the
snippet of Fred W. Friendly's testimony to the FCC because he put a number
on the episodes of "Hear It Now" -- 27 or 28.

2. the productions on this site:
http://www.transom.org/index.php
vary in quality.
Here's a show my friend Mark Moran did:
http://www.transom.org/shows/2001/200104.shows.carriesletters.mmoran.html
this was put up at 64K MP3. Problems with "s" and also the air in the breath
sounds somewhat strange but the words are definitely audible and there's
little or no digi-swish around the speech.
Another show, which includes music and speech:
http://www.transom.org/shows/2003/200305.trynin.html
put up at 96K. I thought the audio was pretty darn good on this one, with
the voice being very clear and the music being punchy enough to get through
and not much if any digi-swish.

3. The AES has a very informative and useful CD-ROM out, "Perceptual Audio
Encoders: What to Listen For."
http://www.aes.org/publications/AudioCoding.cfm
this puts words and reasons behind what's wrong with a lot of super-crushed
files. If you know what to avoid and how it happens, you can experiment with
your encoder to find the best balance between file size and audio quality.

Hope this is helpful. I very much enjoyed going on an MP3 listening spree
this evening.

-- Tom Fine