What is the true kbps of an audio cd?

[yanosh]

What is the true kbps of an audio cd you buy from the store?
Is it 192, 320 or something else?

[khp]

Audio CD's contain uncompressed audio 44.1 khz 16 bit stereo.

So thats 44100*16*2 = 1411 kbps

[yanosh]

so the wave file is the true quality of a cd right?

then why when encoding it's written that 192 is cd quality and 128 is near cd quality and 320 is perfect quality?

[smiller667]

Those statements sort of indicate if the average user would notice any difference when listening to the same piece of audio, one time from a CD and the other time played back from a compressed file ...
Audio compression relies on a psycho-acoustic model to remove those bits of information from the original which are impossible (or less likely) to be heard by the audience. Depending on the amount of compression, audible artifacts will be introduced below certain bitrates (this also depends on the encoder used) - thus the terms "CD-like", "near-CD" etc.

[yanosh]

I understand but they still can't call 320kpbs a perfect quality.

[smiller667]

You can't simply say less bitrate, less quality ... What type of compression are you talking about? If it is plain stereo compressed using mp3 @320 kbps - there have been plenty of tests where people were not able to distinguish this from the original non-compressed material.

[theReal]

I understand but they still can't call 320kpbs a perfect quality.

It is perfect for what mp3 compression can achieve - that's why no mp3 encoder can encode at more than 320kbit.

btw. don't think that Audio CD is perfect. It is 44kHz, but hey, it could be 48kHz, some people might hear the difference. And then, it's only 16bit - every professional studio works with at least 24bit. I guess a good sound engineer or musician can easily hear the difference between 16 bit and 24 bit.

The most important question is always - what do I hear with my own ears and -not to forget- my limited equipment and listening surroundings. I don't have a completely soundproof and echo-free listening room with multi-million dollar equipment.
So "perfect sound" in my listening environment with my equipment has a much lower standard than in a professional studio.

[yanosh]

I referred to a cd as the "perfect quality" because for our matter it's the perfect quality.
That's the only source we get our mp3's from I guess and because of that it's our perfect pure untouched quality if you know what I mean.
If a cd from the store is 44KHz 16bit then the quality beyond that is not for us, the listeners, but for professionals who create cds.

And second thing, the equiment shouldn't be taken into account in my opinion since mp3's is something you collect and save for life so let's say 2 years from now you buy a monster music machine?
You can never know, so files should be copied at 192kpbs which is what I believe to be the "perfect quality" for the human ear.

[smok3]

I understand but they still can't call 320kpbs a perfect quality. thats not a perfect quality, thats waste of bitrate, so called transparency can be achived with lots of encoders with much lower bitrates, there are also lossles audio encoders like monkeys audio which can shrink into around 50% of the original size if u need bit identical file.

try http://www.hydrogenaudio.org

[Imjin]

You could consider a WAV a pretty much perfect reproduction of the CD media. When I'm doing studio dubs from ADAT and other formats, WAV is pretty much the shit as far as the closest reproducable format. There will always be a small variance in quality, but its so small, its really not audible to the average human.