After searching for a title I got 11 results, all nominally mp3@320 kbps.

But only thee of them are really @320 kbps, the rest are fake, one is even 96 kbps.

 

where?

 

With "nominally" you mean ID3 tags?

 

Yeah, this is super common in various torrenting sites. I suspect it typically happens when they capture various songs from streams - so not only are they low bitrate, they tend to be actually compressed twice with a lossy algorithm.

There's no real way around this besides acquiring a copy of the song that is in PCM format (or compressed with non-lossy compression like FLAC) and then converting it into mp3. Capturing from streams will not work unless the streamed signal is lossless - otherwise what happens is that you capture, say, 192kbps signal and you have it in a .wav format (for example) and the best you can do is use .flac compression on it without introducing double lossy compression - you'll essentially have big compressed files. I guess it is possible to use some programs such as jDownloader to capture stuff from YouTube directly in the file format, but it works then bit differently than capturing streamed audio (which is what you'd have if you tried capturing from Spotify). Problem with YouTube is that typically 192kbps is the best you can really get, though.

For such reasons, I would avoid torrenting entirely any sort of music that you can get on spotify and if you can't find it in spotify, you'll have to live with whatever it actually is. You can complain about it as much as you want, but the reality is that lot of these uploaders of your favorite songs would have nothing sensible to upload if similar standards would be maintained as back in the days of what.cd. They wouldn't even really know what exactly they are uploading to begin with.

But here's the good news: you're unlikely to hear much difference. Tests on the matter generally provide a "grim" picture for any audiophiliacs; mp3 compression is doing whats it supposed to do and even in radical quality losses, such as 128kbps, most people wouldn't even hear THAT. It only gets worse when you compare 192kbps vs. wav, where the difference is so minimal that it practically exists only mathematically for nearly anyone.

 

In order to download music (mp3\flac) there are trusted sites and scam sites.

 

slider.kz? wtf are u doing there man

 

It's that new thing called internet, Gyro.

 

Not just from streams but from P2P networks, free file servers, pirated CDs, etc.
The 'good news' is not so very true. There is just current discussion on it on this site.
https://audiosex.pro/threads/is-this-flac-file-still-better-compared-to-mp3.55422/

 

Last edited by a moderator: Sep 16, 2020

"Nominally = fake = re-encoded from a lower bitrate, so contains only as much information as contained in original lower bitrate file, plus degraded by re-encoding.

 

which app are u using ?

 

No site can have that much authentic mp3@320 because they must have admission to thousands and thousands of original WAVs in order to directly encode them. And they don't have it, unless they make a burglary into some major CD storage, like the Library of Congress.

 

The most extensive free mp3 search engine on the Internet.
I've had 199 hits. Tested just the first 11...

 

Last edited by a moderator: Sep 16, 2020

To detect fake files?
"Fakin' The Funk?" v3.0

 

I also check the integrity of my music: talking about Bandcamp, files downloaded are mostly what they claim to be (there are some fakes due to wrong upload by the artist). Some pirate sites have mp3 and flac with certified encoding (they include also the ripping infos .cue). One of those is israbx: never had problems with it

 

original wav? for what?... to waste time for encoding?
admission to thousands and thousands of mp3@320 - more than enough
in fact, getting such access for a while (in order to copy files to yourself) is not difficult. the difficulty is that these files will take up a lot of space, a lot of space! what is the point if there is spotify, soundcloud, facebook and other services? I buy tracks on juno or beatport just to play the mix. but that rarely happens... i prefer vinyl!

we call these fake mp3@320 - upconverted. in most cases, new tracks are first downloaded on services where you can listen full versions of tracks in low quality. saving streaming audio is not a problem. then - simple batch encoding with any audio converter.

 

I think it can easily happen without being fake,
MP3 can be encoded at variable bitrate, and some analysis tools may only grab highest or average bitrate,
it's similar like FLAC, which bitrate may vary, but unlike MPEG there's no quality loss, so the actual difference is because of actual audio file "density"

 

Soulseek, friends, soulseek.

 

I don't care about "other discussions" in here considering that we actually have scientific tests on MUSHRA standards on this matter which, I can assure you, are far more reliable than bunch of people making claims mostly per their beliefs. The result is quite simply that nearly everyone is fooled at 192kbps already in standard LAME algorithms, likely same for fraunhofer but less tests on that (as only like, Cubase uses it).

If you think otherwise, go ahead and do some of that sweet ABX testing and see if you can get a statistically significant result. You will definitively guess plenty of times the correct answer based on mere chance, one in three in fact in a typical setting with 3 options to match with a single option, assuming that you indeed just guess randomly. Once you can bump your accuracy to 90% in a setting where lowest is 192kbps and highest is PCM or lossless equivalent, then we can start talking. Until that point, you're just fooling yourself thinking it matters, which is what all audiophiliacs do to justify the absolutely ridiculous prices of their gear.

And where do you think that the songs appear from into P2P networks, free file servers or pirated CD's? Yeah, mostly through people capturing it from some other source that isn't the original .wav or CD. Individual purchasers of various albums could do it, sure, but they don't because it takes some effort to upload and potentially rip the music. The only collective effort in that vein to ever exist was what.cd.