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Topic: HELP! Please URGENT (mp3 vs cd-audio comparison) (Read 68127 times) previous topic - next topic
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HELP! Please URGENT (mp3 vs cd-audio comparison)

Reply #125 –
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Well, I lost. Sad, but true  :angry: I am not very pleased by the fact, indeed.

But what I appreciate, that you admit, YOU WERE CHEATING! Because it is not ORIGINAL ANYMORE. Just read your words carefully again.  :lol: You promised me 1 ORIGINAL!!! But what you sent to me, was no original wave...  :(

Oh boy..  I can see why this thread got so long..

Hmmm.. definition:  Inflammatory..  something that produces flames.



HELP! Please URGENT (mp3 vs cd-audio comparison)

Reply #126 –
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On the second CD, which is not part of the bet, I will use for person A (test with JM lab CD) maximum possible quality (he's supposed to be "the big ears") with lame, ogg, mpc aac, monkey and maybe others.

isn't it a little unfair to use lossless ie. monkey's audio?  you do understand the concept that it is an exact replica of the original wav, right?  No matter how 'big' his ears are he would have to be able to read your mind to tell the difference.

HELP! Please URGENT (mp3 vs cd-audio comparison)

Reply #127 –
SLOQshtr:

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For person A and B I will prepare two CDs. The first one will be mp3 only (this is the one the bet is about) and on the second one I can use any other format (lossless or lossy, i.e. mp3, ogg, mpc, monkey,....), BUT the second one is not bet.


Wait a minute... I don't understand what you're trying to achieve. If you burn an "MP3 copy" of the complete CD, your friend will know what format he is listening to, so the test will not be a blind test.

If I were you, I'd perform an ABX test - it's just a little complicated without cool software :

Rip some (not all) tracks off the CD to WAV and encode them. Then, you burn an original and an encoded version of each track onto the CD, so you get something like this:

Track 1: Original of track 1 [A]
Track 2: Encoded version of track 1
Track 3: Original of track 2 [A]
Track 4: Encoded version of track 2

...and so on.

For the test, you cover up the display of the CD player so the listener can't see it. To start with, you play an original version of one track, followed by the encoded version (and tell the listener which one he is currently listening to).

Then, you take a calculator which can generate random numbers. If it generates an uneven numer, play the original version, if it generates an even number, play the encoded version. Each time, the listener has to decide whether he's listening to original or encode. You take notes on whether he was correct or not. If he identifies the files correctly 10 times in a row, you can stop; if this is the case, he can surely tell a difference. Otherwise, stop after 16 trials. He should have at least 13 correct answers. (Is that about correct, ff123? )

Remember, he can ask you to playback the original or encoded files as a reference at any time during the test.


Another, more "secure" alternative would be this: You burn the original version of one track as track 1, the encoded version as track 2 (and tell the listener this), and then fill up the rest of the CD randomly with encoded or original versions (be sure to write down which track is original and which one is encoded). That way, the listener can't cheat (unless he looks at frequency graphs), and he can actually do the test on his own. But you'd waste a lot of CD-Rs that way.

CU

Dominic

Edit: Typo...

HELP! Please URGENT (mp3 vs cd-audio comparison)

Reply #128 –
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Rip some (not all) tracks off the CD to WAV and encode them. Then, you burn an original and an encoded version of each track onto the CD, so you get something like this:

Track 1: Original of track 1 [A]
Track 2: Encoded version of track 1
Track 3: Original of track 2 [A]
Track 4: Encoded version of track 2

...and so on.


Maybe I wasn't clear enogh. I will do just like you said, exept I will mix tracks, so that the original and decoded will not be one after another. There will be 18 tracks on the CD, 9 songs, each song two times (original and decoded). He can listen to them as long as he wants to. We will not follow the ABX test exactly. It will be more close to your "secure" alternative.


floyd:

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isn't it a little unfair to use lossless ie. monkey's audio? you do understand the concept that it is an exact replica of the original wav, right? No matter how 'big' his ears are he would have to be able to read your mind to tell the difference.


This will NOT be part of the bet. It will be on separate CD. Its purpose is experimental only for our further discussions. The bet is only about MP3 and CD.

qshtr

HELP! Please URGENT (mp3 vs cd-audio comparison)

Reply #129 –
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I will do just like you said, exept I will mix tracks, so that the original and decoded will not be one after another. There will be 18 tracks on the CD, 9 songs, each song two times (original and decoded).


You're still not quite clear . Are you thinking of something like this...

1) Song A encoded
2) Song A original
3) Song B original
4) Song B encoded
5) Song C original
6) Song C encoded etc.

...or something like this:

1) Song C encoded
2) Song A original
3) Song B original
4) Song A encoded
5) Song C original
6) Song B encoded etc.

The latter would be unfair IMHO, but I wouldn't really favour the first method either. Even if he identifies originals and encodes correctly, that doesn't prove that he actually hears a difference (as opposed to the ABX method, which will prove just that - or the opposite, which I hope it will! ).

Or have I still not understood you correctly?

CU

Dominic

HELP! Please URGENT (mp3 vs cd-audio comparison)

Reply #130 –
@ SLOQshtr:

How many mp3 tracks must be recognized correctly to win the bet?
Let's suppose that rain washes out a picnic. Who is feeling negative? The rain? Or YOU? What's causing the negative feeling? The rain or your reaction? - Anthony De Mello

HELP! Please URGENT (mp3 vs cd-audio comparison)

Reply #131 –
an abx fashion would prolly be:

song a original
song a random orig or encoded
song a whats left
song b original
song b random orig or encoded
song b whats left

(so every 3rd or Nth song (depends on how many different settings one wants to try for each track) will be original.)

so u actualy need the same track at least 3 times.
PANIC: CPU 1: Cache Error (unrecoverable - dcache data) Eframe = 0x90000000208cf3b8
NOTICE - cpu 0 didn't dump TLB, may be hung

HELP! Please URGENT (mp3 vs cd-audio comparison)

Reply #132 –
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he is in the "vinyl sounds so much better than those inferior CD's" crowd..  It would be interesting to see what he thinks of well made mp3's, ogg's, and MPC's..

He will just tell you that you computer 24x burned CD sound so bad that nothing can be heard clearly anymore !

HELP! Please URGENT (mp3 vs cd-audio comparison)

Reply #133 –
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the test files are:
Wait1: Psytel AAC 2.15 -archive -disable_ms
Wait2: Lame MP3 3.90.2 --alt-preset insane -k
Wait3: MPC Mppenc 1.01j --insane --minSMR 3
Wait4: Original
Wait5 Ogg Vorbis oggenc 1.0 -b320


damn...! no wonder i couldn't tell them apart...

i encode to listen at the computer and around the house. i also like(d) taking CDs to the theater where i work(ed) and listening to them on the sound towers and hearing how the sound was separated into front, L, R and surrounds. (that prolly explains why i like the 5point1 output plugin for Winamp 2.x! =) so anywho i encode for the lowest possible bitrate where everything still sounds good, so i end up around 224kbs VBR (APS with some tweaks). and i was expecting lower bitrates for the ABX test... (maybe i just misread the thread where the samples were mentioned... it IS 8:50am and i have yet to get to sleep x_x)

anywho, was worried for a sec... now i'm not. 

ps on my first attempt at writing this, computer reset; but somewhere i was gonna mention 2 and 3 sounded a bit odd "now that i think about it" so... *shrugs* ...then again i have a noisy-ass computer case with a huge HSF and 3 80mm fans hurling air out...

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The sample was very hard to encode. Very strong stereo separation and lots of high frequency cymbals which is usually very hard for lossy audio, and also few sharp attacks, a bit guitar and piano.

exactly... i can pick up discrepencies in the music i listen to more so than this material i'm unfamilar with... i'm into electronica with very synthesized sounds and odd reverbs and chirps and all. so....

HELP! Please URGENT (mp3 vs cd-audio comparison)

Reply #134 –
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I want to try first if I can hear any difference on long-term listening, even when the conditions are not the ideal ones. [recording with ultrasonic content]

If you can get a good microphone, I suggest that you record the sound in your listening room at a high sampling rate, to check the actual presence of inaudible frequencies. With hifi speakers, we never know...

HELP! Please URGENT (mp3 vs cd-audio comparison)

Reply #135 –
this is getting interesting, i hope you probe that snob the audiophiles rule the world

HELP! Please URGENT (mp3 vs cd-audio comparison)

Reply #136 –
As mad if it sounds - PIO i invite you to me to listen even the differences between the different CDR medias.
There is no joke around the High Enders - it IS real.

Wombat
Is troll-adiposity coming from feederism?
With 24bit music you can listen to silence much louder!

HELP! Please URGENT (mp3 vs cd-audio comparison)

Reply #137 –
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Quote
I want to try first if I can hear any difference on long-term listening, even when the conditions are not the ideal ones. [recording with ultrasonic content]

If you can get a good microphone, I suggest that you record the sound in your listening room at a high sampling rate, to check the actual presence of inaudible frequencies. With hifi speakers, we never know...

I plan to use my Sennheiser HD560 and HD580 for this, which supposedly respond up to 30 KHz (-3dB) and 40KHz (-10 dB) . I don't think there's many consumer headphones or speakers that go much beyond this.

HELP! Please URGENT (mp3 vs cd-audio comparison)

Reply #138 –
Hello, I'm back in business  I was pretty busy these days, but now I've a day off a little bit...
Maybe my "article" won't bring anything new, but I just want to share my findings and feelings with others. And all statements are my point of view and my personal judgement.
I wrote last week I would do some tests during the weekend; well, those tests indicated at least two facts: today's encoders are far away from those I tried back in 1997 or so  MP3 is far behind today's MPC, OGG or AAC/MP4.
I did no blind tests from many reasons, but the most important is: I rate/weigh music apparently a little bit different from the point of view which is usual here. That of course doesn't mean my approach is worse of yours is better... just they are different. I tested the music I know "intimately" just to know, if I could live with it or not. The test songs were: "Ya Gotta Try" by Big Band Basie (Reference Recordings HDCD), "Afrolini" by Carly Antolini and "Pride and Passion" by Friedemann (both from Zounds Music Magazine Millenium 24 carat gold CD), "Man In The Green Shirt" by Weather Report (Sony Master Sound Japan Edition CD) and "Polka and Fugue" by Weinberger (XLO/Reference Recordings Test/Burn-In CD). Although some three years ago I would swear on the vinyl, I just dropped any LP out of this test. Three years ago I converted to CD as I was convinced by quality of Reference Recordings HDCD disks and Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab editions in gold. Then I acknowledged CD is not such misery... although I had been recording for CD companies for almost 15 years  back in '99 
I first tested these tracks (wavs and encoded ones) home on my PC (Sound Blaster Live Platinum card) connected via TOS Link with X-DAC from Musical Fidelity. Output from X-DAC went into NAD C320 amplifier into DALI AXS 3000 boxes. There were some XLO and QED cables involved, mostly of them being a 99,9% pure copper basis.
The tests indicated that under a reasonable conditions (in car or just as a background music) man can live with any of the tested encoders: Fraunhofer (v2.0 build 380 in Sound Forge 6.0) from 160 to 256 kbps, CBR, JS; Xing (AudioCatalyst 2.1) VBR HQ stereo or 256 kbps CBR stereo and LAME 3.90.2 alt preset standard and -extreme. Fraunhofer from 192 kbps upwards and LAME are satisfactory even as a "relax listening". Beyerdynamic DT 770 PRO and Sennheiser HD 545 Reference were used for this purpose. Xing proved no correspoding quality in this case.

END OF PART 1

HELP! Please URGENT (mp3 vs cd-audio comparison)

Reply #139 –
@budgie: what ur missing (again) is at least a slight description of how those tests were performed (in a blind fashion?)

and how do you get to conclusions like:
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Fraunhofer from 192 kbps upwards and LAME are satisfactory even as a "relax listening".

or
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The tests indicated that under a reasonable conditions (in car or just as a background music) man can live with any of the tested encoders

?
PANIC: CPU 1: Cache Error (unrecoverable - dcache data) Eframe = 0x90000000208cf3b8
NOTICE - cpu 0 didn't dump TLB, may be hung

HELP! Please URGENT (mp3 vs cd-audio comparison)

Reply #140 –
LISTENING TESTS - PART 2

For more serious listening I prepared all the above mentioned songs/compositions by grabbing them from CDs onto my HD using Feurio 1.65. As a CD ROM DVD Creative Labs Dxr2 was used. The tracks were encoded and converted back to wavs and no modifications were made. The wavs were then burned with Yamaha CRW4416 (external SCSI) onto Kodak Gold Ultima and Kodak SilverGold Ultima CD-Rs. Listening equipment consisted of Accuphase CD-55 CD player, Accuphase E210A amplifier and Energy Veritas v1.8 boxes. As I am a honorary member of ESDAC-club (Every Single Day Another Cable  ) I used a variety of cables: Kimber Silver Streak, AudioQuest Lapis X3, WireWorld Polaris, Kimber Kable 8TC, VanDenHul Revolution Hybrid, KrautWire Model 3SE, Transparent Cable Music Wave Super... just to mention the better ones 
Tracks were encoded by Fraunhofer v2.0 build380 SF 6.0 - 256 kbps, CBR, JS; AAC PsyTel 2.15 -archive; MP4 (Ivan&Menno) -vbrhi; MP3PRO - 96 kbps, CBR (Nero 5.5.9.17);  OGG 1.0 -q6; LAME 3.90.2 alt preset insane and MPC 1.14 -quality 8.
It is quite obvious that although you know what you hear, you can eliminate just after the first round Fraunhofer and MP3PRO. Especially MP3PRO with its SBR is making very strange artefacts in music especially in higher harmonics. With such an equipment I can't live with it even on a second... In The second round I eliminated LAME just because I had a very urgent feeling the music hadn't enough "power". I lacked a "life" in it... Even though a very intensive listening I had to acknowledge AAC and MPC as a very acceptable, OGG being a bit behind the two ones.
As a most interesting I regard the fact, that although all new generation encoders i.e. not MP3 had done good up to excellent work on transparent tracks, on Weinberger's "Polka and Fugue" all of them made jaws (I can't translate it from Slovak... it should be something like "they broke their teeth"). I can't say it would be unlistenable, but compared with original was a lack of colour in sound, especially in brass-sound. But when you don't know the original, you are satisfied with the sound, definitely. The problem wasn't so apparent in Basie's Big Band sound, though.

END OF PART 2
Part 3 comes after a while and this is the most interesting one, because I made blind tests with my fellow-mates and audiophile pals 

HELP! Please URGENT (mp3 vs cd-audio comparison)

Reply #141 –
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I had a very urgent feeling the music hadn't enough "power"

that is a typical statement before performing a blind listening test...
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all new generation encoders i.e. not MP3 had done good up to excellent work on transparent tracks

again, ur mp3 bashing is still going on, but you are not able to provide any abx results...
PANIC: CPU 1: Cache Error (unrecoverable - dcache data) Eframe = 0x90000000208cf3b8
NOTICE - cpu 0 didn't dump TLB, may be hung

HELP! Please URGENT (mp3 vs cd-audio comparison)

Reply #142 –
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I had a very urgent feeling the music hadn't enough "power". I lacked a "life" in it...

mmmmmmmm the power of placebo

HELP! Please URGENT (mp3 vs cd-audio comparison)

Reply #143 –
I am very curious about part 3...

I am willing to bet that all this hyper-super-quality cable boasting, all this lack of colour, lack of power, etc... leads to a very very very flawed blind test...

budgie: I fail to see any mention of you making sure the volume of the decoded wavs stayed on the same level as the original you were comparing to... You KNOW that "louder" is subconsciously perceived as "better", don't you???

Maybe that's the explanation for that "lack of power"... 

sidenote: it's funny how all the "audiophiles" always fall back to the same words to describe the soooo clear flaws of the psychoacoustic encoders... 

HELP! Please URGENT (mp3 vs cd-audio comparison)

Reply #144 –
I'm looking forward to part 3...

HELP! Please URGENT (mp3 vs cd-audio comparison)

Reply #145 –
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who just happened to live through the past 20 years as a musician and sound engineer?     

...As I am a honorary member of ESDAC-club (Every Single Day Another Cable  ) I used a variety of cables

A sound engineer who believes in 'magic' cables? A rare thing, I don't know many of this kind. In my opinion, the words 'engineer' and 'magic' do not mix (this is talking from another engineer), but maybe I'm going off-topic.

HELP! Please URGENT (mp3 vs cd-audio comparison)

Reply #146 –
part 3 will definately setup a new milestone in audio compression knowledge base...
PANIC: CPU 1: Cache Error (unrecoverable - dcache data) Eframe = 0x90000000208cf3b8
NOTICE - cpu 0 didn't dump TLB, may be hung

HELP! Please URGENT (mp3 vs cd-audio comparison)

Reply #147 –
Quote
Quote
I had a very urgent feeling the music hadn't enough "power". I lacked a "life" in it...

mmmmmmmm the power of placebo

Budgie forgot to use his Shun Mook Mpingo  discs. 

HELP! Please URGENT (mp3 vs cd-audio comparison)

Reply #148 –
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Budgie forgot to use his Shun Mook Mpingo   discs. 

Looks like an ice hockey accessories shop 

Coating these pucks with several layers of  C37 lacquer will even increase the benefits! This one also performs some obscure resonance thingies!

HELP! Please URGENT (mp3 vs cd-audio comparison)

Reply #149 –
I wonder if he will complain that the original has "expanded sound staging, enhanced separation, sharpened focus and enriched tonal balance" that the encoded files have lost... Most of all, of course, the crappy mp3 file.

I am dying of anxiousness for that part 3...

EDIT: oops, of course, the copyright of the quote belongs to Shun Mook...