

It will tend to give you somewhat smaller file sizes for a given degree of quality, but the actual file sizes cannot be accurately predicted in advance.

Variable bit rate offers the best quality compared to the Average and Constant bit rate options in most circumstances (extremely quiet music is one exception). Level 0 is comparable to the Extreme preset mentioned above, level 2 is comparable to Standard and level 4 to Medium presets. For a mono track, the achieved bit rate for each setting will usually be below the range indicated above. Each setting defines a range of bit rates within which it will generally operate, assuming a stereo track. The settings range from 0 (highest quality) to 9 (smallest file size).

Audacity uses LAME Mp3 info tag to store the exact length of added silence.

Note that MP3 files have a short silence at the beginning due to encoder delay. Encoding speed can be specified, and Joint Stereo encoding chosen as an option.Īs with all lossy, compressed formats, there is a trade-off between the size of the file and the quality of the encoded file, higher quality requiring larger files. You can choose between variable, average or constant bit rate, or from one of four common presets. MP3 Export Options let you choose the quality of files exported to the popular MP3 format.
