Audio Quality Settings

~8 min · quality, vbr, cbr, sample-rate

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Three knobs control audio quality

Bitrate — bits per second. Higher = better, larger.
Sample rate — samples per second. 44.1 kHz (CD), 48 kHz (video standard), 96 kHz (DAW-internal). Don't change unless you must.
Bit depth — 16-bit (CD), 24-bit (DAW). Only matters for raw PCM/FLAC; lossy codecs operate at their own internal precision.

VBR vs CBR for audio

For stored files, VBR is almost always better — more bits to busy passages, fewer to silence. libmp3lame -q:a 2 = ~190 kbps VBR. AAC also supports VBR via -q:a but the default LC encoder isn't great at it; CBR-with-bitrate is more predictable.

Sample rate gotchas

Don't downsample 48 kHz video audio to 44.1 kHz unless you need to (CD release). Don't upsample 44.1 kHz to 96 kHz — you can't add resolution that wasn't captured. Keep the source rate when in doubt.

Code

Quality recipes per codec·bash

# AAC — high quality stereo
ffmpeg -i in.wav -c:a aac -b:a 256k -ar 48000 out.m4a

# Opus — high quality stereo
ffmpeg -i in.wav -c:a libopus -b:a 160k -ar 48000 out.opus

# MP3 VBR — high quality
ffmpeg -i in.wav -c:a libmp3lame -q:a 0 out.mp3   # ~245 kbps VBR

# Sample rate change (when you really need it)
ffmpeg -i in_44k.wav -ar 48000 out_48k.wav

Confirm your settings landed·bash

ffprobe -v error -select_streams a:0 \
  -show_entries stream=codec_name,sample_rate,channels,bit_rate \
  -of default=noprint_wrappers=1 out.m4a
# codec_name=aac
# sample_rate=48000
# channels=2
# bit_rate=256000

External links

MP3 encoding guide

Exercise

Take a 5-minute spoken-word recording (any podcast clip). Encode at AAC 96, AAC 192, Opus 64, Opus 96. Listen carefully on headphones. Where do you stop being able to hear differences? That's your sweet spot for podcasts.

Progress

Progress is local-only — sign in to sync across devices.

← PreviousAudio Codecs — AAC vs Opus vs MP3 Next →Channel Layout — Mono, Stereo, 5.1

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