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Topic: Multiformat@128kbps listening test - FINISHED (Read 182419 times) previous topic - next topic
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Multiformat@128kbps listening test - FINISHED

Reply #225 –
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contrary to the common way of things, I could only ABX the 7th sample (gone) with speakers, and not with headphones ! (Dynaudio Gemini speakers vs Sennheiser HD600 headphones).

Impressive!

Can you describe the artifact you can only detect with your speakers, and not your headphones?

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Reply #226 –
From the "user comment" section, matching the samples ID with the filenames, then the filenames with the codecs, I got

Lame  : 5/5

AAC : 4/5 : Ringing on the first guitar note.
ABX 13/16 from 8.3 to 22 s

Musepack : 5/5

Atrac : 4/5 More treble from 17s
ABX 15/16 from 17.17 to 24.21 s

Vorbis  : 5/5

WMA :  3.5/5 : More treble when the guitar comes in
ABX 13/16, from 8 to 26.6 s


When I say "more treble", it is just a subjective impression. It does not necessarily mean the the treble level is higher, but rather the the treble sounds brighter.

Edit : these speaker have not a linear response. The tweeter is set 1.5 db louder than the woofer. The crossover frequency is 2 kHz. I usually cancel this with Foobar convolver, but with ABCHR I couldn't.

Edit2 : the fact that they are rather to the sides of the listener than in front of him makes treble even harsher (this is the case with audio sources when they are to the side of the listener). But that's the way I often listen to music. I did not move the speakers especially for the test.

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Reply #227 –
I thought it was quite impressive that you look so much like your avatar.
I am *expanding!*  It is so much *squishy* to *smell* you!  *Campers* are the best!  I have *anticipation* and then what?  Better parties in *the middle* for sure.
http://www.phong.org/

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Reply #228 –
Hello!

I would like to know if the poor results of lame aren't due to its popularuty. The more you listen to a format, the easier it is for you to recognize its artefacts, right? Maybe the people who participated where more able to recognize MP3 than other formats. What do you think?

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Reply #229 –
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Hello!

I would like to know if the poor results of lame aren't due to its popularuty. The more you listen to a format, the easier it is for you to recognize its artefacts, right? Maybe the people who participated where more able to recognize MP3 than other formats. What do you think?
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=248163"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]


Well, I wouldn't consider Lame's resulst poor. It ended up tied with AAC - that is supposed to sound much better!

Now, for your concern: I think the artifacts that happen on lossy music are pretty much the same across all formats. So, if you learn to distinguish pre-echo, smearing or stereo collapse on MP3, you will probably detect these same artifacts in AAC, Vorbis, MPC... if they are there.

That's just a supposition though, maybe MP3's popularity did affect its results in some way...

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Reply #230 –
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The more you listen to a format, the easier it is for you to recognize its artefacts, right?
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=248163"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]


I don't think so. For exemple, tons of people are listening to vorbis for years, and still can't detect anything wrong in stereo image or timbre coarseness...
To recognize with ease artifacts, you probably need to track them. It's an active attitude, opposed to the daily listening, which is passive.

On the other side, artifacts don't really differ from one encoder to another. mp3, aac, mpc, wma, atrac3... are really close each others. SBR (mp3pro, he-aac) introduce specific problems in addition to the previous one; vorbis is also slightly different (see above); hybrid encoders produce noise. But most artifacts (pre-echo, warbling, chirping, metallic sound...) are common to all transform encoders.
Wavpack Hybrid: one encoder for all scenarios
WavPack -c4.5hx6 (44100Hz & 48000Hz) ≈ 390 kbps + correction file
WavPack -c4hx6 (96000Hz) ≈ 768 kbps + correction file
WavPack -h (SACD & DSD) ≈ 2400 kbps at 2.8224 MHz

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Reply #231 –
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Quote
The more you listen to a format, the easier it is for you to recognize its artefacts, right?
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=248163"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]


I don't think so. For exemple, tons of people are listening to vorbis for years, and still can't detect anything wrong in stereo image or timbre coarseness...
To recognize with ease artifacts, you probably need to track them. It's an active attitude, opposed to the daily listening, which is passive.

On the other side, artifacts don't really differ from one encoder to another. mp3, aac, mpc, wma, atrac3... are really close each others. SBR (mp3pro, he-aac) introduce specific problems in addition to the previous one; vorbis is also slightly different (see above); hybrid encoders produce noise. But most artifacts (pre-echo, warbling, chirping, metallic sound...) are common to all transform encoders.
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=248177"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

That's what most of the people who participated to this test did, I guess. We're not talking about average music listeners here, but people who have "trained ears".

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Reply #232 –
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We're not talking about average music listeners here, but people who have "trained ears".
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=248182"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]


Sorry, but when you said "The more you listen to a format, the easier it is for you to recognize its artefacts, right?" I thought you made a general assumption.

To answer to this: many results were sent by people which are not trained. Take a look to the overall notation: wma@128 is "near transparent" according to the test. It can't be true for someone having a small experience in artifacts hunting.
Wavpack Hybrid: one encoder for all scenarios
WavPack -c4.5hx6 (44100Hz & 48000Hz) ≈ 390 kbps + correction file
WavPack -c4hx6 (96000Hz) ≈ 768 kbps + correction file
WavPack -h (SACD & DSD) ≈ 2400 kbps at 2.8224 MHz

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Reply #233 –
Ok. Thank you both for your answers.

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Reply #234 –
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Roberto> what software did you used to obtain wma9 files? Is it VBR-2 pass 128 kbps? What decoder? I've tried to reproduce the same wavform with different settings, and I wasn't able to do it.

I already asked him about this.
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....ndpost&p=210584

EDIT:It's certainly Bitrate VBR 128kbps, 44kHz, stereo VBR 1pass.


I don't get that. From what I have seen, for 1 pass WMA VBR you cannot specify a bit rate at all, only the "quality settings"such  as 50, 75, 90, etc.

With two pass WMA VBR you specify an average bit rate.

You state it was WMA one pass 128 kbps VBR. How could that be?

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Reply #235 –
Windows media encoder allows you to do 1-pass bitrate vbr. It is somekind of ABR.

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Reply #236 –
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Windows media encoder allows you to do 1-pass bitrate vbr. It is somekind of ABR.
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=249646"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]


I guess I've only tried WMA VBR using DBPoweramp. For 1 pass VBR, there are no bit rate settings, just the quality settings like 50, 75, 90, etc. With the two pass VBR, you set a target bit rate. (I guess they figure that with two passes they can come closer to a target bit rate, but not with one pass.)

Surprised it's different in WME. It doesn't have the "quality settings"?

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Reply #237 –
It has them also.

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Reply #238 –
I used two-pass VBR (Bitrate VBR)

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Reply #239 –
In some cases tests like this are not very subjective -- for example an Opera lover will probably cringe at listening to tracks of "House Music" played with ANY CODEC and probably vice versa. It's almost impossible to find music that everyone likes which rather invalidates some of the test findings.

I've tried the new HI-MD minidisc units from Sony particularly the NH-1 and I'm pretty fussy with my music. The HI-SP (Atrac3 +) format seems to me certainly for music on the move or when wearing some decent cans as good as CD (also CD's have pretty varying quality as well).

For Classical Music which on the whole has a higher dynamic range than most rock type music then MP3's can sound pretty hopeless. Acoustic instruments also tend to sound somewhat "quirky" on MP3's as well whereas the more "electronic sound" of dance music tends to hide some of the more obvious problems with MP3's  especially at the lower bit rates.

My main problem with ATRAC3 + is some of the really STUPID DRM problems which make copying and distributing YOUR OWN MUSIC a real pain.

-K

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Reply #240 –
You are right, placebo effect is way more suggestive, and often works quite well.

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Reply #241 –
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You are right, placebo effect is way more suggestive, and often works quite well.
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=268810"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

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Reply #242 –
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Acoustic instruments also tend to sound somewhat "quirky" on MP3's as well whereas the more "electronic sound" of dance music tends to hide some of the more obvious problems with MP3's  especially at the lower bit rates.[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=268808"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]


My experience is the exact opposite (at high bitrates at least). Guruboolez' harpsichord and orchestral samples sound transparent to me, while the electronic boxes of Amnesia, Fsol, Autechre, Spahm, Astral, Transwave etc. sound ugly to me once encoded.

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Reply #243 –
Anyone who is basing their ideas off this listening test is taking a bit of a risk. This test is very good and I commend rjamorim for taking his time to conduct it, however I don't believe there was nearly enough testers to validate any accurate data, and therefore come to any valid conclusions. I think this test should be redone and spread much more widely over the internet audio boards, not just this one. Then we could formulate some accurate conclusions. In my opinion, there is just not enough data to do that.

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Reply #244 –
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I think this test should be redone and spread much more widely over the internet audio boards, not just this one.

Yes I think that's right to say that not enough people did participate.

Still, IIRC there were anouncements made on other boards about this test. I personnaly made one there (on a French popular board, but not as specialized as HA is about audiocoding):
http://forum.hardware.fr/forum2.php?config...sh=0&subcat=131

To tell the truth of what I think: not so many people really want to spend some time testing different samples. Not even mentionning those who don't know what an ABX test is and claim that everything is just like "night and day" or so.

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Reply #245 –
Formal listening tests conduced by the ITU and EBU sometimes use as few as 9-10 listeners. Trained listeners, of course, but still, it's quite few compared to the amount of people that participated in some of the samples of this test...

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Reply #246 –
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Formal listening tests conduced by the ITU and EBU sometimes use as few as 9-10 listeners. Trained listeners, of course, but still, it's quite few compared to the amount of people that participated in some of the samples of this test...
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=273760"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]


They also use reference systems, though. The downside to these internet tests is the wide array of equipment, which means the transparency threshold is often quite low. But then again, it reflects the real world nicely.

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Reply #247 –
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Anyone who is basing their ideas off this listening test is taking a bit of a risk. This test is very good and I commend rjamorim for taking his time to conduct it, however I don't believe there was nearly enough testers to validate any accurate data, and therefore come to any valid conclusions. I think this test should be redone and spread much more widely over the internet audio boards, not just this one. Then we could formulate some accurate conclusions. In my opinion, there is just not enough data to do that.
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=273756"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]


I think the conclusions reached were quite valid and accurate -- for the goup of people who participated and for the samples listened to.  That was the whole point of doing a statistical analysis.

If one wants to generalize to a larger group of people or a different set of samples, yes there is a bit of a risk, but the results are probably not far off the mark.  A different sample set would probably get you the most different results.  And of course trying to apply group results to a particular individual is quite a bit more risky.  I would say that the variations are bigger from individual to individual than from one group to another.

ff123

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Reply #248 –
Yes, there are many factors and variables that ruin the validity of the test. One being, which you named, the audio equipment being used to do the testing. Most users have shit audio equipment, therefore their results are pretty poor and innacurate. Secondly, many people, like you said, don't even know what the hell ABXing is, so you can tell by that that they don't know much about audio. Their ears, and/or listening skills probably suck. This would dramatically alter the results of the test.

Anyways, the test is better than no test. It gives us a reasonable idea, but not accurate enough, in my opinion, to really make any conclusive judgements.

I would be interested in gathering a group of good listeners that have quality equipment. I think we should have enough here. I myself have Etymotic Research ER-4s, which are basically the best you can get as far as equipment goes.

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Reply #249 –
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I would be interested in gathering a group of good listeners that have quality equipment.[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=274122"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]


And, by doing that, you would conduce a test that would only have meaning to people with good listening and quality equipment

By accepting everyone and all equipment on my test, I got much closer to the average user than if I only targeted it at golden ears with headphones that cost more than 100 dollars.