Complete Guide to Audio Bitrate: All you Need to Know

If you are trying to find out the correct bitrate for audio streaming, you are at the right place. The concept of audio bitrate is an important term in digital audio that has a tremendous influence on sound quality, file size and the pleasure of listening to audio. If you’re a music enthusiast, a podcaster, or an audio pro, this column’s going to show you all that you need to understand about bitrate and how it can help you make decisions regarding recording, compressing, and playing audio.

Audio bitrate is the amount of data processed every second. Bitrates ideally determine the audio quality of a file and is represented in kilobits per second (kbps). For example, a high quality audio generally has a higher bitrate and vice versa. However, it must be noted that higher bitrates requires greater bandwidth and results in larger-sized files.

There are two kinds of audio bitrates: Constant and Variable.

Constant Bitrate (CBR): In CBR, the data rate remains constant throughout the audio file. Since CBR delivers predictable streaming performance, it’s preferred for streaming and broadcasting purposes.

Variable Bitrate (VBR): As opposed to CBR, in Variable bitrate the data rate fluctuates based on the complexity of audio that is being encoded. For example, quieter passages would take less data, while more data would be needed for the more complex passages (during musical crescendoes). As the file reduction is optimized, VBR attains comparable quality to CBR.

For more information, read our blog CBR Vs VBR: Which is Best for Your Online Video Platform

Audio fidelity, or the accuracy of sound reproduction, is closely tied to the bitrate. A higher bps often translates to better sound quality because more data is used to represent the audio signal accurately. This results in a richer and more detailed sound.

For example, a bitrate of 128 kbps is considered standard for MP3 audio. However, streaming at 256 kbps or higher can provide near-CD quality sound. The trade-off between bitrate and audio quality is a significant consideration for anyone involved in streaming audio content.

As audio files are encoded down to reduce their bitrate, which has some frequencies and nuances. This compression can result in auditory artifacts:

Professional music recording

1411 kilobits per second (Kbps) for CD quality, or 960 Kbps for FLAC.

Podcast or audiobook recording

Varies from platform to platform