A question to the community - increase the radio bitrate?

[mosc]

A question to the community.

The recent upgrades to the radio infrastructure here give us an opportunity to change the bitrate of our streams on the radio. When we first started streaming, we set the bitrate to 128 kbps mp3 because very few people had high speed internet connections; many were on dialup. There were also limitations on our server's internet connection and storage capacity. We limited uploads to this format.

Now we can upload audio in just about any format: MP3 at any bitrate, FLAC, WAV, AIFF, Ogg, Opus and M4A, up to 1 GB a file. When someone plays a file from a post, from the Media page or from a playlist, the file goes to their browser exactly as it was uploaded. A FLAC stays lossless, a 320 kbps MP3 stays 320. Whatever you upload is what they get.

The radio is different. A station is one continuous stream, built by the radio engine from hundreds of files in many formats, plus live performers. The engine decodes each file and re-encodes everything into one steady stream at one fixed bitrate, so a listener's player never has to switch formats mid-song and the bandwidth per listener is predictable. That fixed rate has been 128 kbps MP3 since 2003. Every file, FLAC or MP3, reaches a radio listener at 128.

I think it makes sense to increase the radio to 256 kbps mp3. Most people hear a significant improvement compared to 128. Before I change, I'd like to know if there is some reason not to do so; something I might have overlooked.

What's the impact on listeners? At 256 a listener uses twice the bandwidth they do today, about 32 KB per second. Our connection has room for that many times over, and the format stays MP3, so phones, the players on the site and old stand-alone players all keep working as they do now.

What do you think? If I hear no objections in a week, I'll make the change.

Thanks...

[PHOBoS]

for me personally more bandwidth wouldn't be an issue, but my question would be; why not go all the way to 320kbps ?
There might not be much of a noticeable difference between 256 and 320 compared to 128 and 256 by why limit it.

[blue hell]

I'll bark a bit on antarctica . . where the woodpecker feels not at home .. but where using everything because you can will help that woodpacker to find it's way there .. but as of yet there may be no one to listen .. but i'll say ..

everything below 128 kbs is nice for experiments.

everything above 128 kbs is nice for the oil lords.

I'll howl a bit in the savannah, where beings can still hear me, but they may be dead soon when everything possible and thinkable is blindly implemented.

No one can hear on a stream if it is 128 192 256 or 320 kbps .. the only way to hear such a thing is to AB test it .. and that does not mean a thing .. it only costs .. so better do not try that :)

But apart from that .. I do not care much about bit rates .. at home i i record most things as 128 kbs mp3.

I've tried to use that mp3 format to make distortion on music by constantly recording and playing back .. in the manner of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_Sitting_in_a_Room .. it is useless .. it is too perfect :)

But I'm barking with pluto - I know - so do what you please - my weblink will support it .. probably even on gsm . although I do not reslly use that for musicv . although i really think it to be nonsense.

BTW, `shugo did have some ideas about this which may be technically interresting - but he was chased away from electro-music.

Today he posted a short remark about that :

[PHOBoS]

For me 128kbps has always been an acceptable compromise, it's a bit like a .jpg, it does the job but there is room for improvement.
Compared to a wav file it appears to be lacking in both the high & low end and overall sounds a bit more muddy,
but maybe that's just a psychological thing and also depends on the music itself.
Having said that, I am fine with 128kbps and with how the vast majority of people consumes music it probably wouldn't matter at all,
then again this is a music forum so the audience might be a bit different than usual.
I can see how it could appear as adding more bells and whistles to attract an audience, just something to list in the specs to make it more attractive.
IMHO the forum is the main attraction of the site and the rest is just a bonus but it has sadly become an outdated format even though it's still my preferred one.

my question still stands though, why 256kbps ? which seems to be another compromise.
oh and although bandwidth doesn't matter for me personally it might matter to others, so even if you'd up the radio I'd still keep 128kbps available.