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Hydrogenaudio AAC Listening Test Results
caffeine_monkey writes "Hydrogenaudio's AAC public listening test, previously posted on Slashdot, is now over and the results are in. The test compared five codecs at 128 kbps, including Psytel, Nero, Sorenson Squeeze, QuickTime, and FAAC. The winner? 'QuickTime is a clear winner, performing much better than the competition. Sorenson Squeeze, Psytel AACenc and Nero are tied, with Sorenson slightly higher than the others. Faac is clearly the worst.'"
Because comparing apples to oranges is never a bright idea. The comparison is between AAC codecs not a few AAC codecs vs WMA.
Did you even read the blurb? Quicktime's AAC encoder won.
apple refer to there container format, player and codecs all as quicktime. the story should have arguably refered to it as the quicktime aac codec or possibly the apple quicktime aac codec or even the apple propriatory quicktime aac compression engine
but it just used quicktime and we all knew what it ment
**** lying is wrong even for sleeping dogs
From Apple's AAC page
Because of its exceptional performance and quality, Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) is at the core of the MPEG-4 and 3GPP specifications and is the new audio codec of choice for Internet, wireless, and digital broadcast arenas. AAC provides audio encoding that compresses much more efficiently than older formats such as MP3, yet delivers quality rivaling that of uncompressed CD audio.
AAC was developed by the MPEG group that includes Dolby, Fraunhofer (FhG), AT&T, Sony, and Nokia--companies that have also been involved in the development of audio codecs such as MP3 and AC3 (also known as Dolby Digital). The AAC codec in QuickTime 6 builds upon new, state-of-the art signal processing technology from Dolby Laboratories and brings true variable bit rate (VBR) audio encoding to QuickTime.
From Via Licensing
MPEG-4 AAC has been specified as the high-quality general audio coder for 3G wireless terminals. Apple Computer has incorporated MPEG-4 AAC into QuickTime 6 and iTunes 4, as well as the latest version of its award-winning iPod portable music player. The Digital Radio Mondiale system (the next-generation digital replacement for radio broadcasting under 30 MHZ) builds on the audio coding of MPEG-4 AAC. These exciting platforms represent the state of the art in audio coding--and Via Licensing is pleased to offer the MPEG-4 AAC Patent License Agreement.
The MPEG-4 AAC standard incorporates MPEG-2 AAC, forming the basis of the MPEG-4 audio compression technology for data rates above 32 kbps per channel. Additional tools increase the effectiveness of MPEG-2 AAC at lower bit rates, and add scalability or error resilience characteristics. These additional tools extend AAC into its MPEG-4 incarnation (ISO/IEC 14496-3, Subpart 4).
A copy of the MPEG-4 Audio standard can be purchased from the ISO online store (search for "14496-3").
" Its pretty widely known that WMA offers superior quality"
Actually, the tests that show this were at the 64kbs range which is not useful except for voice. The break-even point is 128, and above that sampling rate, virtually everything (including MP3) is superior to WMA.
So I guess if you want a good voice-streaming codec, WMA is your codec. But for music, it isn't very good.
But perhaps you're a person who primarily listens to books on tape or something like that?
AAC is not necessarily copy protected. For instance, if you encode your own music with iTunes, the files are not protected in any way.
Obviously, it would be difficult to conduct a listening test if the files in question wouldn't play on everyone's computers because of digital rights management, right?
[Oh, and by the way, if the cables really make a difference you need to A) get out more, and B) switch to XLR balanced analog or AES/EBU digital connections.]
What!? You mean that pure silver digital cable I spent $100000 on isn't going to give me straighter ones and rounder zeroes!?
Actually I do not agree with you at all. Comparing different encoders for a certain format is a complete test. In this particular case, the goal was to find out which AAC encoder is the best. The results answered that question.
As an Open-Source (and open standards) advocate it is easy to look at such a test and say "but Ogg/MP3/whatever is better anyways, they should have included them". Actually saying so leads nowhere at all.
If you want a comparison between Ogg, AAC, WMA and MP3, then do such a comparison. But this was not a test to find our which format/algorithm was the best, it was a test to find out which AAC encoder was the best, which is also what the test answered.
Not every test in the world should always include all and every variant of the test subject in question. Just because you're comparing the quality of carrots from different farmers, you shouldn't automatically be expected to include potatoes in the comparison just because there are people that prefer potatoes over carrots. If the test question was "which is the best vegetable", then omitting potatoes could be considered careless.
And, in very much the same way, if the test question is "which is the best AAC encoder", including MP3-or Ogg-encoders would be just as wrong.
That's my view, at least.
/Viktor...
As a musician myself, I can tell you that one of the most important aspects of a stereo to me is its ability to be manipulated with my toes. Makes transcribing music much easier.
"God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh." -Voltaire
About half that stuff makes sense to me. Many of the things you wrote seem reasonable and valid - I don't see what you are making fun of. For example, many pre-amps (not mine) change character during loud transients. Opera singers seem to jump out at you when they hit the really high/loud notes. A lot of the quoted statements make perfect sense - it is just that they are having trouble explaining their experience, and you are taking the quotes out of context to make them look stupid. Slashdot is not capible of discussing high end audio - stick to your MP3 players and surround sound computer speakers.
RTFA. This was onlyl the first step; next, HydrogenAudio will take the AAC winner (QuickTime) and compare it to what they consider the best encoders for the OGG Vorbis, WMA, MP3, etc.
Heh, I hear ya. (pun alert!) In my experience, two major factors affect your being able to discern quality differences between audio codecs: environment, and equipment. Listen to the stuff on a crummy pair of computer speakers and you'll hardly be able to tell the differences between bitrates, much less formats. Listening in a room with ten computers with their fans whining away doesn't help either. Myself personally, if I'm listening for differences between formats I'll put on a decent pair of headphones, and close my eyes while listening. But that works for me. :) Others are different, and that's the trick with encoding-- music registers quite differently with everyone.
I also like to use music I've listened to for YEARS. If I take a song that I've listened to a zillion times in the past and run it through various codecs it's much easier to tell if the song sounds "right", to me. :) If you recognize every note being played it's easier to tell if an encoder's stripping some bits out that wreck the harmonics more than another one does. But that's just me!
"I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar."
-Hoban Washburn
And to further your argument, if the question is 'which is the best sounding format, aac, ogg, or mp3?' then this test is a prerequsite. To compare the formats, one must pick an encoder to encode the samples. The only fair way to do this is to use the best encoder from each group. This test shows that it would be unfair to use faac, for example, to encode the AAC samples.
So, the self-righteous open-standards advocates (no denegration intended) ought to be organizing a test just like this article talks about for ogg and mp3 if there's not a suitable prior study.
Only then can they properly organize the audio-format bake-off.
My God, it's Full of Source!
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