Music is the soul of our lives. A common trait amongst all of us Distracted Students is that every week we check the BillBoard for new hot songs that have been released. And, gone are those days when people used to buy album cassettes. Now, there is Internet. Who spends an extra penny on songs? Well, I don’t. And, as soon as I visit the website to download the song, one thing boggles me every time. Which download option should I choose? 128kbps or 320kbps? What is this play of audio bitrates? Most of us must have crossed through this. But, we don’t bother and click the link of 128kbps for quicker downloads neglecting the audio bitrates because 320kbps is larger in size.
First of all, 128kbps or 320kbps are called the audio Bitrates of the song. The classical definition of audio bitrate would be ‘the quantity of data processed in a certain span of time’. So, 320kbps means that 320kilobits of data is contained in each second of that song. That explains the difference in sizes. Audio CDs have song of higher audio bitrates. Literally, you have 14 to 16 songs in one disc. But, that becomes a huge problem when you have an iPod of 4GB. So, you compress it to a smaller size, decreasing its audio bitrate in the process.
Why should you keep songs of higher bitrate?
The answer to this question will be according to your needs. If you don’t have storage problems, it is always better to have a song that has higher audio bitrate. The reason is that songs that have high audio bitrate would be clearer in details of highs and lows when you will hear them on a good quality speakers or headphones. The thing is by compressing the song, you basically loose data. While the major aspects of the song are kept intact in the process, some audio info is lost or you can say, the minute details are removed when audio bitrate is decreased. That is why when the song is played on a good quality gear, a 320kbps song has better clarity. This difference is not noticeable on small bad quality earphones. It will be only observed when you play it out loud or when the genre is classical or maybe jazz. Also, only a trained pair of ears will be able to make out the difference. So, the choice is yours. Higher audio bitrate, according to a common misbelief doesn’t soothe your ears. As far as iPod goes, it’s always better to keep more songs. So, go for 128kbps audio bitrate without a doubt.
128 kbps vs 320 kbps..What’s the difference? | Distracted Students