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Listening Comparisons For Audio Codecs At 64kbps
waaka! writes "Hydrogenaudio has just wrapped up a listening test of various audio codecs at 64kbps. Check out the results, where Ogg Vorbis performed quite well, scoring significantly better than WMA, RealAudio and QuickTime AAC, and kept pace with MP3Pro and HE-AAC (AAC with the SBR extensions that MP3Pro uses). Clearly, though, no codec can honestly claim 128 kbps MP3 quality at 64 kbps. The charts at the end show entries for 128kbps LAME MP3 and 64kbps FhG MP3, but these are used as high and low anchors for reference, as MP3 is really out of its league at bitrates such as these."
... "Why not just encode it at 384 and be done with it?", consider that PDAs have 64 megs of RAM, cell phones get no better than 56k, and that not everybody has broadband.
...to compensate for everyone's crappy $1.99 computer speakers?
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
Sometimes, simple audio clips don't require the highest quality. Function triumphs over high performance hot-rodding.
If I wanted to listen to fuzzy FM sounding music I'd just liten to the crap they play on the radio.
The only application this might be good for would be video files where you want to keep file size down. Streaming radio isn't much better than regular radio in my experience so I just listen to my own music.
You used to compare against CD quality.
Oh well, times change, I guess it's time to throw all my CDs away and instead store all music in this new exciting digital format.
And seriously, does anyone listen to music encoded at 64 kbps? 128 is the bare minumum.
where Ogg Vorbis performed quite well, scoring significantly better than WMA, RealAudio and QuickTime AAC, and kept pace with MP3Pro and HE-AAC (AAC with the SBR extensions that MP3Pro uses)
But from the article: QuickTime 6.3 AAC LC 64kbps, Best Quality
So, what gives?
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
I've also noticed sometimes that 28 kbps streaming audio in some sites is much better than 56 kbps audio on other sites
the purpose of PDAs is not to play music
cell phones get no better than 56k
the purpose of cell phones is not to play music
We shouldn't even be talking about this. MP3's are illegal and hurt our favorite artists. The record producers would never hurt the artists, so we shouldn't either.
No, I'm New Here
MP3s are ubiquitous. My computer, DVD player, portable audio player, and car stereo all support it. The same can't be said for other formats.
More to the point, why are all of these competitions at such low bitrates? The differences in quality between various types of audio compression become indistinguishable (and therefore irrelevant) as you raise the bitrate.
I just use good old variable bitrate MP3 and forget about it. Simple and standard.
GeekNights!
Late Night Radio for Geeks!
Its not how it sounds that matters, it's how it compares to the original wav. In that field Ogg still needs work.
I was nearly fired for sharing Phish mp3s.
Since that day, I deleted every music file on my computer, and there's no looking back.
I sincerely hope that all of you immediately take inventory of what illegal files are on your computers, and then remove them at once.
Save yourself now. If not, you will regret it. I'm doing this for your own good.
As a test, reply with a comment in which the subject is an integer value representing the number of illegal music files you currently have on your computer. This should be interesting to graph!
Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate. Ex-O'Reilly/MIT employee, now a full-time Google employee.
Its nice to see ogg doing well, but ogg needs to start advertising. Nobody is going to give a shit about ogg if computer companies (apple) is distributing aac and their old napster mp3s don't play on an ogg player. Fact of the matter is that there is a LOT of power behind the MPEG (4, 7, 21) movement.
Have you seen the cuidado project? Have you read what companies publish? Why fight the good fight if you aren't getting the public hooked on it while its still the best option.
hmm
Rob
I saved this thread quite a while ago and I agree with several of the recommendations (notably with the 'Tori Amos' 'Boys for Pele' CD, not that it's the type of music I usually listen to, but I have to admit the production values are outstanding), after all using hyper-compressed (re: other slashdot articles) crappy source material is not that helpful in terms of figuring out how good the various encoders really are...
the thread on google
Personally I rip my own CDs with lame --alt-preset extreme (on said Tori Amos' CD it seems it hovers around 224kbps with -lots- of frames at 256 and 320), for fun I transcoded (I know, transcoding is bad, mmkay?) a few of them to vorbis 48kbps and it's amazing how good they sound at that low of a bitrate.
-- the cake is a lie
I always encoded my MP3s 224 kbps and when iTunes came out I simply continued the tradition.
In any case, I can certainly notice the improvement from MP3s encoded at the same rate.
Still #1 -- Lonely Gay Geek
I mean, really - storage is dirt cheap, and isn't life too short to be listening to anything below 128kbps? Personally, I get irritated with anything below 192 when listening with headphones.
Are we at the LIMITS of compression technology ? Is there anything new being worked on by anyone ?
No one with decent hearing and good speakers/headphones care about bitrates that low. Sure, they are useful when you want to stream something but they still sound like crap.
What I'd like to see is a comparison of codecs at ~200 kbps (what you get using lame --alt-preset standard).
1 of them shared.
I may be a bastard, but I'm not a stupid bastard.
--
the strongest word is still the word "free"
You don't want 64k except for PDAs and phones, and hell at that point only convert on the fly. WMP will convert down to the device when you copy them over to get you the best bit rate for the storage you have. Let me say it again, ON THE FLY. So why make seperate 64k encodes....just seems like a stupid test to point out that Vorbis does *slightly* better than the mainstream formats.
In Norway, any copies of any music downloaded for personal use are legal, so as long as I don't share or sell anything I download, I can download as much MP3 songs and DivX movies I want.
:-D
So, as I don't have any P2P software running at the moment, the number is zero.
This message has been ROT-13 encrypted twice for higher security.
Though not fully implemented, is on the fly bit-stripping, which would allow you to peel away bits and create a lower bitrate file with pretty much the same quality as a direct encode.
Maybe nowadays everyone is doing these tests correctly so they don't feel they need to describe the procedure they use, but otherwise I would expect a clear answer to the following questions in the opening paragraph of these listening tests reports.
- Is it a blind test? Do the users know which codec they're listening to? Or can they find out with little effort for example if the information is leaked in partial results that are published before the end of the test?
- Is the question people are asked to answer "how good does it sound", or is the question "how close does it sound to the original"? In other words are we measuring sound fidelity and enhancement properties of the codec, or only sound fidelity? More bass always sounds better, but I'd rather be the one in charge of that and not the codec.
Anything below 128k/s (in my opinion) is only good for streaming and embedding. Even 128 is the bare minimum for anything that sounds decent. Are there any comprehensive articles that deal with comparing high encoding rates (192+) of multiple formats?
It should also be noted that it is not recommended using CBR encoding with OGG. It is a native VBR codec that is only forced into CBR for steaming. The quality of CBR is much lower than VBR. It would be very nice to see a comparison that uses VBR for all codecs that stick to the same bitrate range.
Whoops, some kinda integer math error.
-]Phreak Out[-
I don't think I am deaf or anything, but in all honesty I am totally incapable of distinguishing a quality 0.0 ogg from the 192kbit/s mp3 I converted it from, and even if I could, the resulting music still has the precise same quality of making me feel good and happy as it had before. If you encode it slightly higher, I believe the difference will be inaudible to anyone. So why waste space?
The poster offers an interesting interpretation of the results, but only his/her comments support Ogg Vorbis in this case. The numbers tell a completely different story.
The analysis presented leads us to one conclusion: use Lame 128. It's strictly better than all other options. Do not use FhG MP3. Easy.
If you're willing to slip to 4th best encoder, then consider Ogg Vorbis. 4TH BEST. That's hardly the rosey picture painted in the article.
Also, don't be deceived by the "confidence intervals" shown in the graph. They're all drawn to the same widths for each set! At best, this is an approximation. At worst, the author is simply using a program that draws in some uniform (and meaningless) bars. Fear graphs.
The URLs of the sample files are hidden in a text file in a zip file. I've extracted the links, and hyperlinked them, so you can download them easier.
BigYellow
DaFunk
EnolaGay
experiencia
gone
Illinois
mybloodrusts
NewYorkCity
Polonaise
riteofspring
Scars
Waiting
And to help reduce the load, Ive also got a mirror
Why is it that no-one ever quotes their hearing test results when doing these subjective tests? It's just like when my co-worker tells me that watching DVD's on my 1600x1200 resolution screen is not as sharp as his German 100MHz standard television.
The fact that his visual acuity has been compared to Mr Magoo never comes into the equation...
I believe I know where it's coming from. And who's behind it, but we'll leave that for now.
Use ISO 8601 dates [YYYY-MM-DD]
that Joe Schmo out there with the Windows machine will be pretty much sticking to WMA. Sure hardcore audiophiles can tell a difference between formats but the average computer idiot doesn't care.
The saddest part of all is that WMA is a beast that is growing and will be hard to get rid of. Since MS has submitted this format for inspection for widespread adoption, they will continue to force their way into this becoming the de facto standard even though it sucks ass. More importantly, because of the draconian DRM, WMA is the format that the RIAA and other head asswipes at recording labels are drooling over. They could really care less about the quality of their digital music as long as they control the rights management on it.
Until more portable players support formats like ogg, WMA will be an immovable force, the 800 hundred pound gorilla that will be difficult to move.
No trees were harmed in the composition of this; however, numerous electrons were inconvenienced.
Lame 128 is 128kbps, everything else is 64kbps, so obviously it's better. Smartass.
First, I know and listen to some of those songs. It's nice to see band(s) I listen to, it makes the test seem much less... abstract. It seems like these tests usually use music I've never even heard. (For the curious, TMBG and John Linnell).
Second, I would have liked to see the results presented as "quality relative to 128kb MP3", since that's the "gold standard". Just a preference.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
@!#%$%#@ it. I suffered through three semesters of Stats in college, and the acid-reflux flare-up I get reading this kind of "test result" is the burden I bear for it.
-- Watch the REAL Jon Katz.
Comparing without a reference reflects how much you like the encoding of the codec, not how accurate it is to the original. For example, if a codec boosts the bass or encodes slightly louder, you may interpret this as better sound. For example, when auditioning speakers, you must always balance the output of the speakers as most people will psychologically prefer the louder (most sensitive) speaker. This does not mean the speakers are accurate however.
At any rate, here is the relevant quote on that page:
Note that the quote (and here's the nitpick) suggests that double-blind means that the participant doesn't know which encoder is used. Double-blind means that both the participant and the person running the test don't know. By the way, this is, indeed as accurate as double-blind (since, well, the computer might know but surely doesn't care to influence the results). And I realize he doesn't say "double-blind means" but seems to suggest the definition of double-blind. Anyways, that's just the nitpick. Please don't mod me down for it. It's just an observation and I'm trying to build some Karma!
Sunny
Be my Friend
Nobody will ever need less than 64kbps of audio.
As an artist that releases mainly online, I found these results very interesting, and thought I'd share my feelings with the slashdot community.
:D
While MP3Pro and Vorbis were good competitors overall, and have a fairly good footprint to boot, I'd have to say that if I'm forced to encode to 64MBit/s, I'd absolutely choose Ahead HE AAC, if I'm judging solely on this comparison (which I am at this point in time...)
Why? Because there was no sample that Ahead HE AAC did POORLY at. MP3Pro and Vorbis (and all the other codecs) each had one or two samples that they just totally choked on, quality-wise. So if I was forced to use a 64 MBit/s codec, it would absolutely be Ahead HE AAC, because while it didn't score highest on every test, and the three codec were virtually tied across the whole competition, I would feel far safer trusting my best digital work to a codec that, according to this test, would have the least chance of representing it particularly poorly.
I wonder how these results compare to higher encoding rates; I could easily imagine that most codecs have a sweet spot, where the encoding quality/bitrate maximizes... it would be interesting to do some research to find this sweet spot.
Anyone want a quick way to slashdot a server?
I am disrespectful to dirt! Can you see that I am serious?!
If you intend on streaming your audio. Audio can stream decently at 128kbps, in fact, for modems it is a must. Internet radio, and even most stuff on mp3.com et al sounds decent for previewing purposes when played at lower bitrates.
>It's worth mentioning that, while Ahead HE AAC,
>Vorbis, MP3pro and WMA were encoded in VBR mode,
>Real Audio and QuickTime were encoded in CBR mode
>since these codecs don't offer a VBR mode.
>Lame MP3 was encoded at ABR mode because that's
>how Lame performs better at this bitrate.
It explains. The "64kbit/s" is only an average.
In general adaptive sampling methods such as VBR should always outperform constant sampling methods like CBR.
While there is a need for 64kbps bit rates, this is, *at best* FM radio quality.
This is not high fidelity and certainly not for critical listening.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
I find the results to be very interesting, it would be nice to get more music on a flash memory device. But it seems like most portable players can only handle MP3 and maybe WMA. Where are the players for Ogg and AAC?
I'm not talking about PDAs, just simple, durable flash memory players that you could take to the gym and not worry about breaking.
For monophonic human voice encoding, Speex at 20 kbps is transparent over my stereo system. Have a listen.
Will I retire or break 10K?
On a portable device it's an entirely different story. Maybe it uses hardware for MP3 playback and you can't play other formats. Maybe the company developing its closed source firmware doesn't care about other formats. Maybe the CPU is too slow and even if it isn't a more CPU intensive format can seriously shorten battery life.
Isn't getting more storage often the best choice?
As I understand it, the "Best" mode, which they used to encode the QT AAC clips, was actually optimized for audio with sample rates well above CDs' 44.1khz. For audio that originated on CD, the "Better" setting would have been more appropriate. (this setting does seem really unintuitive, I would hope for better from apple)
I wonder if/how this would have affected the scores.
I was surprised to se QT AAC ranked so low after it recently won a similar test among AAC encoders, was that HE AAC encoder not included in the previous test?
"The worst tyrannies were the ones where a governance required its own logic on every embedded node." - Vernor Vinge
...RCA Orthophonic records were judged superior to Edison Blue Amberols--even at 160 RPM.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
It's worth pointing out that at least MP3Pro and HE-AAC from tested codecs use SBR. SBR is a method (mostly post-process) that allows transmission of lower half of audio spectrum, and have the decoder "guess" what the the other part of the spectrum would have been. While this allows for "cool-sounding" audio at low bitrates, the generated part of the spectrum is not actually an encoded original audio, but rather its "guessed" reconstruction. SBR is also patented.
Search for more info on SBR if interested, like this one.
It's good to see these types of reports, but they need more press. False advertising by the marketing machines have been lying to the sheepish public for years. with terms of "CD Quality", "100% Digital", etc etc.
IBOC is coming to american radio waves, sometime in the nearish future... For FM signals programming will be encoded at 96kbps (64kbps if optional data/program channel is used). For AM 36kbps... There will be no listening tests for the public, they'll get what they get. They haven't divulged a whole lot on what encoder is to be used but it was internally developed by Ibiquity ( the joint venture developing IBOC ).
Anyway, it's good that the public understands the bad side of the great "digital" realm. It will help in my fight with DirecTV... They've been increasing the compression of their channels - looks like I'm watching an internet stream. But when the other sheep complain to DirecTV, they actually believe the cop-out tech support answer, 'Your dish needs re-alignment' or 'Try some of those gold plated connectors' - um yeah, okay. if they only knew how DirecTV and Dish squeeze channel after channel into their fixed bandwidth satellite feed. Same goes for digital cable, Satellite Radio (XM & Sirrius), and soon FM/AM radio.
And just think, if all the sheep start buying music by downloading the crappy 128kbps files that are offered at most of these legit online music sites, they'll stop selling CDs and only offer music online. say good-bye to your 256kbps VBR rips.
If we the public don't understand it and therefor can't fight it - we'll all die early of compression fatigue.
storage is dirt cheap,
On hard drives it is. On little audio devices with flash memory it isn't.
only very few professional and gifted people can distinguish or even recognize a good encoded sound from lossless sound on 100 % top end HIFI systems.
Check out the C't listening test (blind test!) done in 2002 or 2003, which showed that people producing classical music, people finetuning codecs and many others were not consistently able to tell the difference. The best tester was someone with a hearing damage on one ear. The psychoaccustics obviously did not work 100% for him.
BTW: OGG won that test for ~100 kbit and higher bitrates. Even well encoded MP3 with 256 are almost perfect.
Moritz
The charts at the end show entries for 128kbps LAME MP3 and 64kbps FhG MP3, but these are used as high and low anchors for reference, as MP3 is really out of its league at bitrates such as these."
I guess that it's good that whenever I buy and rip a CD I always encode it as 256kbps MP3s.
But seriously, what is the point of these ultra low bitrate audio tests? Hard drive space is constantly getting cheaper, memory for portable devices is constantly getting cheaper, so what is the point? Sure, my MP3s take up 4 times the space of AM radio quality encodings, but unless you are listening to classic oration, where there is no music, why not use a higher bitrate?
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Last time I was reading about a music comparison, the statement was along the lines of "OGG excels at very low bitrates, AAC is really good from about 128kbps up".
Integrate Keynote and LaTeX
Compression limits are like the limit to Moore's law. Everyone always says we'll hit them soon, but we never have.
While individual compression techniques aren't developed THAT often, finding novel ways to tune and enhance them are ongoing. For example, HE AAC is a combination of the "pro" part of MP3 Pro and AAC, but performs a lot better than a linear extrapolation of either would suggest.
One limiting factor is CPU speed. There are lots of techniques that are computationally expensive, and so aren't implemented until Moore's law has made them computationally cheap. This is definitely an issue with video codecs.
My video compression blog
The sole deciding factor in whether or not compressed audio really gets used in a game is available minspec bandwidth. If marketing is forcing us to target a 500MHz machine, and decompressing OGG audio kills our framerate, then audio compression goes. It the sad truth that the tech heads do not call the shots in this department.
...but sometimes it is the right decision. Many people don't see the big need to upgrade their machine, and only dedicated fans are willing to upgrade for your game specifically. Apart from maybe an extra install CD of music, your customers won't notice much difference, but those in the low-end of your CPU target might, not to mention it increases your potential market.
While I'm sure you as geeks have machines that are head and shoulders above the min spec, many people don't. Btw, it should also work as a "decompress-on-install" option to save space on the install discs, while still avoiding the CPU penalty of decompressing in real-time. I seem to remember some *cough*unofficial*cough* releases using this to reduce size at least...
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Quality != bitrate. What they're trying to do here is find an algorithm that only uses 65,536 bits of compressed data for every second of uncompressed data and sounds as good as 128k.
I mod down pyramid schemes in sigs.
Sounds like a misprint to me-- if the english language had approximately one bit of information per word, we'd have approximately two words.
"1" and "0"
...the difference in mindfucking sound between 32-bit and 64-bit penis-shaped soundwaves coming from the computer speakers, as i think about skins?
do() || do_not();
Seriously, why all the fuss about codecs? I know competition is good and all, but the way things are going, your average Joe isn't going to sit around re-encoding his 40GB music collection...
If they run out of space, they'll just go out and buy a new 120GB drive, and in terms of time=money, they'll be saving.
Besides that, sure, the more standards we can flood users with, the better -- everyone will just LOVE having to figure out what is a music file.
guess it will be great for those
3% of the population who have
excellent hearing .
While Hydrogen Audio did provide the resources to host this test, the real work was done by Roberto Amorim, who organised this monster.
Credit where credit is due.
Use ISO 8601 dates [YYYY-MM-DD]
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/demo center/9series/avquality/wmamp3/default.htm
This is an interesting test of music quality at different lower bitrates between mp3 and wma.
I think that these results are interesting, but I see MP3, WMA, and perhaps Real as the only power players in this field.
Most music downloads are still mp3, and real is losing their share in streaming all the time.
WMA is also starting to gain in the desktop market. Formerly anti-mp3 guys like myself have come around.
It ain't all bad. And it's from Microsoft, imagine that. ;)
Clif
clifgriffin > blog
i dont suppose that they could have tried comparing the ATRAC codec, if you can even call it that, it sounds pretty good at low bit rates
You must have been waiting for a chance to make a post like that ever since you picked that pseudonym... I hope you had fun, because 72932 electrons lost their lives for your little "joke".
Ok, first of all, while the test was DISCUSSED on HydrogenAudio, and most of the participants are HA regulars, Roberto Amorim did all the hard work of organizing the test and compiling the results, dealing with complaints, etc. To not give him credit is not very nice.
/.ers seem to be only half-literate (can write but not read). There is a hilarious number of denegrating comments here by people who know nothing about either statistics or psychoacoustic audio compression. ABC/HR type methodology is the standard for comparing the relative quality of audio sources. Also, a great deal of effort went in to assuring that the best settings for the best encoders for each codec were used for the test. A little reading of the pre-test discussions would reveal this. Further, HydrogenAudio is not a club of audiofools who spend zillions of dollars on fancy speaker cable without any science to back it up. It is an objectivist forum. Anyone who makes statements without backing them up (with something like ABC/HR or ABX results) gets flamed HARSHLY. Some of the regluars have PhDs on various audio topics. They know what the fuck they're doing.
Second, there was a 128kbps test a month or two ago (which for some reason got repeatedly rejected when submitted to slashdot). You can see it here. Unfortunately, the results there aren't quite as interesting (it was mostly a big tie). Unfortunately, tests at higher bitrates are difficult because detecting problems at, say, 160kbps often requires well trained ears and good audio equipment.
Third, it's a good idea when commenting on an article to actually read it and click around on a few links to actually have an idea what you are talking about. Many
Fourth, just because you don't have a use for 64k audio, doesn't mean the results are meaningless. Lots of people have small-capacity players, and some codecs can tolerate that bitrate for very casual listening (such as in the car). Lots of streaming audio sources are at this bitrate or lower. Satellite radio is at 64k or lower. Also, it's not a good idea to try to extend these results to other bitrates. MPC for example, isn't even worth considering at 64kbps, but at bitrates over about 140kbps, it will beat the pants off of anything else.
Finally, for those who want to know more, or want their audio collections to sound best, read the FAQs at HA. Many codecs have a preset where they are transparent for the vast majority of samples; usually a VBR setting that averages somewhere between 160 and 200kbps (such as lame --preset standard, mppenc --standard, oggenc around -q5 or -q6).
... "Give me a woman who loves beer and I will conquer the w
I want to give full respect to the people who put all the research into creating these new audio formats. The results are truly phenomenal for 64kbps codecs. It's a fabulous academic demonstration.
However, each is what it is. A 64kbps codec.
I have about $6000 invested in my 2-channel +subwoofer setup here at home, and I consider that moderate compared to what you can truly achieve. I love listening to music, and it is completely remarkable when it is reproduced as realisticly as possible. So I go to painstaking methods to make sure the AC power is clean, the wiring is right, the distortion is low as possible. The signal to noise ratio is far between, with a good amp, and great speakers... I am especially pleased when the recording I am playing on my wonderful system is in the best production quality that it can possibly be.
As amazing as they are, these 64kbit formats are useless on a person like me. I crave LOSSLESS not LOSSY. I might as well be listening to music on a $60 AIWA boombox, since it would sound relatively similar either way. All the subtle beauty and realism of the music is completely wasted with destructive compression.
And for those of you that say it's for portable devices, It's not too unreasonable to get a portable player that plays high streaming VBR mp3s with some nice ~$100-$150 headphones. The small little investment to hear your music from 20hz-20khz flat response with low distortion is worth every single penny.
I simply do not understand the need to take our ever improving technology and lower the quality of the music. If anything, it should be increasing... higher resolutions. 24bit/192khz technologies, and wonderful DSP equalizers, large portable storage devices... they are all realities now, but nobody seems to care but the fanatics like me. I would think that techno geeks would care more about the music they love, but that does not seem to be the case. The only logic that I can fathom to explain why is that perhaps they don't even know what they're missing. I know I didn't, until I actually experienced how good sound quality can be on the right system.
to fit on my olde skool mp3 player (which has 32 MB on board and ONLY takes 32MB smart Media cards, no larger) I sure as hell re-rip to 64 kbps MONO.
Why? I use it on the plane (Crazy background noise), on public transpo like buses and DC Metro (crazy background noise) and in our raised floor lab (Crazy background noise).
And I can't hear any difference!
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
Amen brother, but guess what? Nobody else cares. People will get broadband just so they can download hi-res porno vids, but they still listen to 128 kbps MP3s and call it "CD quality". 192 kbps is "WOW! Audiophile quality!" and anything above that is considered a waste of space.
It's not that they don't know what they're missing. They wouldn't know it even if they experienced it. Give your average snot-nosed teenager a pair of Sennheisers and he'll complain about the bass being too weak.
... is the real problem. Give me a device that can actually do all those things for a decent amount of time. Something ergonomic wouldn't hurt either.
There's no such thing as "QuickTime AAC," just like there's no such thing as "WinAmp MP3," or "XMMS OGG." There's only one type of AAC: MPEG-4 AAC. Duh.
I was thinking about this a while back. Mp3 files are in the frequency / time domain while raw audio is in the amplitude / time domain.
If you have an x voice synth (maybe 64 / 128 or so) where each voice is a sinewave and where each voice can start at any phase with respect to the others, would you not have a synth that could reproduce most sound convincingly?
Seems that synth today is an mp3 player with the usual CPU ram and DAC, but it could be a bunch of nicely designed oscillators and a CPU and ram as well. The CPU probably would not have to do as much to get the music played because it would be in charge of only the ends of things, not all the bits inbetween.
Another choice would be to include a powerful CPU and the same synth design. The extra compute might make lower bit rates possible on less hardware than we would need today.
Maybe the parent of your post has it right, but not at quite the right level. Exchange frequency for instrument and it seems interesting at least.
Just a couple thoughts...
Blogging because I can...
.. and the results are here. That news was submitted before to /. but didn't make it through.
RTFA. VBR was used for Ogg Vorbis in both test.
With storage capacities increasing for mini hard drives and prices falling, any compression less than 128kbps to fit more songs on your portable devices is a stopgap measure if mp3s continues to be the compression standard. Better compression obviously means getting more value out of your portable device. Since some of these codecs does a better job at compression, at what bitrate would Nero HE-AAC or Ogg compare to Lame mp3 in regard to a similar rating? Finding out those ratios should be useful to this community. I think I saw a post which said that Ogg is about 96kish in sound quality compared to mp3. Which if correct gives us 25% increased storage. Would nero be better or some other codec? Bring it down to 80kbps or so. Going after a arbitrary "64kbps" is silly. Now if they were made so we could change the firmware... oh babbbbbbby!!! more excitement for us nerds =P =)
I've had too many Johnnie Walkers already :-D
Use ISO 8601 dates [YYYY-MM-DD]
Sure a test at a higher bitrate would be interesting since that should be the quality to go if you want to archive your music. But this kind of test would be nearly impossible
In this 64kbps test there were not that many participants. Spotting the artifacts was pretty simple and you didn't need "golden ears". In the previous 128kpbs test most samples had to be so called "hard to encode" samples so that the listeners could detect the artifacts.
If we go even higher in bitrate (where the codecs are supposed to be transparent) most people can't spot artifacts any longer - even with problem samples. It would be hard to find enough people to get a statistically relevant result.
I would just skip the encoding altogether and send the raw audio data, which is very unlikely to exceed 64MBit/s.
Even 24bits/sample at 192kHz sample rate on 8 channels is only 36.9MBit/s.
Just teasing you, you only made an innocent typo, didn't you ? Or did you really not get the difference between M and k ?
I rip and listen to all my music at 16 bit 44.1. it sounds great. exactly as it was intended. is this wrong??
HE AAC, being a new codec, likely has a lot of room for improvement. I'd also be surprised if Ahead were using the best psychoacoustic model available.
>And seriously, does anyone listen to music encoded at 64 kbps? 128 is the bare minumum.
I have a tiny gadget that I plug into my car stereo so I don't have to lug a CD case around. It holds 192MB of data, so to make the most of it I compress everything to 64kbps. Since the music is normally competing with road noise anyway, it's "good enough".
Through headphones, though, one really can tell the difference.
It's called mono :-)
666-607: 6th floor apartment of the beast
Then couldn't you run Kazaa Lite, but disable uploads so that you don't share anything you have downloaded? ;-)
Don't fool your self, you don't have a high end system. Your speakers are mediocre, but you have a combined receiver? No wonder you can't tell the difference between VBR and CD, you have a low end system. Get a decent, separate amp (tube or hybrid), electrostatic speakers or planars, and while you are at it get a half way decent CD player, preferably a transport and D/A convertor.
Ever heard of Quads, Maggies, Inner Sound, McIntosh, NAD, Levinson, ADCOM, Martin Logan, Synthesis, Cary, Hovland? Before you start calling yourself an audiophile, get rid of the crap...
Don't fool your self, you don't have a high end system. Your speakers are mediocre, but you have a combined Denon receiver? Not even NAD Monitor series? No wonder you can't tell the difference between VBR and CD, you have a crappy low end system. Get a decent, separate amp (tube or hybrid), electrostatic speakers or planars, and while you are at it get a half way decent CD player, preferably a transport and D/A convertor.
Ever heard of Quads, Maggies, Inner Sound, Acoustat, McIntosh, NAD, Eminent, Apogee, Levinson, ADCOM, Martin Logan, Synthesis, Cary, Hovland, Audiopax, Audio Research, Conrad Johnson, Lamm, Tube Research, Tenor, Jolida, Krell or at least Marantz? Or does having a pair of low-end B&W speakers with shit components make you some expert? Before you start bragging about being an audiophile, get rid of the crap...