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Topic: Is -q 7 enough for metal? (Read 21762 times) previous topic - next topic
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Is -q 7 enough for metal?

Is -q 7 enough for metal? I have a lot of space, but i want to find compromise when I will buy portable player in the future. Lower bitrates I consider unsuitable for metal and bitrates above q7 are too much for portable. I will encode 400+ Cd's, please, tell me the right solution, without any ABX tests. My ears are 40 years old. Is q7 the best solution for me? Thank you very much. I am using the latest encoder Oggenc 2 from rarewares.

Is -q 7 enough for metal?

Reply #1 –
-q7 is a quality setting, so saying "lower bitrates I consider unsuitable for metal" makes no sense.

Tests here have shown that at 128kbps, even in difficult clips, in the majority of circumstances even trained listeners have problems telling the original from the CD.

So using more than -q5 is probably senseless.

Is -q 7 enough for metal?

Reply #3 –
Quote from: molnart on
Are you sure Vorbis is the best choice for portable usage ?


Portable is not my priority. I have good hifi attached to my computer. The quality sound is the reason, why I chose Vorbis. Vorbis is much better thhan MP3, i think.

Is -q 7 enough for metal?

Reply #4 –
A couple of things about your post confused me:

"bitrates above q7 are too much for portable"
"Portable is not my priority."

"tell me the right solution, without any ABX tests. My ears are 40 years old."
"The quality sound is the reason, why I chose Vorbis. Vorbis is much better thhan MP3, i think."

What I mean is, you seem to be contradicting yourself. If bitrates about q7 are too much, why ask if it's enough when it's as far as you'll go? Furthermore, why say that Vorbis sounds better when you can't yourself tell the difference of it from MP3? At such bitrates, quality differences are very rarely audible on average samples.

I will say that q7 will almost definitely be enough for your needs, especially if you doubt your ears. MP3 at a comparable setting may well sound just as good to you but, if you want the security, use Vorbis.

Is -q 7 enough for metal?

Reply #5 –
Maybe enough.
But at that bit rate, Any codecs are good for everyone.
However if you can hear big difference between a codec that you like and another, so I called placebo effect.

Is -q 7 enough for metal?

Reply #6 –
250k was good from the start till present, but 128k quality varies with encoder tuning.

It all comes down to how much space you want to use and if you are willing to do proper listening tests. A lot of people don't do them or only test around 4 problem samples. I'd say pick a dozen or so samples from your collection and do some abx.

Then you can do math in another way: 128k tests are becoming more difficult and lossless bitrate is easily around 800k , so you can use vorbis Q7 without doing any tests and just don't worry about these 128k debates or the diskspace usage of lossless compression.

Is -q 7 enough for metal?

Reply #7 –
Quote from: Petr_67 on
I will encode 400+ Cd's, please, tell me the right solution, without any ABX tests. My ears are 40 years old. Is q7 the best solution for me?


The problem is your ears are your own, so there's no way out of an ABX test if you want to find out if -q7 is suitable.

You can justify encoding at -q7 though:
a) placebo effect. heck the rest, just tell yourself -q7 is the best. 'nuff said.
b)-q7 and -q8 is for ensuring, 100%, that your files are transparent to you, cos the bitrate will definitely be overkill (There's always a few golden ears or those with golden hifi equipment to refute that, I concede). You can transcode to -q1 or -q2 for portable listening when the time comes.

Is -q 7 enough for metal?

Reply #8 –
What is overkill ?

220k is nowhere near lossless bitrates even for silent music and small enough for portable hdd players. If the goal is to only use lossy for HQ listening then 250 k wouldn't be a waste. Remember at 128k you have little headroom for encoder error or regression between encoder versions.

Is -q 7 enough for metal?

Reply #9 –
Quote from: shadowking on
What is overkill ?

220k is nowhere near lossless bitrates even for silent music and small enough for portable hdd players. If the goal is to only use lossy for HQ listening then 250 k wouldn't be a waste. Remember at 128k you have little headroom for encoder error or regression between encoder versions.


About portable: Is -q7 playable? Yes, it is probably overkill for this purpose, but when the player has 1 Gb of space, I can fit about 10-12 CD's here. This is absolutely sufficient, when I go jogging, I need 2-3 albums max. I cannot understand, why  should I transcode to -q1 or 2. Thus, -q7 seems to be a very nice compromise, when I would like to listen those files on my very high quality speakers on PC as well. 
Sorry for my poor English.

Is -q 7 enough for metal?

Reply #10 –
Quote from: Petr_67 on
...This is absolutely sufficient, when I go jogging, I need 2-3 albums max. I cannot understand, why  should I transcode to -q1 or 2.

battery life ?

Is -q 7 enough for metal?

Reply #12 –
Battery life is usually lowered with high bitrate encodings. A french site made a comparison of different MP3 players and the reviewer and the nice idea of measuring the battery life with both 128 and 320 kbps:



The complete test is available here: http://www.presence-pc.com/tests/Comparati...-partie-438/12/

Also keep in mind that Vorbis is known to eat more power than MP3. Moreover, several players had decoding issues with high bitrate frames in a recent past.
So it's likely that the vorbis + high bitrate encodings comination will have a bad impact on the battery life. Also note that a reduced battery life is not necessary a problem for several users.

Is -q 7 enough for metal?

Reply #13 –
I am listening my newly encoded files to -q7 and I am enchanted. The sound is excelent! But only in foobar, in Winamp it sounds quietly and without high frequencies. Please tell me anybody, is there someone who use that high bitrate in portable player? Is it possible and what about battery life? I really hate transcoding, so can I continue ripping without worry?

Is -q 7 enough for metal?

Reply #14 –
Quote from: Petr_67 on
I am listening my newly encoded files to -q7 and I am enchanted. The sound is excelent! But only in foobar, in Winamp it sounds quietly and without high frequencies. Please tell me anybody, is there someone who use that high bitrate in portable player? Is it possible and what about battery life? I really hate transcoding, so can I continue ripping without worry?

Rip to MP3 / LAME -V 5 --vbr-new
You won't have issues, I promise.  Your sound will be 'pure', too

Battery life always depends on the player itself.  Use google, like all the rest of us.

Is -q 7 enough for metal?

Reply #15 –
All I listen to is metal and I can tell you using -q 5 and -q 6 sound as identical to me as -q 7 with the added advantage of not having larger filesizes.

It's up to your ears what you encode at! So in other words if you can't hear the difference go with what is transparent to your ears at a lower quality setting, you may even find -q 4 as being satisfactory. And don't forget you can even use qualities like -q 4.5, -q 5.25, etc.

Quote from: Petr_67 on
I have a lot of space, but i want to find compromise when I will buy portable player in the future.

Solution if space if of no issue:
* Lossless archiving in FLAC, or whatever your flavour is. With lossless archiving you'll never have to re-rip your audio CDs when some new or updated codec is released, you would instead use your lossless encodes as the source files - quick and easy!
* Lossy encodes for your portable: LAME MP3 at a suitable -V setting for your hearing capabilites.

Is -q 7 enough for metal?

Reply #16 –
Out of curiousity, try encoding some tracks with LAME 3.97b2 -V2 --vbr-new, and Shade[ST]'s above mentioned -V5 --vbr-new (lower bitrate), and letting us know what you think!

Is -q 7 enough for metal?

Reply #17 –
Quote from: dv1989 on
Out of curiousity, try encoding some tracks with LAME 3.97b2 -V2 --vbr-new, and Shade[ST]'s above mentioned -V5 --vbr-new (lower bitrate), and letting us know what you think!

I second that suggestion!

I can ABX metal samples at -V5 all day long.  For me and especially when it comes to metal, -V5 is not transparent.

Considering what Garf said, I'm also curious to see how transparent for you Vorbis will be at an average bitrate of 128k (for metal!).

Is -q 7 enough for metal?

Reply #18 –
Why should I use MP3, which has compared to Ogg worse sound, ratio quality vs space and mainly: MP3 is not gapless!!! So I will stay with Ogg. The only problem is portable compatibility, unfortunatelly.

Is -q 7 enough for metal?

Reply #19 –
Quote from: Petr_67 on
Why should I use MP3, which has compared to Ogg worse sound, ratio quality vs space and mainly: MP3 is not gapless!!! So I will stay with Ogg. The only problem is portable compatibility, unfortunatelly.

Lame mp3 is gapless.
The comparison to "sound worse" has been made a long time ago, and can no longer accurately be made.
mp3 takes less battery on a portable to decode, and is supported by all DAPs.

Please, enlighten me as to why you would choose vorbis?  Did you even try mp3?  Apart from BladeEnc, 7 yers ago, I mean.

Is -q 7 enough for metal?

Reply #20 –
Why the 3rd degree and hostility against the Vorbis user's decision?  He's trying to maximize space...and who knows, maybe he could even get away with dropping below q4 for a mobile, portable solution.

Is -q 7 enough for metal?

Reply #21 –
Quote from: vinnie97 on
Why the 3rd degree and hostility against the Vorbis user's decision?  He's trying to maximize space...and who knows, maybe he could even get away with dropping below q4 for a mobile, portable solution.


Hes considering q7.  Thats not maximizing space efficieny.  And theres no real advantage to vorbis at that bitrate, so its reasonable to question the decision particularly when its based on faulty premises.  I'm not sure that qualifies as "hostility".

I don't know about you, but if I post a thread under a misconception, i'd expect people to at least raise the possibility that I'm looking at something wrong.

Is -q 7 enough for metal?

Reply #22 –
OK, I should've said, "he's half-heartedly" trying to save space...he's got the right idea (using an efficient codec), but his bitrate choice is basically rendering his choice moot.  I think I lost sight of his original intentions along the course of this thread and thought a more reasonable thing for him to do than switching codecs is to lower bitrates.
 

Is -q 7 enough for metal?

Reply #23 –
I don't know what bitrate is used at q7, but if its more then 192kbps then any codec will give great sound quality.

Is -q 7 enough for metal?

Reply #24 –
I wouldn't worry about sound quality if you don't trust your ears and are using such high bitrates. Besides, you said that MP3 has a "worse sound" than Vorbis; did you even, as I suggested, try doing some tests for yourself? If not, how can you tell?