Optimal mp3 quality for FM Stereo Recording?

Shredder wrote on 1/10/2003, 9:18 AM

Hi,

I need to archive some FM Radio broadcasts and I want to save the programs in the highest possible quality, but without being overkill for the source media (an FM broadcast).

I have read that a 22,050 kHz 16-bit stereo recording is higher quality than an FM brodcast, so I'm assuming that should be opitmal and that anything higher would be overkill. Can I even go lower?

Finally, space is a big concern, so I want to compress these to mp3s. I have read that 112kbps is comparable to FM, but cannot find any details if that's 112@44.1 or 112@22.050, stero/mono etc. -- so I don't know if i should trust this.

So, does anyone out there have any technical expertise on this? What should be my optimal settings to balance space and quality?

Thanks,

Jon

Comments

riredale wrote on 1/11/2003, 1:31 PM

Strictly a guestimate on my part, but I'd suggest using the standard 128 MP3 rate. 128 is touted as being "very very near CD quality" and since an FM broadcast is of lower quality than CD (it's band-limited to 15KHz and the noise floor is much higher), I'd say your MP3 version of the FM original should should almost exactly the same. Purists will say that 128 MP3 sounds horrible, but they are probably the same people who insist on vacuum-tube amps, which I find very funny.