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And I have to add this : http://listening-tests.hydrogenaudio.org/sebastian/mp3-128-1/results.htm
Yeah, transparency is pretty damn high at this range...

http://listening-tests.hydrogenaudio.org/sebastian/mf-128-1/results.htm
Do you have anything to support your point of view?

I've seen some articles and forum posts written by self-proclaimed audiophiles (see HydrogenAudio for some of it) that indicates a significant number of people, no matter how high quality the equipment they're using, have trouble differentiating between anything over about 192kbps Vorbis/AAC (those two being higher quality for the same bitrate than MP3). 256kbps AAC should, in theory, be all you'll need until mainstream music goes for surround sound.

It's also amusing to see people from 2004 talking about "probably having a 1TB iPod in five years".

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/lofiversion/index.php/t57215.html

And FLAC is supported by decent players, including some hardware ones, unlike this new proprietary format.

Not to pick nits, but 320 is the *maximum* bit rate for mp3, so technically you have a 320 kbps cbr file or (more likely) you have a a vbr file encoded with the -V0 option that probably includes many frames encoded at 320.

http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?title=LAME

That said, I don't get the point of this new format, to me it has the qualities needed to make me avoid it. It seems like a security hole waiting to be exploited.

What about Replay Gain? The existing proposed standard, with the addition of clipping prevention (as described in the standard) would probably be the right solution.

so you actually have some dynamic range

you might want to read this

Most people greatly overestimate how well they can hear these differences, but the never actually try it in ABX testing. I tried it years ago and I can't hear a difference between most codecs at reasonable bitrates and unencoded originals.

Here is an old classic from the Hydrogenaudio forums, from someone would bought expensive head phones and set up ABX testing. He was very shocked when he couldn't even tell the difference between FLAC and Vorbis at 64kb/s.

ABX Just Destroyed My Ego, My perception of my bitrate needs was greatly inflated.

I was going to say I have no idea why they would compare entirely different codecs here. Not to mention that lots of people are simply not audiophiles or not folks with extremely discerning ears to quality. Plenty of people show that AAC/Vorbis is situational and sometimes one can work better or vice versa.

As a musician, I've had lots of times where irrespective of my quality that I play people think everything is amazing/fantastic.

Unlike H.264, you do not have to pay to use Theora.

Unless it becomes popular, in which case the so-called "submarine" (actually they may not even be submarine) patents will come to the fore, and you'll have to pay.

I don't trust Xiph having read their comments about what exactly they mean by "Patent free", and having seen the silence over, say, Vorbis's apparent infringement of US Patent 5,214,742. Is Theora "safer" than Vorbis? Well, it's another DCT-based codec, just like 99% of the video codecs in use since H.261, and it's essentially doing stuff where everyone else is doing stuff. The chances of it not violating some patent somewhere is minimal to non-existent, as everyone and their brother is trying to come up with ways to improve DCT based algorithms that they can patent and then submit to MPEG or VCEG for incorporation into the next MPEG or H.26* video standard.

There are really only three standards that could be considered free of patent issues, and even then it's not entirely 100% certain. H.261 dates back to the mid eighties. The ITU lists no current patents applying to MPEG-1. (It's worth pointing out that Theora's predecessor, VP3, is considered to be somewhere between H.261 and MPEG-1 in terms of quality.) And finally, the BBC did an extensive search for anything that might hit their Dirac codec and came up blank, as well as proposing (and then withdrawing once published, so they count as prior art) some patents themselves, so Dirac is in the running too.

Theora? If I was a commercial concern, I would avoid it. I'd go for the predictability of a licensable codec ahead of one that almost certainly would be a target for patent lawsuits if it ever achieves critical mass, and possibly earlier.

I might feel differently if Xiph didn't play word games with the term "Patent free", and gave a straight answer on the issues of actual patents people have found, rather than turning around and saying "Yeah, we ran it by a lawyer, and they said we're OK, but we're not going to tell you why because it's our super secret defense we'll use if we're ever sued", which doesn't exactly inspire confidence, especially as nobody will ever sue Xiph anyway (Xiph just writes the software, they leave the packaging, compiling, possible selling, and actual using to everyone else.)

Even further, audio CD's cannot carry DRM, as per the Red Book standard developed by Philips, and presumably others.

If it contains DRM, its not a CD, its technically something else.

Uhh, you are confusing CD-DA with Compact Disc (CD)

The first is the "Red Book" based standard audio format, the second is the hardware media used to "transport" such data.

First of all, Matroska is an open spec, and most implementations (including the reference implementation, libmatroska) are Open Source (lgpl for libmatroska).

Mkv supports B-frames, Variable bit rate audio, Variable frame rate, Chapters, and Subtitles. Not all containers support all of these, and AVI only supports any of those with workarounds, modifications or just nasty hacks.

The mpeg container can't do chapters or subtitles, and obviously only holds media in the mpeg (1 or 2) format.

MP4 has limited chapter and subtitle support and only deals with mpeg media (basically 1, 2, and 4 ASP/AVC).

Ogg/ogm is designed for simplicity, streaming and specifically for Vorbis and Theora (although most/all other codecs can be used), while Mkv is meant as a completely general-purpose distribution container, and wants to replace avi, asf, mp4, mov, etc.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matroska
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_container_formats
http://www.matroska.org/technical/guides/faq/index.html
http://xiph.org/container/
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/lofiversion/index.php/t10426.html

Relevant hydrogenaudio thread: http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?s=55b656dc8cdb3b97da794e936b2a9b1d&showtopic=70548

In summary, it seems like a fairly useless and poorly thought out format. To be clear, this WILL NOT play losslessly in a standard mp3 player, you must use a special decoder to get the lossless bit. It will only play the lossy component in a normal mp3 player.

Lossless information stored in id3v2 tags? Bad hack that will break just about every tagging program out there. File sizes much larger than real lossless codecs and encoding/decoding speed is much slower than flac. Also you can't have tracks longer than about an hour due to id3v2 size limits. Additionally, a full size flac file and 256kbit mp3 often comes in at a SMALLER size than this one monolithic hacked up mp3.

Nothing to see here people, this is a waste of time. Something like lossy/lossless wavpack hybrid is a much better solution.

Sam

http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?title=Lame

Find a DDD Telarc disc from the early 90s that was intended to show off the capabilities of CD players back then -- wide dynamic range, basically 0% cross-channel interference, the works. Now rip it, and try to make the best-quality mp3/ogg encoding possible. Now do a blind comparison of the two. I guarantee you'll be able to tell the difference.

Say I'm willing to run a set of 16 ABX trials on a given clip. Starting with a libvorbis 1.2.0 based encoder at roughly 192 kbps, do you think I'd be able to pick out the compressed clip 13 times out of 16?

We'd probably even start seeing "mp3" players that can play raw PCM

There are already digital audio players that can play Apple Lossless or FLAC audio.

Even a 2 gigabyte microSD card can hold ~3 CDs worth of uncompressed data.

You might be able to double that with FLAC. But if you want to fill up on lossless, I'd recommend a hard drive player such as the iPod Classic.

You are either blessed or cursed :)

Have you run a double-blind test like they suggest on hydrogen audio? Interesting that the psycho acoustics don't work for you.

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/

There's already a hardware hack in progress. But, as you say, the format is so obscure there's little demand for such ripping.

I used to encode things in 192 kbps, then VBR, and now I want to smack myself over the head for doing so;

VBR will almost always do a better job with the quality of a track, as it can switch to high bitrates when needed. Essential, when using Lame, a VBR 2 (which averages 192) setting is going to give you a better rip then CBR 192. Hydrogen Audio wiki on Lame VBR

And while I see your point about hard drive space, a CBR 320 rip is just wasteful, especially if it is a CD ending track with 5 minutes of silence and then another track. I really wish people would stop using CBR in general.

HydrogenAudio has done all kinds of listening tests over the years with various different codecs, including multiple encoders and rates for all of the major lossy formats. Their public tests are well designed blind tests-they give you the various samples but don't tell you which is from which encoder, and you're asked to use ABC/HR which is a program designed specifically for blind testing of audio.This one just happens to be 128 kbps MP3.

This is particularly of interest to a lot of people because

• MP3 is still the most popular and most compatible lossy format out there
• with the best encoders, 128kbps should be very close to perceptual transparency for most listeners on most samples while still being very usable for portable devices
• MP3 encoder comparisons based on valid scientific and statistical principles (blind tests, ANOVA, etc) aren't too common; as the title says, it's been 4 1/2 years since Roberto Amorin's test.

Such tests have been available for a long time (though I think that can't possibly be a complete list: I thought there had been loads more tests than that). This item happens to focus on a single-format MP3 128 kb/s test; why this is newsworthy when all the other tests aren't, I'm not sure.

How will you use it?

If it's really important to you, don't guess; do your own test. The Hydrogen Audio folks know something about this.

http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?title=Choosing_the_best_codec

There's no technical reason for vinyl to sound better than its modern digital counterparts. Outside a (much) higher frequency bandwidth, there is no real technical reason for vinyl to sound better. On the other hand, albums were mastered much better back then - CDs offer a wider dynamic range than vinyl for example, but recordings nowadays end up so compressed that you'd never imagine it.

I love listening to my old vinyl albums, but i have well-mastered CDs that sound awfully better than anything vinyl i've tried. The remastered versions of Pink Floyd albums are a good example.

Hmm. Not impressed. The information about Hydrogenaudio and LAME on that page seems extremely out of date. Don't use anything after version 3.92? Please.

Check out this wiki for more info on Secure Ripping, how EAC works and how to use it correctly. In conjunction with AccurateRip, you can confirm if a rip was perfect.

Just a tip: You should at least make up some facts to support assertions like that... otherwise their absence is conspicuous.

In this case, the conspicuousness is well justified: The facts don't support you. I can't only assume you're talking about green-marker sniffing morons when you say audiophile, because every objective double-blind listening test on the internet over 64kbit/sec shows Vorbis either clearly beating or tying with the competition.

AAC most certainly is "propritary" by the usual language used on this forum. It is extensively patented. Software and hardware makers have to pay licensing and media distributors are subject to per-use fees. It is impossible to legally use AAC in many countries without fees being paid to the licensing pool.

It's true that Apple didn't play an important role in the creation of AAC (although Nokia did), but like Nokia Apple is a participant in the MPEG LA licensing pool and as such they receive fees for MPEG systems licensing and can avoid paying fees themselves by cross-licensing with other pool members rather than paying into the pool.

It's technically possible to wrap Vorbis up in DRM, and people have done so... The popular DRM system are just wrappers and could neutrally be applied to any codec.

Just a tip: You should at least make up some facts to support assertions like that... otherwise their absence is conspicuous.

In this case, the conspicuousness is well justified: The facts don't support you. I can't only assume you're talking about green-marker sniffing morons when you say audiophile, because every objective double-blind listening test on the internet over 64kbit/sec shows Vorbis either clearly beating or tying with the competition.

AAC most certainly is "propritary" by the usual language used on this forum. It is extensively patented. Software and hardware makers have to pay licensing and media distributors are subject to per-use fees. It is impossible to legally use AAC in many countries without fees being paid to the licensing pool.

It's true that Apple didn't play an important role in the creation of AAC (although Nokia did), but like Nokia Apple is a participant in the MPEG LA licensing pool and as such they receive fees for MPEG systems licensing and can avoid paying fees themselves by cross-licensing with other pool members rather than paying into the pool.

It's technically possible to wrap Vorbis up in DRM, and people have done so... The popular DRM system are just wrappers and could neutrally be applied to any codec.

Read more http://replaygain.hydrogenaudio.org/.

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/

They helped redesign LAME. And one of the rules is double-blind ABX or ABC-HR testing to back up any claims...

It is still my understanding that the common converters for mp4 to CDA result in loss.

That's a convertor problem, not a codec limitation.

I had a long response written for this, but Slashdot deleted it somehow. I don't really want to write it all again. However, let's look at something you quoted of me, that I quoted.

So when you burn a CD from your Apple Lossless files, the tracks that are burned to CD are exact duplicates of those ripped from the original CD

Well, that pretty plainly states that Lossless MP4->CDA is lossless.

What I question is if there is loss in the normal conversion process from mp4.

Well, of course there'd be a loss if the converter program is flawed, as you continuously suggest. But that's a limitation on the software, not the codec.

Look, if you don't believe me, let's look at this:
MP4->decompressed raw audio is lossless. Period.
decompressed raw audio to LPCM is lossless. Period.
LPCM is CDA. Period.

Let's look at something from Wikipedia's article on audio compression:

The primary users of lossless compression have been audio engineers, audiophiles and those consumers who want to preserve an exact copy of their audio files

OK, so we can conclude that (ignoring Wikipedia's veracity) experts agree lossless compression preserves an exact copy of an audiofile whether the audiofile they're copying is of crappy quality, is of a different format, etc. Other pre-stated fact: CDA is lossless.

Here's a syllogism:
Major premise: Lossless compression preserves an exact copy of an audiofile.
Minor premise: CDA uses lossless compression.
Conclusion: CDA preserves an exact copy of an audiofile.

Where's the flaw in the logic. Please point it out. Of course if I'm wrong, I look forward to enlightenment!

Various Hydrogenaudio quotes:
[1] "Transcoding lossy -> any lossless format. (This will provide quality equal to the original lossy file)"
[2] I just asked in the Hydrogenaudio IRC channel on Freenode:

11:20 TheoMurpse I have a dispute with someone. If I have a lossy format and burn it to an audio CD, will there be any degradation whatsoever in the conversion. My friend says yes, and I say that since audio CDs use LPCM and are lossless, there is by definition no loss. Who is right?
TheoMurpse Say, MP4s from iTunes.
11:35 Canar TheoMurpse: No degradation whatsoever.

11:36 Canar The same stream of bits sent to your speakers can also be written to an audio cd
Canar Or rather, sent to your sound card.

So (and I realize Canar is not a proven expert), an audio CD can store the exact same information that goes to your speakers.

I'm sorry I don't have access to the Journal of Audio Engineers or whatever research publication audio engineers use.

One poster there writes, "IF you rip a cd burned with transparent mp3's and encode that to mp3 you will likely start to notice some loss."

Well, duh. If you convert MP3 to MP3, of course you experience loss: MP4 is a lossy format!

So what I'm looking for is an actual reference to a converter that says it can transform mp4 to CDA without any loss. I haven't found any that claim to do so.

If I were a Linux guru, I'd write you a script right now that uses an mp4 player to do exactly what you're demanding. All you have to do is pipe the decompressed audio to a program that creates CDA/LPCM files.

Yes, I agree it is a lossless format. What I question is if there is loss in the normal conversion process from mp4.

No, because that's the very definition of "lossless": that there is no loss of audio data between input file

CDA ("CD Audio") is a lossless format. If there's loss going from anything other than analog to CDA, then your converter is crap. Here are references from various sources that I consider credible

CDA is actually an implementation of linear PCM which, according to Wikipedia, "[t]heoretically, there is no loss or error in conversion and reconstruction, as long as the sampling rate is just over twice the highest desired frequency component of the recorded signal. . . . LPCM is further used for the lossless encoding of audio data in the compact disc Red Book standard" (emphasis added).

Stereophile, a well-respected audio magazine, compared MP3 to CDA in a section entitled "Lossless vs Lossy."

Hydrogen Audio, a great resource for audio work, has users that say things such as "In clearer terms, converting your MP3s to CD-Audio will not degrade the sound quality relative to the mp3, but will, relative to the original file." Other users in the same thread refer to MP3->CDA as "lossless."

People in other fora say that CDA is lossless: "So when you burn a CD from your Apple Lossless files, the tracks that are burned to CD are exact duplicates of those ripped from the original CD"; "Audio can be converted from Lossless to the original format, and if you compare them you find bit-for-bit identical files"; etc.

Yes, I can't find it in the spec and there seem to be problems: http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/lofiversion/index.php/t16033.html

But it should not be hard to add, just a small tag with special format describing channel mapping.

If it's done right, mp3 audio is indistinguishable from the source for the *vast* majority of people. Ask some of the fine people at http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/, they'll tell you.

Well, if you insist...

I may be biased, owning a G15, but let me explain myself.
This puppy is a gamer's wet dream.

1/ lighted keys and dark games
I don't need light to tell me where the WASD keys are.
In a darkened room, keeping my right hand on the mouse,
    it would be nice to look down and the correct those keys on the right
This issue has spawned the old PWNED meme (it used to be a typo).

2/ OOB status display with control butons.
Sometimes, not all the info you want is displayed on-screen.
Some people want to control voice software in games.
Others want to see system statistics whilst doing something else.
    (overlockers, speendfan display works like a charm!)
Check out G15Forums or the like for possible plug-ins for your favorite games.
Also, check out LCDSirReal at http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=46373
If you have a MediaPC, you can use it instead of an (expensive) VFD.

3/ built-in USB hub
It's only two ports, but just enough to plug in a mouse and tablet.
All the stuff that is not needed at the screen can plug into the back of the PC.

4/ extra keys
These are not your everyday media keys (those are under the display).
These puppies can perform entire macros for you, and you can switch instantly between 3 configurations.
I haven't played any RTS games in years, but binding squads, actions and locations to their own sets of keys might be useful.
Keep in mind, that gamers only have one hand on the keyboard and it tends to live on the left-hand side of the keyboard.

5/ physical disable-windows-key switch
Accidental hits on this key tend to pop up the desktop or perform odd windows functions.
Some gamers have become so frustrated with this key, they have physically removed it from their keyboard.
With this switch, you can simply disable and re-enable it when you want.

6/ wow-factor
It's not an Art Lebedev, but it still looks pretty damn cool on my desktop.

Just my 2c.

Foobar2000 recently dropped Windows 2000 support. http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/lofiversion/index.php/t58326.html

Anyone saying they've done a listening test of different codecs must be able to say they did a full ABX test. This is a blind test that allows a person to blindly compare two different audio files and select which they think sounds better, or more 'right'. If you say you can detect a difference, and you didn't use a blind test, your results must be taken with a rather large amount of salt.

When trying to encode audio books from CD for listening on my CD player, this allowed to find the absolute lowest bitrate settings I could use for encoding so that I couldn't tell the difference between the encoding and the CD. And I know that none of it was in my head because I can point to numbers from a blind test showing.

Yes, this was discussed in an earlier Slashdot story, " RIAA Argues That MP3s From CDs Are Unauthorized", and in a bunch of other places:

* Boing Boing p2pnet reddit Heise Online (German) Truemors BlogRunner/Digital Rights Hugh Casey IDG (Polish) Geek News Central CE Pro Gizmodo TechDirt Read/Write Web Thomas Hawk's Digital Connection TDPRI WhatReallyHappened.com Slyck Root.cz (Czech) Craigslist Forums Hard OCP Wired.com Uneasy Silence Overclock.net Wake World SpaceBattles.com Hydrogen Audio BrickFilms.com Hockey Zombie iLounge Zune Scene AllmanBrothersBand.com Golem (German) PC Magazin (German) Tweakers (Dutch) Mackauf (German) Wake Space Kino-eye.com Digital Copyright Canada Northwest Progressive Institute Louisville Music News Frant

Uggh, I saw this article on slashdot and I couldn't even finish half of it before I closed it in disgust.

I can't believe this trash made the front page of Slashdot. The comments there are quite disgusting, too.

Uh, /. is trash. Quite enjoyable trash, yes. But still trash. Men read FHM, women read tabloids, nerds read slashdot.

Not only do nerds read Slashdot, they continue to do so a full five years after they claim it sold out and replaced competent editing with monkeys.

Highly compressed music is making "the most" of the bits that are there. They pack a LOT more into the bit space provided by the format.

The big thing that I'm hoping kills off some of the loudness wars is the "replay gain" feature that most good flac/mp3 players can use. This will mute the extra-loud albums slightly, and bump the quiet ones slightly reducing the ability for the industry to game the format.

http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?title=Replaygain

If you intend to mod the above, please have a look at this:

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/lofiversion/index.php/t13193.html

and this:

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/lofiversion/index.php/t132.html

See how these people are trying to manipulate Slashdot moderation just to regurgirate their spam.

If you intend to mod the above, please have a look at this:

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/lofiversion/index.php/t13193.html

and this:

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/lofiversion/index.php/t132.html

See how these people are trying to manipulate Slashdot moderation just to regurgirate their spam.

Well, the evidence suggests that the difference between CD-quality audio and DVD-A/SACD audio is imperceptible.

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=57406
http://www.bostonaudiosociety.org/explanation.htm

I think you're erroneously conflating the Nyquist theorem with the limitations of human hearing, but that's a separate matter.

You upgrade because of pricks like this who believe that not tithing Microsoft arbitrarily is just being cheap at their expense, and maintain their (otherwise high quality) software thusly.

I've been on win2kpro since release, and have adopted Ubuntu on the side in the last year. I havn't had many problems - most developers are more reasonable about maintaining compatibility, with a few notable exceptions (I still wanna try paint.net).

AAC is undoubtedly better at low bitrates (e.g. 128 kb/s CBR). But since the advent of LAME 3.97, a lot of listening tests (probably at least half) have been ranking LAME 3.97 MP3s ahead of AACs, at sensible bitrates that is (192 kb/s VBR or better).

Of course that depends on the quality of the AAC encoder too. Just as examples, this test from 2005 ranks an alpha version of LAME 3.97 ahead of Nero AAC, while this one from 2006 ranks Nero AAC ahead of LAME, though LAME is still ahead of iTunes AAC (also it is claimed there that any score above 5 indicates imperfections only "beyond the threshold of human perception").

Proof please? I've never seen this substantiated. Also, how do you quantify "better audio quality" numerically?

I like the Chesky SACD catalog.

There is also an interesting artice:

"Audibility of a CD-Standard A/D/A Loop Inserted into High-Resolution Audio Playback". E. Brad Meyer and David R. Moran. JAES 55(9) September 2007

And discussion thereof at:

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=57406&st=0

>
> ... vinyl records are crap compared to CD's in every measurable way...
>

I used to believe that too. I think there is a problem with that reasoning. If the sound is going directly into the ears through earbuds (iPod-style) then CDs (if perfectly mastered) might capture almost everything. However, the psychoacoustic models which state that CDs are good enough to capture everything that humans can hear do not account for what happens when the sound comes out of a speaker and bounces off of e.g. a piece of furniture or a wall. Two waveforms that sound the same before interacting with a wall often don't sound quite the same after interacting with that same wall. For this reason you need much higher resolution than psychoacoustic models would imply.

Second, I would like to point out that CDs are passe. CDs at 44.1/16 may not sound like vinyl, but DVDs that are mastered to 48/24 or 96/24 sound much better. Blu-Ray promises to be even better yet. I think the real problem, though, is that these players often have crummy drive mechanisms that temporally distort the sound and crummy Digital-Audio Converters (DACs) that nonlinearly distort the sound. Having said that, there are enough DVD-video players in homes now that there could be a huge market for the first major recording artist to put music on a DVD UNENCRYPTED so that people can rip it to their computers in full 96/24. Yeah somebody in the record industry will say "oh but they could rip, compress, and then post on BitTorrent and destroy our business model blah blah blah..." But there is probably a way to master the album in such a way that it doesn't sound particularly good when compressed (e.g. using a lot of interesting right/left pans).

Third, SACD players using 2282/1 sampling do sound VERY MUCH like vinyl. The audio spectrum for SACD is more like vinyl than that of CDs. See:

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/lofiversion/index.php/t44492.html

Instead of bringing back vinyl, I hope the industry will adopt SACD. It has the sound quality of vinyl, but without the clicks, pops, finicky needles, mechanical wear, etc. Even better, a high-quality SACD player doesn't lighten your wallet by $3,000 like a top-line turntable does. Subjectively, I have listened to CDs, DVDs, a few Blu-Ray demos (admittedly through crummy electronics store speakers), and SACD. SACD, to my ears, sounds better than the other digital formats. Yes, I have become an SACD convert. My hat is off to Sony for distributing SACD. Now if I can only convince them to make the discs rippable...