What are the differences between 'stereo' and 'joint stereo'
What are the differences between 'stereo' and 'joint stereo'
Which one will give better audio quality?
Joint stereo should be better (at a given bitrate) for regular music. MP3 is "lossy" compression... Data is thrown-away during compression. But, it's "smart" compression... It tries to throw-away the least-important data. Joint stereo is "smarter".
As I understand if, joint stereo will detect the "center channel" (i.e. a vocal that's identical in both speakers), and it will make one compressed copy of that "part" of the sound. With regular stereo, that information would be duplicated in the left & right channels, which means that some other data would have to be thrown-away to make room for the duplicated data.
As I understand if, joint stereo will detect the "center channel" (i.e. a vocal that's identical in both speakers), and it will make one compressed copy of that "part" of the sound. With regular stereo, that information would be duplicated in the left & right channels, which means that some other data would have to be thrown-away to make room for the duplicated data.
«Stereo» encodes the basical configuration left channel / right channel.
«Joint Stereo» encodes (Left+Right) and (Left-Right).
What will do the difference is the amount of separation between both channels, and in what range. mp3 is more lossy in low levels. So it will depend on the audio encoded for the best quality between "joint" and "normal".
If I encode audio from a cassette tape, due to slight phase variations between left and right channels, I avoid the joint stereo, who increases the perception of this variation. For common other cases, the difference isn't huge enough for me to say one is better than another, except maybe when there are some parts of the signal loud enough in phase oposition (usually a reverb or so), where "joint stereo" does the job better.
«Joint Stereo» encodes (Left+Right) and (Left-Right).
What will do the difference is the amount of separation between both channels, and in what range. mp3 is more lossy in low levels. So it will depend on the audio encoded for the best quality between "joint" and "normal".
If I encode audio from a cassette tape, due to slight phase variations between left and right channels, I avoid the joint stereo, who increases the perception of this variation. For common other cases, the difference isn't huge enough for me to say one is better than another, except maybe when there are some parts of the signal loud enough in phase oposition (usually a reverb or so), where "joint stereo" does the job better.
