Samples of the tracks I used can now be found here.
Also I did a test with halb27's custom tunings:
foo_abx 1.3.4 report
foobar2000 v1.1.2
2011/02/12 23:02:47
File A: I:\Music\Kraftwerk - The Man Machine\01. The Robots.flac
File B: C:\Temp\Man Machine Test 2011\The Robots halb27.mp3
23:02:47 : Test started.
23:03:15 : 01/01 50.0%
23:03:28 : 02/02 25.0%
23:03:36 : 03/03 12.5%
23:03:50 : 04/04 6.3%
23:04:09 : 05/05 3.1%
23:04:23 : 06/06 1.6%
23:04:39 : 07/07 0.8%
23:04:56 : 08/08 0.4%
23:05:19 : 09/09 0.2%
23:05:48 : 10/10 0.1%
23:05:58 : 11/11 0.0%
23:06:13 : 12/12 0.0%
23:06:15 : Test finished.
----------
Total: 12/12 (0.0%)
Tons of smearing softer pre-echo artifacts, far from transparent though.
foo_abx 1.3.4 report
foobar2000 v1.1.2
2011/02/12 23:25:10
File A: I:\Music\Kraftwerk - The Man Machine\06. The Man Machine.flac
File B: C:\Temp\Man Machine Test 2011\The Man Machine halb27.mp3
23:25:10 : Test started.
23:25:32 : 01/01 50.0%
23:25:35 : 02/02 25.0%
23:25:39 : 03/03 12.5%
23:25:46 : 04/04 6.3%
23:25:51 : 05/05 3.1%
23:25:56 : 06/06 1.6%
23:26:01 : 07/07 0.8%
23:26:05 : 08/08 0.4%
23:26:15 : 09/09 0.2%
23:26:22 : 10/10 0.1%
23:26:27 : 11/11 0.0%
23:26:33 : 12/12 0.0%
23:26:41 : 13/13 0.0%
23:26:47 : 14/14 0.0%
23:26:51 : 15/15 0.0%
23:26:52 : Test finished.
----------
Total: 15/15 (0.0%)
Harsh pre-echo, far away from transparent.
320 CBR vs halb27 320
foo_abx 1.3.4 report
foobar2000 v1.1.2
2011/02/13 15:57:34
File A: C:\Temp\Man Machine Test 2011\Metropolis 320 CBR.mp3
File B: C:\Temp\Man Machine Test 2011\Metropolis halb27.mp3
15:57:34 : Test started.
15:58:12 : 01/01 50.0%
15:58:15 : 02/02 25.0%
15:58:19 : 03/03 12.5%
15:58:22 : 04/04 6.3%
15:58:25 : 05/05 3.1%
15:58:29 : 06/06 1.6%
15:58:33 : 07/07 0.8%
15:58:36 : 08/08 0.4%
15:58:40 : 09/09 0.2%
15:58:43 : 10/10 0.1%
15:58:46 : 11/11 0.0%
15:58:51 : 12/12 0.0%
15:58:52 : Test finished.
----------
Total: 12/12 (0.0%)
halb27's mod tunings sound better then the default 320 CBR encoding.
I'm curious how these tracks do with Ogg Vorbis. This is one of my all time favorite albums! Maybe its time to stop lurking and start ABXing...
Ogg Vorbis is well known to struggle at the start on The Robots track:
foo_abx 1.3.4 report
foobar2000 v1.1.2
2011/02/12 22:55:22
File A: I:\Music\Kraftwerk - The Man Machine\01. The Robots.flac
File B: C:\Temp\Man Machine Test 2011\The Robots q 6.ogg
22:55:22 : Test started.
22:55:43 : 01/01 50.0%
22:55:58 : 02/02 25.0%
22:56:07 : 03/03 12.5%
22:56:24 : 04/04 6.3%
22:56:36 : 05/05 3.1%
22:56:48 : 06/06 1.6%
22:57:07 : 07/07 0.8%
22:57:17 : 08/08 0.4%
22:57:36 : 09/09 0.2%
22:57:43 : 10/10 0.1%
22:57:50 : 11/11 0.0%
22:57:58 : 12/12 0.0%
22:57:59 : Test finished.
----------
Total: 12/12 (0.0%)
The synth at 0:07 and 0:15, gets smeared really badly. I used oggenc2 (Xiph.Org libVorbis I 20101101 (Schaufenugget)).
Also there is some slight smearing on the last track with Ogg Vorbis:
foo_abx 1.3.4 report
foobar2000 v1.1.2
2011/02/12 23:20:51
File A: I:\Music\Kraftwerk - The Man Machine\06. The Man Machine.flac
File B: C:\Temp\Man Machine Test 2011\The Man Machine q 6.ogg
23:20:51 : Test started.
23:21:34 : 01/01 50.0%
23:21:43 : 02/02 25.0%
23:21:55 : 03/03 12.5%
23:22:11 : 03/04 31.3%
23:22:18 : 03/05 50.0%
23:22:21 : 04/06 34.4%
23:22:25 : 05/07 22.7%
23:22:32 : 06/08 14.5%
23:22:36 : 07/09 9.0%
23:22:44 : 08/10 5.5%
23:22:53 : 09/11 3.3%
23:23:09 : 10/12 1.9%
23:23:31 : 11/13 1.1%
23:23:39 : 12/14 0.6%
23:23:44 : 12/15 1.8%
23:23:49 : 13/16 1.1%
23:23:53 : 14/17 0.6%
23:23:59 : 15/18 0.4%
23:24:04 : 16/19 0.2%
23:24:10 : 17/20 0.1%
23:24:20 : Test finished.
----------
Total: 17/20 (0.1%)