Is mp3@320kbps really transparent?
Reply #16 – 2009-06-06 16:10:59
Thank you Canar for this homage :-) I don't have that much experience with MP3 at 320 kbps. At such high bitrate I only remember hearing pre-echo artifacts with well known samples or similar situation I encountered with some CDs (castanets). With castanets.wav -like samples ABXing is pretty easy and no too hard even with 640 kbps freeformat mp3 (with some training maybe). The answer to the original question mainly depends on the meaning of « transparency ». If someone mean absolute transparency (on every kind of music) the answer is clearly negative. The mp3 format is flawed and doesn't handle well sharp transients. There are other formats which I would naturally call transparent at 320 kbps (mpc, aac, vorbis). They may have their own problem samples but they are not structural ones and they could therefore be fixed (psymodel issues or things like that). But if « transparency » mean perceptually and immediately identical listening experience, then yes, I would call MP3 at 320 kbps transparent. The existence of located problems doesn't ruin the whole picture, and unless someone mainly listen to sharp electronic, castanets, or experimental noise music he should be happy with MP3 encodings for 99.9% of his library. The remaining 0.1% could neverthless disturb many people and damage the confidence they have in the whole performance of the format.