Bitrate

The amount of audio data processed per second, measured in kbps, directly affecting quality and file size.

Technical Detail

Audio bitrate is measured in kilobits per second (kbps). Uncompressed CD audio (PCM) runs at 1,411 kbps (44,100 Hz x 16 bits x 2 channels). MP3 ranges from 32 kbps (telephone quality) to 320 kbps (transparent quality for most listeners). AAC achieves equivalent quality at roughly 80% of the MP3 bitrate. Variable bitrate (VBR) allocates more bits to complex passages and fewer to silence, achieving better quality-to-size ratios than constant bitrate (CBR) at the same average rate.

Example

```
Audio bitrate guide:

  32 kbps   — AM radio quality (speech only)
  128 kbps  — FM radio quality (podcast standard)
  192 kbps  — Good quality (casual music listening)
  256 kbps  — High quality (AAC sweet spot)
  320 kbps  — Maximum MP3 quality
  1,411 kbps — CD quality (uncompressed 16-bit/44.1kHz stereo)

File size: minutes × bitrate ÷ 8 = KB
  5 min @ 128 kbps = 5 × 128 ÷ 8 = 80 KB ≈ 4.7 MB
```

Related Terms

Aliasing (Audio) Audio Codec Audio Fingerprint Audio Watermark Bit Depth (Audio) Bitrate (Video) Channel Chorus Effect Clipping Codec Compression (Audio) Crossfade De-esser Delay Dithering (Audio) Dynamic Range Equalization Fade FLAC Frequency Spectrum Harmonic Distortion Limiter Loudness War LUFS Mid-Side Processing Mono Noise Gate Noise Reduction Normalization Nyquist Frequency PCM Peak Level Pitch Psychoacoustics Reverb RMS Level Sample Rate Sidechain Spatial Audio Spectrogram Stereo Stereo Imaging Tempo Waveform

Categories

Technical Detail

Example

Related Tools

Related Terms