freeformat at 640 kbps and foobar2000, possibilities? Options

[Wintershade]

Is it possible to play freeformat mp3 at 640 kbps in foobar? If yes, how? If not, why?

I don't actually intend to use something like this, I'm just collecting some information for my college project.

Many thanks.

This post has been edited by Wintershade: Nov 15 2005, 22:35

[JWolf]

640k mp3 vs. 320k mp3 round 1

foo_abx 1.3.1 report
foobar2000 v0.9.4.2
2006/12/16 14:58:12

File A: M:\Work\Heart - Heart (MFSL) - 320. These Dreams.wav
File B: M:\Work\Heart - Heart (MFSL) - 640. These Dreams.wav

14:58:12 : Test started.
14:59:29 : 01/01 50.0%
15:00:04 : Trial reset.
15:00:06 : Trial reset.
15:00:06 : Trial reset.
15:00:44 : 01/01 50.0%
15:01:16 : 02/02 25.0%
15:02:01 : 02/03 50.0%
15:03:10 : 02/04 68.8%
15:03:18 : Trial reset.
15:03:47 : 00/01 100.0%
15:03:52 : Trial reset.
15:04:30 : 00/01 100.0%
15:04:35 : Trial reset.
15:05:18 : 00/01 100.0%
15:05:23 : Trial reset.
15:05:41 : 01/01 50.0%
15:05:56 : 02/02 25.0%
15:06:29 : 02/03 50.0%
15:06:40 : 03/04 31.3%
15:06:55 : 03/05 50.0%
15:13:49 : 03/06 65.6%
15:14:11 : 04/07 50.0%
15:14:51 : 04/08 63.7%
15:15:28 : 05/09 50.0%
15:38:11 : 06/10 37.7%
15:38:26 : 06/11 50.0%
15:39:09 : 06/12 61.3%
15:39:27 : 06/13 70.9%
15:39:52 : 06/14 78.8%
15:40:07 : 06/15 84.9%
15:40:12 : 07/16 77.3%
15:40:29 : 08/17 68.5%
15:40:43 : 08/18 76.0%
15:41:21 : 08/19 82.0%
15:41:28 : 09/20 74.8%
15:41:39 : 10/21 66.8%
15:42:27 : 10/22 73.8%
15:42:39 : 11/23 66.1%
15:42:52 : 12/24 58.1%
15:43:03 : Test finished.

----------
Total: 15/32 (70.2%)

As you can see, I got it wrong enough with this one track to show that the difference between 640k mp3 and 320k mp3 is not that great to really hear a difference that I can easily pick out one or the other. I compressed both tracks from the lossless FLAC to 320k and 640k mp3 using LAME 3.97. I then used LAME to decompress both tracks back into wav so foobar2000 could play them both for the ABXing. I'll try other types of music to see how it come out. But on this one track, it was conclusive that I was unable to identify the differences often enough to make 640k worth while.