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Topic: Is there any listening results for Psytel AAC v1.2 vs MusePa (Read 28655 times) previous topic - next topic
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Is there any listening results for Psytel AAC v1.2 vs MusePa

Reply #75 –
Beatles: This must be already obvious to you but just to make 100% sure. If you're using WinAmp to play MPC-files, make sure both "clipping prevention" and "EQ controlled by winamp" are NOT enabled (from the input plug-in configuration). Those should be disabled.

Although I'm almost 100% sure you knew this already...
Juha Laaksonheimo

Is there any listening results for Psytel AAC v1.2 vs MusePa

Reply #76 –
Quote
Originally posted by 2Bdecided
But to paraphrase you: "please provide ABX proof that you are really hearing a difference with MPC - no one has managed this yet". This gives the impression that MPC is near transparent, doesn't it?


Yes it does.  And if you are being realistic, statistics seems to show this as well.  How many people do you know which can actually prove they hear a difference with MPC vs how many can do the same for MP3 or many other formats?

As has already been stated we are dealing with lossy compression here, so nothing is going to be perfect, that's a given.  But you seem to not want to give credit where credit is due here.  I will continue to believe that MPC is near transparent for most people until I see most people start to ABX otherwise.  I don't think that is unreasonable at all.

Quote
The obvious argument against this is that some intentionally difficult signals (I was thinking of that string of impulses someone came up with the other week) can't be encoded by anything yet. I mentioned such signals specifically to exclude them. If they exist, then we're not talking about them here. If they don't exist, then we're still not talking about them here! Good enough?


Ok.  These signals are also hardly relevant here unless you really just want to try and push the point that MPC or other lossy formats are not absolutely transparent.  But we already knew that anyway (or should have).  However, as for that last signal I know PsyTEL supposedly handled it fairly well, and MPC should have also, I didn't try either though.. of course they weren't able to do this at low bitrates, but does that matter?

Quote
Anyway, whilst that's my rebuttal to your argument (and I'm not here to argue btw - I'm here in this thread to find out what Beatles is really hearing) it's not the reason I wrote "he hears a difference". I wrote it like that to give Beatles the benefit of the doubt. He's much more likely to come back and give us the results of any test he does if we approach him like that, rather that saying "you're probably wrong, but go and prove it anyway".


Admittedly, I'm probably being a little bit too cynical and/or skeptical here, but really.. as Garf said earlier, we have seen many threads like this before.  So far they have almost all ended up the same way -- a lot of talk and no results.  Because of that I start to wonder the worth of having these long and drawn out discussions before seeing results.  After all, there is no point in arguing over something that doesn't exist.  So because of all that, I'll naturally assume there isn't a difference until I can see something a bit more conclusive.

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Finally, Dibrom, if I believed 100% that he heard a difference in the way you seem to think I was implying it, why would I be asking him to blind test?


From the general tone of your post it seemed reasonable to assume that you already believed all of the claims (generalizations or not), especially when taking into account the comments geared towards "proving Dibrom wrong", etc.

Quote
And if I seem a little more inclined to believe him, it's because I've found it's amazing what tiny difference people working in studios can detect in their own work. Some people working in recording studios are complete idiots, and shouldn't be let near half decent music. But some are passionate about what they do, and create pure magic. And (like the princess and the pea - which was brought up in another thread) they can detect seemingly infintesimally small changes to their sound. So, I wait with an open mind - what did that blind test show Beatles?


I do agree with this, and personally I'd be a little more inclined to believe if we hadn't seen many of these situations already which turned out to be nothing more than talk.

At any rate, I'd like to add something here.  I think anyone who can actually claim to hear the differences here that they do, they should take ff123's MAD challenge also (http://www.ff123.net/madchallenge.html).  It would seem a relatively easy task given the circumstances.

Finally...

Beatles,

If you can actually hear these differences and prove them, then great.  I would be very interested in seeing this.  Just understand (and I believe you do from our earlier discussions) that I am naturally a bit skeptical in these situations due to past experience.  That does NOT mean that I'm not interested in your results though, I certainly am.  In short, don't let me scare you off or anything like that, that certainly isn't my intention

Is there any listening results for Psytel AAC v1.2 vs MusePa

Reply #77 –
Well, I've talked pretty much with Beatles already. This "case" just seems different than all the other "I hear this and that" cases. He is willing to provide ABXes and testclips. He was willing to give his time to tweak MPC highbitrate (low bitrate for him) for better quality. He's not going away like all the other "I hear this and that"- people.

He's truely an audiophile with access to electrostatic speakers and heaphones, and of course uses at least 24/96 high quality soundcards, knows the people in professional audiophile/HiFi world and has 25 years experience.
He also estimated he's among the top 5% of all professional audiophiles. His ears are his living.

All the things suggest that this is different case than all the others..

I'm starting to believe...

Unfortunately he has bad news for all the people using MP3, no matter Lame or FhG, no matter what bitrate or settings...
Juha Laaksonheimo

Is there any listening results for Psytel AAC v1.2 vs MusePa

Reply #78 –
Quote
Originally posted by JohnV
Unfortunately he has bad news for all the people using MP3, no matter Lame or FhG, no matter what bitrate or settings...


Let's not lose total perspective here though.  Beatles is now also talking about 700kbps MPC.  In my opinion this is totally useless from any sort of practical standpoint.  If bitrates near this are needed to acheive a "satisfactory" (I gather still not transparent?) level of quality for him, then he should be using lossless in the first place and not lossy.  Lossy compression is used for its convenience factor.  It is used because with a good encoder, most of time it can be of sufficient quality (or even transparent) enough to where the accepted degradation in quality (audible or not) is worth it for the benefits you get.

For me personally, 400kbps average is the threshold that I am not really willing to go beyond for lossy compression.  There just isn't much point after that IMO.

Also I think it's a fairly safe bet that even if Beatles hears all of this, and he can somehow prove it, most of what he is discussing will not apply to the rest of us.  Most of the rest of us are not "in the top 5% of audiophiles" (how do you substantiate this claim also? ) And certainly most of us don't have "insanely expensive" equipment in the form of electrostatic speakers and the like.  And even if the rest of that is a given, most of us probably just plain couldn't hear the difference at that level period.

So all of this becomes interesting from a research point of view (I'm certainly still interested in seeing one hear the difference at this level), and tuning of high bitrates (300-400kbps) could be useful but I just think all of this is spiraling far out of the realm of practicality for most people at this point.

Sure, I'm interested in quality, and mostly I'm not concerned about bitrate, but when the bitrate begins to match that of lossless compression and it still isn't "perfect" then I really have to wonder the point behind that.

This is just my take... perhaps I'm alone in this sentiment.

Is there any listening results for Psytel AAC v1.2 vs MusePa

Reply #79 –
Quote
Originally posted by Dibrom

Let's not lose total perspective here though.  Beatles is now also talking about 700kbps MPC.  In my opinion this is totally useless from any sort of practical standpoint.  If bitrates near this are needed to acheive a "satisfactory" (I gather still not transparent?) level of quality for him, then he should be using lossless in the first place and not lossy.  Lossy compression is used for its convenience factor.  It is used because with a good encoder, most of time it can be of sufficient quality (or even transparent) enough to where the accepted degradation in quality (audible or not) is worth it for the benefits you get.




We managed to achieve some very excellent results with minimal tweaking at a BR of 500 and I'm willing to bet that can be further reduced. As it is 500 results in very manageable file sizes and very good sound quality. Lossless is fine but it's the tweakability of lossy that has me intrigued.

Quote
Also I think it's a fairly safe bet that even if Beatles hears all of this, and he can somehow prove it, most of what he is discussing will not apply to the rest of us.  Most of the rest of us are not "in the top 5% of audiophiles" (how do you substantiate this claim also? ) And certainly most of us don't have "insanely expensive" equipment in the form of electrostatic speakers and the like.  And even if the rest of that is a given, most of us probably just plain couldn't hear the difference at that level period.





Some comments are made with tongue FIRMLY in cheek Dibrom. I'm willing to bet that many people can hear the difference. Most differences were audible on my computer which only uses a Midiman 24/96 and Klipsch Promedias although much more audible on a higher resolving system.


Quote
So all of this becomes interesting from a research point of view (I'm certainly still interested in seeing one hear the difference at this level), and tuning of high bitrates (300-400kbps) could be useful but I just think all of this is spiraling far out of the realm of practicality for most people at this point...


I don't fully understand the psychological barrier of 300 - 400...I assume it's because the masses are used to 320 being the ULTIMATE in quality. Of course many people believe that CDs provide "perfect sound" as well. I think it's well possible with tweaking to get EXTREMELY good sound at a 400 or possibly a bit lower BR and still have a very manageable average file size of around 10 megs or even lower. That's quite a bit less than an .ape file and I don't think people would be coming to this site if good sound wasn't important to them.

Is there any listening results for Psytel AAC v1.2 vs MusePa

Reply #80 –
Quote
Originally posted by Dibrom
Sure, I'm interested in quality, and mostly I'm not concerned about bitrate, but when the bitrate begins to match that of lossless compression and it still isn't "perfect" then I really have to wonder the point behind that.


One thing more to consider at this level of audio reproduction is the sound producing equipment. Probably only true HQ environment would be live studio sessions, followed by SACD medium followed by $10,000 CD-player/DAC system.

For what I have heard an audiophile would not even consider listening music through computer environment. Computer is far from ideal electric environment with its strong electric field disturbances, voltage fluctuations or in short, motherboard noise. Not even the best sound card in market could be fully protected from this.

Naturally this matter does not apply for us pathetic non-professional "mundanes" but at this level of audiophilia I would imagine it would be of grave importance.

Just my 0.02 €

Is there any listening results for Psytel AAC v1.2 vs MusePa

Reply #81 –
Going back to Beatles original trio of codecs for evaluation, MPC, PsyTEL AAC and FAAC he, rightly, discounted FAAC early on because, as Menno himself concedes, FAAC currently exists as a reference Mpeg2/4 AAC codec; it is not tuned at all in terms of quality.

Bearing in mind that both MPC and PsyTEL AAC are 'closed' codecs, at least from the encoder standpoint, and that PsyTEL, unless I am mistaken is not even meant to be in 'free' circulation, wouldn't there be some mileage in some of the brains involved in the tuning of Lame diverting the attention to FAAC?

I realise that binary distribution of FAAC is 'verboten' in the patent context, but the source is freely available and compiles very readily with MinGW32 and other free compilers.

Are there any points I am missing here other than the lack of binary distrubtions? Although, that does not seem to preclude other patent/copyright bound codecs finding there way into distribution through the back door!!

Anybody any views on this? I applaud all the efforts in relation to Lame improvements, it would just be nice to see similar efforts being put into emerging technologies. Before anyone asks, I don't have either the degree of programming skills required, nor the knowledge of audio compression techniques, otherwise I'd be there.

Is there any listening results for Psytel AAC v1.2 vs MusePa

Reply #82 –
Quote
Originally posted by john33
Bearing in mind that both MPC and PsyTEL AAC are 'closed' codecs, at least from the encoder standpoint, and that PsyTEL, unless I am mistaken is not even meant to be in 'free' circulation, wouldn't there be some mileage in some of the brains involved in the tuning of Lame diverting the attention to FAAC?
I don't know why? Psytel is allready so much ahead.
And there's already very good totally open, free alternative codec, Ogg Vorbis.
Juha Laaksonheimo

Is there any listening results for Psytel AAC v1.2 vs MusePa

Reply #83 –
Quote
Originally posted by Beatles
We managed to achieve some very excellent results with minimal tweaking at a BR of 500 and I'm willing to bet that can be further reduced. As it is 500 results in very manageable file sizes and very good sound quality. Lossless is fine but it's the tweakability of lossy that has me intrigued.


That's fine, and I can understand it to an extent.  I just want to state however that this level of quality you are talking about is not going to be relevant to a vast majority of people.  If you categorize yourself as being at the top 5% of audiophiles and you admit you have some of the best equipment money can buy, then you just have to accept this fact as a given.

The reason I made this statement above however is because JohnV basically said "there is no hope for MP3, etc".  This isn't exactly true.  It may not be good enough for you, but that doesn't mean that for a large amount of people it won't be sufficient or at the least fairly high quality.  I'm just trying to bring a little of this back into reality

Quote
Some comments are made with tongue FIRMLY in cheek Dibrom. I'm willing to bet that many people can hear the difference. Most differences were audible on my computer which only uses a Midiman 24/96 and Klipsch Promedias although much more audible on a higher resolving system.


You may be willing to bet this, but time and experience so far shows this not to be the case.  For one, there are very few people on very few clips that I have ever seen say MPC was not transparent at lower bitrates, and usually in the worst case they become transparent around 200-300kbps.  You are talking about 700kbps, though I guess maybe 500kbps now.  At any rate, you are the only one so far who has been making these claims.  I think it's fair to say that there will not be many people which would hear the same thing.. not if you have the hearing ability you claim to have or the equipment, etc.

Quote
I don't fully understand the psychological barrier of 300 - 400...I assume it's because the masses are used to 320 being the ULTIMATE in quality.


The barrier of 400kbps is there because once you go beyond that it doesn't make sense to use lossy over lossless anymore.  The benefits IMO no longer outweigh the downsides.

Keep in mind that lossy was created to save space.  Thus it lends itself nicely to burning multiple albums to a cd-r or sharing/streaming music online.  That's just the fact of it.  When you start to create files that are so huge because of 700kbps and they are still lossy, then you lose those benefits, you have a huge file, and it's still not perfect no matter what.

Quote
Of course many people believe that CDs provide "perfect sound" as well. I think it's well possible with tweaking to get EXTREMELY good sound at a 400 or possibly a bit lower BR and still have a very manageable average file size of around 10 megs or even lower.


Maybe, but I wonder if going from 700kbps (which isn't perfect still) to 400kbps is going to be possible (thinking in terms of possible necessary modification to the code).  And for all intents and purpose, most people here already think that 400kbps is extremely good.  If you hear problems with it and believe it can be made better, then that's great.  The only thing I worry about is that nobody else will be able to hear these differences you speak of (to validate it), so it'd be you alone tuning all of this.

Quote
That's quite a bit less than an .ape file and I don't think people would be coming to this site if good sound wasn't important to them.


Yes people come to this site because sound quality is important to them.  You have to realize though that most people do not require MPC at 700kbps for "good" sound.  Most people don't even require above 200kbps for that matter.

Tuned modes for 400-500kbps would be great, but I'm not sure I can see them being very practical to most people.  As it is, many of the people that use my presets in LAME complain about bitrates over 200kbps... how do you think you will convince them to use 400-500kbps for their files, when they likely won't even hear the difference over 200kbps or worst case 300kbps?

At any rate, all of this makes for some interesting theory, and if somehow a benefit can be had (tuning very high bitrate MPC), then that'd be really nice.. I just can't see all of this applying to the average user on this board or even some of the more really demanding people is all.  I think it should be viewed with an appropriate amount of perspective.  I mean no disrespect to you buy any of this, I'm just a little concerned with the direction much of this seems to be going in and that people will get the wrong idea (imagine, "300kbps?? that's not good enough, you should be using a higher bitrate because Beatles says so" ), especially given the comment that JohnV had made about MP3.

Is there any listening results for Psytel AAC v1.2 vs MusePa

Reply #84 –
Quote
Originally posted by niktheblak
For what I have heard an audiophile would not even consider listening music through computer environment. Computer is far from ideal electric environment with its strong electric field disturbances, voltage fluctuations or in short, motherboard noise. Not even the best sound card in market could be fully protected from this.


This isn't necessarily true.  The majority of digitally oriented studios are based around systems including high end sound cards for hd recording and the like.  Take a look at some of the cards like the Delta1010, Layla, some of Creamware's cards, the LynxTwo, etc... not to mention all the Pro Tools stuff.  These are the types of cards/hardware in use in many of those places and it's all based around computers at some point.

Is there any listening results for Psytel AAC v1.2 vs MusePa

Reply #85 –
Quote
Originally posted by Dibrom
The reason I made this statement above however is because JohnV basically said "there is no hope for MP3, etc".  This isn't exactly true.
My comment? I have said?? Where?
Beatles has said "there is no hope for MP3". He said this when he told his personal opinions about codecs, not in a way like: everybody must ditch mp3 right now because there is no hope for it, and it will be my life mission to preach against MP3. Actually Beatles has some MP3 music in his hard disk...

I haven't said anything that people should start using ultra high bitrates. I haven't said anywhere that there's no hope for MP3. All I might have said is some quotings of Beatles' opinions about MP3, and made it clear those are his opinions. I have said I'm starting to believe he actually hears a difference, I have my reasons for this which originated for example from the tweaking of MPC. His comments about quality differencies made sense, regarding the settings tweaked/changed.

I persuaded Beatles to help tweak the best average 340-350kbps mode so far for MPC. He says it sounds very good. Vorbis has also 350kbps profile, so I see no problem here.

Quote
People will get the wrong idea (imagine, "300kbps?? that's not good enough, you should be using a higher bitrate because Beatles says so" ), especially given the comment that JohnV had made about MP3.

I don't remember saying any personal opinions about MP3 in this thread or anywhere else for that matter since meeting Beatles. I haven't said in this thread or anywhere else that people should start using something or some settings because Beatles says or hears something.
Juha Laaksonheimo

Is there any listening results for Psytel AAC v1.2 vs MusePa

Reply #86 –
Quote
Originally posted by JohnV
My comment? I have said?? Where? 
Beatles has said "there is no hope for MP3". He said this when he told his personal opinions about codecs, not in the way that everybody must ditch mp3 right now because there is no hope for it, and it will be my life mission to preach against MP3. Actually Beatles has some MP3 music in his hard disk...


OK, to be strictly correct it was a comment that you relayed  I think you and most others knew what I meant though.

Quote
I persuaded Beatles to help tweak the best average 340-350kbps mode so far for MPC. He says it sounds very good. Vorbis has also 350kbps profile, so I see no problem here.


Well as I said, I think it's OK up to a 400kbps point.  But most of the discussion I've seen has been oriented around 500-700kbps MPC.  That's pretty far from the 350-400kbps range IMO.  That is what I question the worth of, 350kbps is fine really.  I've encoded MPC's in this range myself quite often in the past.

Quote
I don't remember saying any personal opinions about MP3 in this thread or anywhere else for that matter since meeting Beatles. I haven't said in this thread or anywhere else that people should start using something or some settings because Beatles says or hears something.


I know you didn't say this.  Please don't take my comment to mean that I thought you were implying that MP3 was worthless, I was only discussing the comment that you made in regards to what Beatles said.  I know this doesn't necessarily reflect your personal opinion, and I know most others realize this as well.  It was simply an easy way for me to describe the point I was trying to make, nothing more.

As for the comment about what people should use because of what Beatles says, I didn't even imply that you would be the one saying that, however I'm just saying that I could easily see such a thing happening  if this whole issue is blown so much out of proportion.

Is there any listening results for Psytel AAC v1.2 vs MusePa

Reply #87 –
My comments regarding FAAC were, to a large extent, inspired by the idea that in the face of expected commercial push in AAC, it would be good to have a free alternative of acceptable quality. Clearly, the potential of FAAC must exceed that of Lame.

Layer3maniac - just to set the record straight, I believe I saw Menno acknowledge Ivan somewhere for his assistance with respect to the psy model (I think). So there has been assistance, but obviously Ivan does not want to promote FAAC above his own encoder. Although currently he does rely upon FAAD as a decoder and the Winamp plugins for playback!

On the legal front, I think Menno has made it clear that source code distribution is outside of the control of Dolby, etc. That is certainly the indication of the notices at the beginning of the 'borrowed' programs.

The idea of assistance also arose from a comment Menno made in his own forum indicating he would welcome it in respect of tuning, in particular.

Dibrom's and JohnV's comments regarding Vorbis are well taken, I just like to see as many options available as possible. Also, doesn't Vorbis borrow some ideas, at least, from Mpeg2/4?

john33

Is there any listening results for Psytel AAC v1.2 vs MusePa

Reply #88 –
Quote
Originally posted by john33
My comments regarding FAAC were, to a large extent, inspired by the idea that in the face of expected commercial push in AAC, it would be good to have a free alternative of acceptable quality. 


The problem is that AAC is never probably going to catch on as "AAC" itself.  It will likely be used as the format behind many other technologies which hide the bare audio format itself from the users.  Considering that and that no two AAC systems will probably be compatible because of customized encryption or securities, I'm don't think a free AAC ISO encoder would really make much of a difference, especially considering the hefty legal ramifications.

Quote
Clearly, the potential of FAAC must exceed that of Lame.


From a technological point of view, sure.  But so does Vorbis, and it doesn't have many of the downsides that a freeware ISO AAC implementation does.

Quote
Also, doesn't Vorbis borrow some ideas, at least, from Mpeg2/4?


Not in the form of patented ideas.

Is there any listening results for Psytel AAC v1.2 vs MusePa

Reply #89 –
Quote
Originally posted by Dibrom

This isn't necessarily true.  The majority of digitally oriented studios are based around systems including high end sound cards for hd recording and the like.


Well, if your expression "not necessarily true" includes serious tweaking to the PC system in question then maybe. Naturals as usage of confirmed, reliable hardware, ultra-high quality UPS and some bit more exotic protection means as properly earthed electric isolation layers or structures at critical parts like around hard drive, sound card, power supply... For reproduction, it still isn't as good as the ,000 CD-spinner/DAC-set I mentioned.

Do studios actually use computers for analog recording? Just when I thought that high end DAT systems (and the likes of them) would provide much more stabler and very high quality medium for analog recording phase.

Of course if the signal is digitally recorded from DAT using the top-notch equipment you mentioned, there is absolutely no problem.

Quote
Pro Tools stuff.  These are the types of cards/hardware in use in many of those places and it's all based around computers at some point.


Would that "at some point" mean digital recording and sound processing? Naturally computers are perfect for that.

This is getting rather off-topic. Sorry.

Is there any listening results for Psytel AAC v1.2 vs MusePa

Reply #90 –
Quote
Originally posted by niktheblak
Well, if your expression "not necessarily true" includes serious tweaking to the PC system in question then maybe. Naturals as usage of confirmed, reliable hardware, ultra-high quality UPS and some bit more exotic protection means as properly earthed electric isolation layers or structures at critical parts like around hard drive, sound card, power supply... For reproduction, it still isn't as good as the ,000 CD-spinner/DAC-set I mentioned.


Depends on the studio in question.  Naturally the more advanced, the more of that type of thing you will see..

Quote
Do studios actually use computers for analog recording?


Yes.

Quote
Just when I thought that high end DAT systems (and the likes of them) would provide much more stabler and very high quality medium for analog recording phase.


One of the advantages to many of these high end sound cards are the higher sampling rates they support over DAT, 96khz or 192khz, vs just 48khz.

Quote
Would that "at some point" mean digital recording and sound processing? Naturally computers are perfect for that.


At some point could include many different areas

Is there any listening results for Psytel AAC v1.2 vs MusePa

Reply #91 –
niktheblak

CD's used to be produced indicating the recording, editing/mixing and transcription methods:

DDD, ADD, AAD.

I think these are probably self-explanatory (A=analogue, D=digital). I guess that since all new material is probably produced DDD they don't seem to bother any more.

john33

Is there any listening results for Psytel AAC v1.2 vs MusePa

Reply #92 –
Thread unlocked again.  (Any remnants of the former AAC discussion that shows up here will be subsequently moved to the off-topic section)

Is there any listening results for Psytel AAC v1.2 vs MusePa

Reply #93 –
Beatles, I was just wondering how you would rate Psytel AAC with the -ultra setting for quality?  If you have tested it, how well would you say it compares to MPC quality?  So far, all you have mentioned is MPC for high bitrate quality and I'm wondering how AAC compares to it.  Thanks ahead of time,

Jordan

Is there any listening results for Psytel AAC v1.2 vs MusePa

Reply #94 –
Also, don't forget that AACEnc also has two switches:

-no_temporal (diable temporal masking)
-no_ath (disable ATH, CD floor)

These switches could be used in conjuction with -ultra switch

aacenc -ultra -no_ath -no_temporal -if input.wav

While I do not recommend them (I stronlgly recommend -extreme and -ultra switches alone), they could be used for compare with MPC -insane, etc...

Also, AACEnc has -TMN, -TMN_s, -NMT and -NMT_s (_s is the for short blocks) switches, too!

Is there any listening results for Psytel AAC v1.2 vs MusePa

Reply #95 –
My opinion is that PsyTEL 1.2 is hands down the best lossy encoder there is, PERIOD.

Is there any listening results for Psytel AAC v1.2 vs MusePa

Reply #96 –
At average bitrates of 128, I'd disagree with that opinion.  Certainly it is not a hands-down winner given its showing in the castanets.wav test.  But perhaps with other samples it makes a better showing.  At 128 kbit/s, I would argue for Ogg Vorbis pre-RC3 as being the least offensive codec, even though it still has a bit of transient smearing.

At higher bitrates, it would be very interesting to pit all the contenders against each other.  A believable test can be performed even by just one person, but to be believable, that person must demonstrate credibility in the form of blind tests which mitigate the element of chance (ABX repeated trials) on a wide variety of samples.

ff123

Is there any listening results for Psytel AAC v1.2 vs MusePa

Reply #97 –
Quote
At average bitrates of 128, I'd disagree with that opinion.  Certainly it is not a hands-down winner given its showing in the castanets.wav test.  But perhaps with other samples it makes a better showing.  At 128 kbit/s, I would argue for Ogg Vorbis pre-RC3 as being the least offensive codec, even though it still has a bit of transient smearing. 

At higher bitrates, it would be very interesting to pit all the contenders against each other.  A believable test can be performed even by just one person, but to be believable, that person must demonstrate credibility in the form of blind tests which mitigate the element of chance (ABX repeated trials) on a wide variety of samples. 
Hey, that's why they call them opinions.  I wish Vorbis would get RC3 out so they can start working with wavelets. Nobody I know really uses 128 for high quality encodes anyway except for deluded wma people,so a test at higher bitrates would be very interesting indeed. So Vorbis at 128 outperformed FhG? Interesting, that's great news for Monty.

Is there any listening results for Psytel AAC v1.2 vs MusePa

Reply #98 –
Quote
Originally posted by layer3maniac
My opinion is that PsyTEL 1.2 is hands down the best lossy encoder there is, PERIOD.
Hehe, have you thought of nickname change then . Well anyway Psytel is very good, and Ivan certainly a very talented guy.

We did some tests with Beatles at very high bitrates comparing tweaked MPC 340-350kbps (with adaptive noise shaping disabled&tweaked settings, it's not currently possible to disable ans in the latest encoders, but Frank will probably put the switch back for the next build), Vorbis GT2 350kbps profile and Psytel AAC about 450kbps (not very well tweaked). According to Beatles, MPC was clearly the best.
Juha Laaksonheimo

Is there any listening results for Psytel AAC v1.2 vs MusePa

Reply #99 –
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Originally posted by JohnV
Hehe, have you thought of nickname change then . Well anyway Psytel is very good, and Ivan certainly a very talented guy.

We did some tests with Beatles at very high bitrates comparing tweaked MPC 340-350kbps (with adaptive noise shaping disabled&tweaked settings, it's not currently possible to disable ans in the latest encoders, but Frank will probably put the switch back for the next build), Vorbis GT2 350kbps profile and Psytel AAC about 450kbps (not very well tweaked). According to Beatles, MPC was clearly the best.


I am unable to try the switches Ivan suggested with my current version. I'm waiting to hear back from him in regards to further testing.