A quick look at MP3 files using Audacity’s spectrogram view
Matthew D. Thibeault Summer 2012
matthewthibeault.com
Spectrograms can make compression not only audible, but visible. On the next page, simply click the bit rate to hear the audio at the specified/
visualized quality level. It is easier to hear the differences with better speakers in a quiet setting, or with good headphones. Embedded audio in a PDF may be
inaccessible with many PDF programs. Acrobat Reader works for sure.
1411kbps AIFF
320kbps MP3
160kbps MP3
128kbps MP3
56kbps MP3
10.187751
10.187751
10.187751
10.161629
Source audio is a short sample from “Morph the Cat” by Donald Fagen, beginning at 3’12”.
Visualized using Audacity (“window size” setting=4096).
MP3s produced using Audacity 2.0.0, using joint stereo setting and a constant bit rate mode.
© 2012 Matthew D. Thibeault. Released under a Creative Commons BY-ND 3.0 License. For
other uses, please contact the author.