Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2018 July 16

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July 16

Mp3 program frequency, fidelity?

Why do programs differ when reproducing mp3? Assuming it's the same file played with the same hardware, and discounting aspects like user-friendliness. That is, it's only about the sound been played. Are they something like browsers, that render a page differently, or, would it be more life a pdf reader, that aspires for consistency? --Doroletho (talk) 17:58, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

Your initial assumption is incorrect: unless they're actually broken, they all sound the same -- see MP3#Encoding_and_decoding. Any difference you hear is either imaginary, or the result of some other processing which your device is using, such as an equalizer or volume control. Henry^Flower 20:36, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

It's MIDI files that sound very different on different sound generators. My car audio plays MIDI files, but the instrument emulators are very much inferior to those in my older computer, so I always convert to mp3 to play in my car. Dbfirs 16:48, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

On the other hand, on http://www.piano-midi.de/beeth.htm the first movement of Beethoven's B Sonata No. 5 C minor takes up 33.5 KB (34,393 bytes) in MIDI and 6.01 MB (6,305,089 bytes) in MP3. That's 183 times larger. --Guy Macon (talk) 17:25, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

Example: When Maria (Blondie song) is converted to MP3 in a too low rate, the bells near the end of the song are filtered out. --Hans Haase (有问题吗) 10:08, 22 July 2018 (UTC)