Re: Opus 1.3-beta is here
Reply #49 – 2017-12-30 07:23:23
@king2101 I said that the 48Kbps files exhibit artifacts only on the cell phone's internal speaker only, not on headphones or speakers. Now, with opus at 32kbps, I can definitely hear artifacts, both on a smartphone's internal speakers, as well as headphones and normal speakers. Weird, I would have thought being those cellphone speakers are generally of lower quality (at least I would imagine they are(?)) than a decent set of headphones/PC speakers it would seem if you heard artifacts on a cell phone speaker they would be present on headphones/PC speakers to or if they are not present on the headphones/PC speakers that they would not be there on the cell phone speaker. but apparently your saying differently. it's funny how that sometimes works out.For now on I am going to encode my music in 64kbps Opus, instead of 48kbps. I was just giving my opinion on things as you can use whatever bit rate you want. but if your definitely sticking with Opus, I would consider using 80kbps if I were you simply because it gives you a bit of a buffer beyond 64kbps in terms of sound quality and is barely more file size. also, they say Opus @ 80kbps is similar to Apple AAC @ 96kbps and when it comes to Apple AAC I would rather not use bit rates lower than 96kbps, especially for music you care about. hell, you also could consider this... assuming your using Opus format, for music that's more important to you use 96-128kbps and music less important 64-80kbps and possibly a 3rd option of 64kbps-ish for music that's not that much concern for you. also, for lossy music with modern hard drive prices... it's definitely not worth skimping THAT much on bit rate as you can get 2TB hard drives online for $50 or so (brand new) (or even about $90-100 for a cheaper 4TB hard drive) which is a pretty cheap price for a hard drive and plenty of space for music. also, while I could understand wanting a really low bit rate for a cell phone, it's simply not worth it for computer usage unless your quite limited on storage space etc for whatever reason. plus, while I realize it's convenient to keep pretty much your whole music collection on whatever device your using (as I basically do that on my Sansa e250 device), I would imagine a large portion of that music won't see use all that much use. so assuming you can't fit your entire collection say on your cell phone etc(if that's what your trying to do?), you could simply use a higher/safer bit rate and while less music will fit on there it will probably be worth it if you can still store many albums(or songs) on the device. p.s. If you got some time... I would be curious if you have a similar conclusion as myself with that 64kbps Opus/Apple AAC being similar to MP3 @ v7 (100kbps average), or not? ; like start off at a low bit rate for both and work your way up until it's no longer easy to ABX Opus(or AAC) vs MP3. I am assuming you got FLAC files here that you make the Opus/AAC/MP3 files from since you obviously need to test the lossless vs lossy files. NOTE: you can pretty much just test Opus against MP3 and skip Apple AAC if you want as based on my 'quick ABX' testing Opus and AAC are similar to each other on similar bit rates down low unlike MP3 where you can clearly tell you need more bit rate to clean up the sound when your on those low bit rates. the lowest starting point with MP3 is v9(65kbps average) then it goes to v8(85kbps), v7(100kbps), v6(115kbps),v5(130kbps) and then starts to ramp up. but anyways, with Opus you can start off with 32kbps then go to 48/64/80/96 etc until you hit that point where it's no longer easy for you to spot artifacts and then you have the point with Opus and MP3 that would be similar in overall sound to you and that's how i came up with the Opus @ 64kbps vs MP3 @ v7(100kbps) being similar. but it's possible you might feel differently, which is what I am a little curious about.I am going to have to redownload hundreds and thousands of songs (possibly millions) again because of my mistake of bringing down the bitrate to 48 kbps instead of leaving it at 64 kbps!!! Which is why the cardinal rule is to keep ALL of your important music in FLAC format in case you ever need to re-rip to a different lossy format etc and unless you got a boatload of music chances are it won't cost you too much $$$ to store it given hard drive prices are quite reasonable lately for a lot of storage space. but personally I just like to use what I refer to as the 'sweet spot' and use Apple AAC @ q64 TVBR (128kbps average) and be done with it as AAC format (well I should say AAC-LC) is widely supported and since they have not updated sound quality in quite a few years now the format is mature and you likely won't need to re-rip and it's(128kbps) still quite efficient with storage space to, just not at the maximum. but if you ask me it's not worth lowering the 128kbps bit rate down to 96kbps or 64kbps given the sound is not as safe with a wider ranger of people and unless you got a ton of music your not going to save THAT much storage space going from 128kbps to 96kbps and while 128kbps down to 64kbps literally halves the storage space your going to take a decent hit in sound quality amongst a wider range of people at that point which makes the storage savings not worth it overall as while I like efficiency you can only take space saving so far before it's just not worth risking it on the sound quality and being storage space is cheap it makes those bit rates below 96-128kbps much less appealing. ------------------------------------------------so to simplify things... just trust me, use 128kbps with Apple AAC or Opus and be done with it (unless storage space is at a premium) as those bit rates are high enough to where sound quality won't be a issue and yet are still small enough that they don't take up too much storage space. on Apple AAC I prefer TVBR over CVBR because apparently in sound quality tests around here there is no clear cut difference in sound quality between the two. so assuming that's true, then you might as well use TVBR due to they are generally smaller in size over CVBR. if you want to roll the dice and live on the edge a bit... you might be able to go as low as 80kbps with Opus but I would suggest going no lower unless you don't care about the music all that much. just some thoughts/suggestions p.s. I suspect you and others (hell, even myself), start to get a bit obsessed with tweaking bit rates etc. but I just say use 128kbps on Apple AAC (or Opus) and be done with it as those settings are efficient and I don't see too many people complaining about lack of sound quality either. one last thing... it should be pretty safe for me to say that most people, who care about storage space/efficiency, will want a bit rate with Opus or Apple AAC between 96-160kbps (with Opus you could probably include 80kbps). because those who don't care about efficiency and the like, and don't want to use a lossless audio format, can probably just use MP3 @ v0 or Apple AAC @ 256kbps as your pretty much guaranteed to have sound quality that will please pretty much everyone then. NOTE: even on a poll I started a little while ago in these forums... currently out of the 39 total votes, 77% of those who voted preferred one of the following three settings as the 'sweet spot' for Apple AAC... 96/128/160 and out of those choices not far from half of the voters (i.e. 43.6%) choosing 128kbps, then 160kbps (23.1%) and the last of the three 96kbps (10.3%).