Reducing bit rate to 64kbps & sound quality

[Teo]

Hello everyone! In a bid to cram as much music as possible into my zen v 2gb I am considering reducing the bit rate to 64kbps when ripping cd's onto my wmp11 and then transferring them to my zen v as wma files. I am currently using 128kbps and have to say that I'm very happy with the sound quality reproduced on both my pc and zen v, the only draw back being that the zen is already full with only 400 odd tracks (rather than the 1000 detailed in creatives spec for the player). My concern is that by reducing the bit rate by half the sound quality may be significantly compromised. Can anyone tell me if from your experiences I will notice a significant decline in sound quality using 64kbps? Many thanks...

[CrowdAds]

[RCM]

Depending on your ears you may or may not be able to hear a difference I tried 64Kbps WMA and could tell a difference, but it's up to you.

[drusstw]

if u care more about the number of tracks than sound quality,then i'd go for the 64kbps option. 64 actually isnt THAT bad in wma format.but obviously its not as clear

[Teo]

Thank you both for your observations and sharing your experiences, I guess that as with most features and aspects of mp3 players it comes down to personal preferences. Having ripped a few cd's at the lower 64kbps bitrate and transferred them to my ZV+ I have found the sound quality reproduced noticeably inferior, almost flat with very poor definition especially base and vocals. I'm reverting back to 128kbps, although this means that I will not be able to store as many albums/tracks on my player at least my enyoyment of the music that I do have is not compromised.
Thanks again for replying to my thread!

[WalkGood]

This low of bit rate is of no interest to me, 128kbps is average quality at best. If you are looking to create more space, you may want to consider ripping your CD’s in VBR Mp3 to see if it will create the added space you want.

[kanamin]

I can't even stand 128, 64????? I rip at 256 with vbr.

[sumx4182]

128 is ok to me for most things...only songs with a large amount of high frequencies sound noticeably better at higher bitrates to my ears...that said, my entire library is encoded to 128...