What's the mobile streaming bit rate for pandora, spotify, rhapsody, imeem, last.fm, iheartradio, slacker dj? Bad reviews on these applications always point to poor sound quality.
A:
After some quick googling, it seems most streaming apps for mobile devices use anywhere between 64kbps and 128kbps. Pandora for the iPhone will switch between the two depending on if you are on Wifi or on 3G. Pandora used to also only stream in Mono on 3G but this may have changed. Rhapsody uses 64kbps. Last.fm seems to have switched from 128kbps to 64kbps due to bandwidth and dropouts. I'm not sure about the rest, but I doubt they do anything higher due to bandwidth. I found this info by searching google for info on the apps on the iPhone.
FModa3
2009-09-29 14:08:54
+1
A:
There's 4 factors at play: bit rate, encoding, network, and stereo-versus-mono. Encoding varies depending on device support too, so the OS, OS version and hardware play a role too. The values we choose for various flavors of Pandora vary greatly based on all of these -- way too complex to summarize nicely here. But here's a few guidelines: 128kbps is fine over wifi, but too much over cell, especially EDGE. Encoding makes the biggest difference a low bit rates -- look into AAC-HE. (128kbps MP3 is roughly as good as 64kbps AAC-HE.) Bear in mind that there's a big difference in bandwidth cost structure between, say, 32kbps AAC-HE and 128kbps MP3. Also remember that audio quality is hugely subjective so double-blind tests are the best way to determine the appropriate trade off of bit rate versus audio quality.
Neil Mix
2009-10-02 18:14:51