128kbps listening test

[rjamorim]

Hello.

I'd like to announce the start of the 128kbps extension test, comparing the AAC winner (QuickTime) to Musepack, Vorbis, WMA Pro and Lame MP3.

Instructions are available at the announcement page:
http://rarewares.hydrogenaudio.org/test/128extension/presentation.html

If questions or issues arise, please post at this thread.

Thank-you.

Regards;

Roberto Amorim

[bond]

just wanted to post that by myself ;)

thanks a lot for this great test, which will bring very interesting and important results...


perhaps it would be also a good idea to send doom9 an extra message so that he can announce the test also on the main page (and so also on all mirrors)!

what about slashdot?

[rjamorim]

Originally posted by bond
just wanted to post that by myself ;)

Hehe. Thanks anyway :)

perhaps it would be also a good idea to send doom9 an extra message so that he can announce the test also on the main page (and so also on all mirrors)!

Good idea. I'll PM him.

what about slashdot?

<shivers>
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/07/23/1221226&mode=thread&tid=126&tid=141&tid=181&tid=188

I'll ask the slashdot insiders that visit HA (Garf, dev0, Tangent...)to post an article.

Regards;

Roberto.

BTW: I guess it's time to change your member title. No need to wait for AAC+ anymore ;)

[bond]

Originally posted by rjamorim
BTW: I guess it's time to change your member title. No need to wait for AAC+ anymorehm, i think i will change it when i am able to decode it in winamp/directshow (means when the sbr code will be released in faad2) because only then it will be fully functional for me :(

[bond]

very important info!!!

if you are living in a country, which uses a "," to show commas (for example germany) instead of a "." as in most english speaking countries, has to change the "-q 4.25" to "-q 4,25" in every .bat file!!!

for example in the Sample01.bat:
from
oggenc -q 4.25 ..\Sample01\41_30sec.wav --output=..\Sample01\41_30sec_ogg.oggto
oggenc -q 4,25 ..\Sample01\41_30sec.wav --output=..\Sample01\41_30sec_ogg.ogg

if you dont do that the ogg vorbis files will be encoded at lower quality!!!

[JohnV]

I think this was fixed yesterday already.

[duartix]

Tell me something.
What are the .anch files?

Are those smaller samples (like 41_30sec_mp4.mp4) the quicktime ones?
From my tests they have as much quality as the originals at 10% the size of the competition :confused: :confused: :confused:. How is that possible?
My tests also made me realize ogg wasn't as good as I thought. And to think I took me about 3 weeks to rip all my collection of CD's to ogg because I had compared it to an mp3 encoder and the mp3 sucked big time :( :( :(
Are any of those encoders/engines (Musepack 1.14, Apple QuickTime 6.3 MP4 encoder, LAME MP3 Encoder 3.90.3) free?

[rjamorim]

Originally posted by duartix
Tell me something.
What are the .anch files?

Olá.

The anch files are anchors. They are files encoded in bad quality, so that you can put results into perspective.

In this test, I used the Blade MP3 encoder at 128kbps as anchor.

Are those smaller samples (like 41_30sec_mp4.mp4) the quicktime ones?

Yes.

From my tests they have as much quality as the originals at 10% the size of the competition :confused: :confused: :confused:. How is that possible?

Nono, the competition has the same size. The detail is that, using the batch script, I'm first encoding the original file (filename.wav) to the formats, then I decode these files to wave and delete the encoded files.

If you look again, you'll notice that there is a filename_mp4.wav file in the test folders that is the quicktime file decoded. The abc/hr program can only use wav files, that's why I must decode the samples first.

QuickTime is provided separately because there's no way to make it run from the command line. Same thing about the WMA sample.

BTW, just for your information, the .flac files are losslessly compressed wav files.

My tests also made me realize ogg wasn't as good as I thought. And to think I took me about 3 weeks to rip all my collection of CD's to ogg because I had compared it to an mp3 encoder and the mp3 sucked big time :( :( :(

Well, Ogg is indeed better than MP3, but it seems that at this moment it isn't comparing well with codecs like AAC and MPC at these bitrates. It's better waiting for the test results before drawing any conclusion, though.

Are any of those encoders/engines (Musepack 1.14, Apple QuickTime 6.3 MP4 encoder, LAME MP3 Encoder 3.90.3) free?

Lame is free: http://mitiok.cjb.net
Musepack too: http://www.ca5e.tk
QuickTime is commercial: http://www.quicktime.com
It's free for playback, but you have to pay for it in order to use the encoding functions.

Thanks for participating.

Best regards;

Roberto.

[rjamorim]

Hello

I would like to announce that the 128kbps Extension listening test is now closed, and the results are available at my Listening Tests page:

http://audio.ciara.us/test/

Here are the overall ratings:
http://audio.ciara.us/test/128extension/plot12.png

Best regards;

Roberto.

[kxy]

Blah! Now people can no longer say WMA pro sucks! I still won't use it tho. :rolleyes:

[bond]

Originally posted by kxy
Now people can no longer say WMA pro sucks!no but they can still say that "normal" wma9 sucks :D (which is much more widely used)

[duartix]

In my tests, I couldn't tell a diference from MPC, AAC and the original. So this leaves me thinking on using either AAC or Musepack for the next backups of my CD collection.
Can someone tell me if there is some support arising for AAC in portable devices? I don't expect to be much suport for the either MPC or OGG...

[rjamorim]

Originally posted by duartix
Can someone tell me if there is some support arising for AAC in portable devices?

Yes. The Apple iPod already supports it (wrapped inside the MP4 container), as well as some models the Philips Expanium (unwrapped AAC)

iRiver is also promising AAC support for their upcoming HDD player. (they may also make available firmware updates for older models. who knows?)

Regards;

Roberto.

[duartix]

You sold me! :D
That's more support than I imagined!

I've got about 30+ new CDs to backup and I've been playing around with the command line Psytel AAC Encoder (aacenc & fastenc).
It looks like it's not very dificult to integrate it with CDex.

What I would want is to how can I use the ID3v1.1 (or superior) tags to describe the files?
From running fastenc -h I get:
(...)
-artist <x> Artist Name
-title <x> Title Name
-album <x> Album
-year <x> Year

But I guess it's probably not working because winamp doesn't show the track name. Or possibly it's not standard ID3v(X).

I have a workaround but I think it's just too messy. I have to rename all AAC files to MP3, open them in mp3bookhelper (it doesn't load AAC)then use the function Filename to Tag (to get titles & track #), and them for an entire album I can set the other properties for the whole group.
The file play fine afterwards in winamp but does it make sense, ID3V1.1 in AAC?

Or is the format meant to be wrapped in a MP4 container.
How can I mass tag my backups?

Thanks.
(perhaps I should stick to musepack)

[rjamorim]

Originally posted by duartix
I've got about 30+ new CDs to backup and I've been playing around with the command line Psytel AAC Encoder (aacenc & fastenc).
It looks like it's not very dificult to integrate it with CDex.

What I would want is to how can I use the ID3v1.1 (or superior) tags to describe the files?
From running fastenc -h I get:
(...)
-artist <x> Artist Name
-title <x> Title Name
-album <x> Album
-year <x> Year

But I guess it's probably not working because winamp doesn't show the track name. Or possibly it's not standard ID3v(X).

It's not standard tagging. I think it's actually some weird tagging system that Ivan came up with. :B

I have a workaround but I think it's just too messy. I have to rename all AAC files to MP3, open them in mp3bookhelper (it doesn't load AAC)then use the function Filename to Tag (to get titles & track #), and them for an entire album I can set the other properties for the whole group.
The file play fine afterwards in winamp but does it make sense, ID3V1.1 in AAC?

Well, it's not a good idea. There is no tagging system for AAC, either formal or informal (like ID3). So, you always risk breaking compatibility with devices/software supporting AAC if you add non-standard frames.

BTW: if you really want it, you can use CDex to tag the AAC files you create using the CDDB information it gathers. But it tags using ID3. :-/

Or is the format meant to be wrapped in a MP4 container.

Yes, that would be a much safer solution.

How can I mass tag my backups?

So far, the only mass tagger for MP4 tags is Foobar2000.

(perhaps I should stick to musepack)

That's another good option, indeed.

Best regards;

Roberto.

[duartix]

Thanks Roberto.
You have been of great help! :D
The mp4 wrapping thing isn't working very clean.
Most of the tools are unstable, and since I found out that there are direct transcoders from Musepack to mp3, I've got it all.
I can backup my collection in this great format, while being able to quickly generate mp3 files for a portable device.

Now I'm struggling with the command line to send to the External Encoder in CDex.

[duartix]

Can anyone give me a working command line to send to the External Encoder in CDex to encode using musepack?
The line that comes with Cdex is not working for me...

[Slogra]

Maybe this line works:
--quality 5 --xlevel --artist "%a" --album "%b" --title "%t" --track "%tn" --year "%y" --genre "%g" %1 %2

I haven't tested it cause i use EAC (of course :rolleyes: )

[Fr4nz]

Originally posted by duartix
Can anyone give me a working command line to send to the External Encoder in CDex to encode using musepack?
The line that comes with Cdex is not working for me...

Maybe this will work for MPC too (watch under "Reccomended EAC settings"):

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?showtopic=1927&

[duartix]

Thank you.
I had tried that along with I don't know how many command line variations.
Switched to EAC after 500+ rips with CDex. Works great!