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What does your bit rate say about you?

By Nate Lanxon on 24 May 2007

What's a bit rate?

In essence, a measure of how many bits describes each sound in an audio file. A low bit rate means lower quality and a smaller file size, while a high bit rate means better quality and larger files. The standard bit rate is 128 kbps.
Check out our comprehensive guide to digital audio acronyms.

commentary All the music on your MP3 player is encoded at a certain bit rate, which determines both the audio quality and how much space it takes up. What does your preferred bit rate say about you?

What kind of a digital music user are you? Were you part of the original Napster revolution? Or are you in your 50s and prefer huge audio files in order to preserve the clarity and feeling of Mark Knopfler's fret-fondling?

Whatever bit rate you choose, you might not be able to help what your choice says about you. Let's dive in at the shallow end.

128kbps
You probably don't know the bit rate at which your music is encoded -- this is the default iTunes rate -- and it seems good to you. You're probably happy with the headphones that came with your MP3 player. But you may have started downloading free music back when Napster was in its original illegal P2P form, and you may currently be a Limewire user, having never heard of or felt the need to understand BitTorrent. You don't see the advantage in hard-disk-based MP3 players and wouldn't know what to listen out for when offered an album encoded in lossless format. You're perfectly happy with having a 2GB MP3 player or an iPod Shuffle. You're unlikely to own a large library of CDs.

160/192kbps
You're likely to have jumped on the bandwagon of the original illegal version of Napster, but have since discovered that higher bit rates are preferable and you utilise free MP3 encoding tools. You own an average number of CDs and may have spent up to AU$60 on a pair of headphones, realising that superior hardware can enhance your music-listening experience as much as a higher bit rate. You're possibly a musician or you may have done a music course. As a drummer, for example, you may notice the brightness of cymbals is greater at 192kbps, but you can't see the point in using a bit rate that pushes the average file size over 6MB per track.

256kbps
If you listen to 256kbps (which is variable bit rate MP3s often average out at), you're a closet audiophile and would rather spend more money on a hard-disk-based MP3 player than have either low-quality music or carry only a portion of your music with you. You're likely to own a large collection of CDs but you're the most likely to use BitTorrent to acquire the majority of your albums. You don't have many miscellaneous tracks hanging around in your music library and you owned an iPod mini or 1-4GB MP3 player in the past. You're excited to hear brighter guitars, deeper bass and more defined audible complexities. You don't listen to much classical music.

However, you wouldn't purchase a CD of an album you've already downloaded from BitTorrent just to hear music at a higher quality unless you pro-actively decide to support the band you love. You won't re-rip the CD you buy, deciding instead to leave it untouched in your CD rack. You also ensure your music's ID3 tags are complete, though you don't much care about details such as year of release.

320kbps
You thrive on high-quality music and you actively listen out for the tell-tale signs of high bit rates. You are likely to have downloaded some music from BitTorrent but you mainly buy CDs, ripping them yourself. You don't use Limewire for downloading music. You may well have your PC plugged into a hi-fi, or you own an iPod and use a good quality dock to connect it to your sound system. You know what lossless music is, but you possibly can't justify re-ripping your music library due to the storage constraints of lossless audio. You're quite likely to be a Mac user and have considered using Linux on a secondary computer. Your headphones cost at least AU$125 and you own, or are considering owning, an HDTV. Your laptop cost at least AU$2,500. You don't buy music from iTunes because you are aware of how low quality the music is. You are likely to use eMusic and you like mostly rock music. You subscribe to at least two technology podcasts and you were born after 1978.

Lossless (FLAC or Apple Lossless)
You are most likely to be born before 1978. You are the most likely group to be a Mac user and your headphones cost in excess of AU$150, possibly made by Shure, Sennheiser or Ultimate Ears. You own a fifth-gen video iPod and an HDTV. Your laptop cost at least AU$2,500 and you consider yourself a cinema fan. You are the least likely to download music illegally, instead preferring to own a huge CD library. You're highly likely to be a musician and own at least one book about either quantum mechanics, philosophy or psychology. Your mobile phone bill is considerably higher than average and you may work in the technology industry.

You're depressed when you see people on the train using their MP3 player's bundled headphones and you probably listen to technology podcasts. You may well know the bit rate your podcasts are encoded at. You used Napster back in the day, but you never stopped buying CDs. You use Limewire or BitTorrent to occasionally sample an album, but you always buy the CD if you like what you hear.

Conclusion or Confusion?
Maybe you've just found yourself falling into the chasm of predictability, a victim of bit rate cliche. Or perhaps you've been left with a feeling of dissatisfaction, reading that your freakish or implacable choices of music compression (or lack of) are too erratic to earn yourself placement in such a pigeon-hole.

Whatever your situation, let us know in the comments below what your choice of bit rate says about you, and whether our crystal ball was too cloudy?

Topics: bitrate, mp3, wma, bit rate, bit, rate, music, likely, bittorrent, lossless

• CNET's glossary of music terms

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  Anonymous commented on 24/06/2009 16:52 Report abuse

  I rip CD's in lossless and I download in 320kbps, however I don't own a personal CD collection because I prefer vinyl.

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  Bass Man commented on 24/04/2009 04:15 Report abuse

  You couldn't be more wrong. To the unknowning reader, this article appears to be written by an expert; however far from it! Don't let this idiot fool or define you. I was born in 1977. So, you're immediately worng there, chump. And, I don't need to spend that much on a good laptop. That's what stupid people (like this autor) would think. And, I don't own a MAC, I'm not a self-righteous douche bag.

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  saintsaetia commented on 23/06/2008 13:59 Report abuse

  haha this is complete bullshit. i fit all your "requirements" for 320kbps but most of my music is at 128-192. suck it

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  Peter G commented on 05/10/2007 12:17 Report abuse

  Hmmm... I would have thought real audiophiles wouldn't listen to compressed music at all... The types of people that only buy European brands, have spikes on their speakers and probably have a valve amplifier, or want one. Still, since I'm only listening to my music from an iPod and some Sennheiser earphones, I'll be quite content sitting in the 128kbps group... 320 if I'm feeling luxurious. Oh, and people who can afford expensive audio equipment are probably driving around in an expensive car, instead of catching the train. It's only one person's opinion people, don't forget that

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  HungryJonas commented on 03/09/2007 15:23 Report abuse

  What a massive load of dayglo bs, this is yet another one of those "I'll make up a whole bunch of stuff, and just so long as I maintain a reasonable degree of proper spelling and punctuation I should be able to wow a bunch of people with my smoke and mirrors act - facts be damned!" type articles that so litter the net these days. Where's your evidence to back up any of this conjecture? In fact where is anything at all to support anything you write here? Yeah, that's what I thought. I look forward to your next 'cutting edge' article "what the colour of your socks says about your sex life"...

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  User_from_UA commented on 29/08/2007 23:50 Report abuse

  Ha-ha... what a simple tag sticking... I don't have a laptop at all, but thanks to NNM.ru and Rapidshare i got used to only 320 kbps and higher:) And to watch HDTV rips I use my one and only PC with awesome 22" CRT. For me HD DVD and BluRay are just a way to pack 3-5 DVDs into one:) No need to buy expesive licenses, warez rulez!

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  Mr Ed commented on 13/08/2007 13:52 Report abuse

  Actually, there are only 2 types - those who can tolerate the seriously foul sound of MP3 encoding, and the wiser people who use Sony's infinitely superior ATRAC3 compression. If you have not heard the difference you will not understand this point. ATRAC3 at 64Kb compression produces tiny files with incredible sound clarity and dynamics - far superior to MP3 at 320k!

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  timbo commented on 04/08/2007 23:23 Report abuse

  yeh that crystal ball must a been a bit cloudy cause i dont really fall into any of the catogries.... mainly because im a poor student i have a computer with a 10 gig hard drive. a 20 gig creative zen touch that is overflowed. and slow dial up so i am always looking to download my music at 128kbps.... hopefully all this will all change soon when i purchase a new comp and get adsl2 and a 80gig ipod or something similar... im hoping to stick with creative cause ive had mine for 3yrs and its always been pretty good to me and the battery is still going pretty strong(ive been through about 4 sets of earphones and am currently usin some sennhieser mx-51s theyr pretty good for cheap) .... but if i had the chance id want atleast 256kbps for reasonable audio quality... also soulseek treats me pretty well with heaps of good quality music downloads at a reasonable price on my budget

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  baumaxx1 commented on 06/07/2007 12:03 Report abuse

  Lol, how true... But I don't fit in any of those... Where's the 1.4 Mbps club? "You thrive on high-quality music and you actively listen out for the tell-tale signs of high bit rates" Yes "You own a fifth-gen video iPod" No way! Zen Vision: M "You don't buy music from iTunes because you are aware of how low quality the music is." Yes "You are most likely to be born before 1978" No "You are the most likely group to be a Mac user " Nah... The suck for gaming. "your headphones cost in excess of AU$150, possibly made by Shure, Sennheiser or Ultimate Ears. " Sonys, but I want to get newer Sennheisers. "and an HDTV" Pioneer Plasma "Your laptop cost at least AU$2,500" Laptops suck for gaming. My PC cost at least $2500 when new... not to mention the upgrades "and you consider yourself a cinema fan." Prefer gaming. "own at least one book about either quantum mechanics, " lol! Yeah... "Your mobile phone bill is considerably higher than average" Nope "you may work in the technology industry." =-) "You're depressed when you see people on the train using their MP3 player's bundled headphones " Especially if they have 20 free Gb on their mp3 player. "You use Limewire or BitTorrent to occasionally sample an album, but you always buy the CD if you like what you hear." True So that means I'm a freak right?

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  pgpete commented on 11/06/2007 11:51 Report abuse

  yes, but what about me, I still have cassettes kicking around ..... :)