Mp3 Lame Joint Stereo Or Not?

[mjmac 0]

Just working through a new podcast and stumbled on a setting called joint stereo on the 'export as' page... after export @ 320k using either joint stereo or not i didnt hear any noticeable difference in audio quality between the two files. File size was comparable too...

 

For info the original audio files used to create the podcast were wav's ripped from cd's...

 

Any compression guru's out there who can shine some light on lame mp3 compression?

[vokf 0]

Essentially, joint stereo uses some redundancy in the stereo image to provide better compression.

 

If you consider a mono track, encoded with MP3 and joint stereo, it should be 1/2 the size of a "proper" stereo mp3 track.

 

So, on a modern track where stereo is used to good effect, there is probably not much "mono" information - probably bass drum, base line if you're lucky and the odd bit of silence..

 

Personally, leave joint mode off, encode for 320Kbps, and stick with Lame (its a very good encoder).

 

I've just found a web page that may explain it better than I can!

http://home.freeuk.net/mostync/

 

 

[Robster 0]

Explains it here

[mjmac 0]

Thanks chaps!