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Topic: Autumn 2006 Listening Test (Read 143248 times) previous topic - next topic
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Autumn 2006 Listening Test

Reply #300 –
I support Alex B's suggestion for the gogo setting. Sounds reasonable to me.
lame3995o -Q1.7 --lowpass 17

Autumn 2006 Listening Test

Reply #301 –
Quote from: jmartis on
Just a thought: the "MP3 surround command line encoder" from FHG supports CBR setting with any value (it switches between adjacent bitrates to acieve the set bitrate) so it could be used to produce 135kbps (or any other bitrate) mp3 streams.


Between using some weird encoding mode that is not really better than CBR but not as good as VBR, I prefer to go with "real" CBR from WMP.

Before you guys start to tell me that my decision sucks because I did not test if it's better than CBR - it can't be simply because it alternates between 128 and 160 kbps frames in such a way that the end file has 135 kbps - there is no "intelligent" function there that allocates more bits to complex parts and less bits to simple parts.

Now that I know how to use Helix (by using Real - I hope you were right and there really are only the two options CBR and VBR ), how to use Gogo? I already see two people agreeing that ABR is better and the arguments given are convincing.

Gabriel, were you recommending ABR over VBR in the LAME 3.88 days?

Autumn 2006 Listening Test

Reply #302 –
Quote from: Sebastian Mares on
Quote from: jmartis on

Just a thought: the "MP3 surround command line encoder" from FHG supports CBR setting with any value (it switches between adjacent bitrates to acieve the set bitrate) so it could be used to produce 135kbps (or any other bitrate) mp3 streams.


Between using some weird encoding mode that is not really better than CBR but not as good as VBR, I prefer to go with "real" CBR from WMP.


Note: it's unusual, but not weird. This is a form of freeformat that is described in the standard. FhG encoders are using it since ages in order to produce 20kbps CBR streams. (but it's still quite unusual)

Quote from: Sebastian Mares on
Gabriel, were you recommending ABR over VBR in the LAME 3.88 days?

Fur such bitrates, definitively ABR. Note: it's likely that abr will undersize its target bitrate.

Autumn 2006 Listening Test

Reply #303 –
Quote from: Gabriel on
Quote from: Sebastian Mares on
Between using some weird encoding mode that is not really better than CBR but not as good as VBR, I prefer to go with "real" CBR from WMP.

Note: it's unusual, but not weird. This is a form of freeformat that is described in the standard. FhG encoders are using it since ages in order to produce 20kbps CBR streams. (but it's still quite unusual)

And mp3sEncoder can produce solid 128k streams as well.

Autumn 2006 Listening Test

Reply #304 –
Do you really consider testing GoGo? If it's based on Lame 3.88, wouldn't it be a waste of time, because it was included in earlier listening tests where it already proved to be inferior to Lame and hasn't changed since? If you really want to include another competitor (I wouldn't do it), a Lame ABR setting would be much more useful because it could may be turn up problem samples where ABR is still better than VBR in current Lame and thus provide valuable tuning help for VBR.
Proverb for Paranoids: "If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about answers."
-T. Pynchon (Gravity's Rainbow)

Autumn 2006 Listening Test

Reply #305 –
I am testing Gogo because it's pretty fast and I want to see how it competes against LAME and other fast encoders like iTunes, Helix and FhG.

Discussion about encoder decision is really closed now. All additional codec requests or questions regarding why codec A was used over B are going to be ignored. Current list of encoders is:

LAME 3.97: -V 5 --vbr-new

iTunes 7.0.1.8: 128 kbps, VBR, highest quality, automatic sampling rate, automatic channel mode, "Stereo (joint)" stereo mode, intelligent, filter frequencies below 10 Hz

RealPlayer 10.5: 128 kbps, VBR

Gogo 3.13: have to check which ABR settings are suitable. Should I manually specify JS coding? What about the quality - should I even use that switch?

FhG: Windows Media Player 11, 128 kbps CBR

Low Anchor: l3enc 1.0, -br 128000. Should I foce JS coding here, too?

Autumn 2006 Listening Test

Reply #306 –
Bleh guys, come on... Holidays are here and I really want to set up the test this week.

For the samples, here is purposal regarding old ones:

DaFunk
gone
mybloodrusts
polonaise
riteofspring
Scars
Waiting

These are the samples that performed pretty bad in the last MP3 test - 7 files. If 12 samples should be tested, this makes room for 5 problem samples. Which ones to use?

As for the encoder setting. I think I will force JS with everything since I am also forcing it with iTunes.

Autumn 2006 Listening Test

Reply #307 –
Suggested samples for common problems:

• PRE-ECHO: eig.wv (submitted by Mo0zOoH)

• MICRO-IMPULSE: E50.wv or Mahler.wv (both are from mine)

• LOW-VOLUME PERFORMANCE: Debussy.wv (LAME VBR performed poorly in the past with -V5; better performance since 3.97 beta 2 and even better ones with 3.98 alpha)

Autumn 2006 Listening Test

Reply #308 –
eig.wv is a good proposal. I withdraw my castanets proposal in favor of eig.

So my proposal left is harp40_1 which I'd love to see participating.
lame3995o -Q1.7 --lowpass 17

Autumn 2006 Listening Test

Reply #309 –
I agree with eig.wv for pre-echo, it's even worse than castanets for pre-echo.

What is micro impulse? I don't know what I'm listening for.

Autumn 2006 Listening Test

Reply #310 –
Quote
Gogo 3.13: have to check which ABR settings are suitable. Should I manually specify JS coding? What about the quality - should I even use that switch?

Here is what I think we should use for Gogo (it is my personal opinion):

At one point, maybe still now to a degree, I was obsessed with using GOGO instead of LAME. For lower bitrates, GOGO's VBR is generally aweful. It's not even that great at the highest setting -v 0 (unless you add "-vb 192 320" or something). But Gogo still has a slight chance to be competitive among the newer encoders in either the CBR or ABR mode. And one thing I would like to point out is that at ~128kbps, -q 2 isn't really ideal. Either -q 6 (default) or -q 4 produces better resulsts around that bitrate from my experience. - q 6 (rather than -q 2) is actually a nice quality setting across the board at any bitrate (except for some killer sample cases). I do not belive that gogo's "-q 2" is automatically equal to LAME 3.88's "-h" and that therefore it is an ideal balanced setting.

The last time Gogo was tested in one of Roberto's tests, I erroneously suggested adding "-q 0" without much testing, and that was a mistake on my part (now I wonder what would have happened if I had not suggested that!). Since then, I have been testing and using Gogo 3.13, and know more about its behaviour, and would like to suggest a quality setting of "6" (default).

So, my suggesting would be:  gogo INPUT.WAV OUTPUT.MP3 (= no switches specified = CBR128kbps)
or:  gogo -b 136 -a INPUT.WAV OUTPUT.MP3

As far as GOGO is concerned, I think CBR is slightly more stable than ABR qualitywise. But then ABR might be more flexible with some killer samples at the cost of overall stability. You could add "-q 6 -m j" to both settings, but since they are the default around this bitrate, they wouldn't make a difference.

Maybe Mr. Guru or someone with a better set of ears than me will come up with a totally different suggestion and overturn all the above, but up to this point, this is what I think regarding gogo.

I hope this helps a bit.
LoFiYo

edit: typos

Autumn 2006 Listening Test

Reply #311 –
Quote from: LoFiYo on
Maybe Mr. Guru or someone with a better set of ears than me will come up with a totally different suggestion (...)

I'm sorry but I never played with gogo's options in order to improve the quality.

Autumn 2006 Listening Test

Reply #312 –
OK, omitting the quality setting is a good idea since we don't have any large tests that show which setting is better. I will not force JS since it's used by default - same applies to l3enc as far as I can see.

Any other proposals for samples?

BTW: Did you guys notice that WMP 11 final is out? I think this means testing of new WMA codec can be done soon, so let's hurry up with this test.

Autumn 2006 Listening Test

Reply #313 –
Quote from: Sebastian Mares on
BTW: Did you guys notice that WMP 11 final is out? I think this means testing of new WMA codec can be done soon, so let's hurry up with this test.


Quote from: Sebastian Mares on
Anyways, I see that the crowd wants a new listening test and since the 48 kbps multiformat test was delayed until the new WMA codec is open for testing, we have two reasonable possibilities: test MP3 at 128 kbps and include fast encoders like Helix, or test various formats at 80 kbps. (...)


I wonder: now that the 48 kbps multiformat listening test is possible, does it still make sense to perform an 'intermediary' one dedicated to mp3?
As far as I can see, people didn't show that much enthousiasm about the latter. I'm maybe wrong but... the competitors are decided but nobody dared to publish a bitrate table; few samples were suggested; you always have to lauch people,etc...
Moreover the choice of settings often lead to debate (forced JS or not, VBR for iTunes, for GOGOG, for Fhg; dedicated commandline for HELIX and now GOGO...). As far as I can remember I never saw such inextricable situation and lethargic attitude in any previous listening test. It's maybe just a feeling of mine and in no case I'm trying to put the blame on someone.

So I wonder if it wouldn't be better to immediately start a debate about a multiformat test and to postpone the current one. Maybe will we find a better occasion to test different MP3 encoders. But the currents audio developments (aoTuVb5, WMA10 or 9.2) are clearly far from GOGO, Helix and Fhg MP3.

What do you think? Or are you personaly interested by a MP3 challenge?

Autumn 2006 Listening Test

Reply #314 –
I don't want to offend anyone but some people lose interest in any comparison if discussion takes a few months from then.  It's important to get clear info about all codecs, setings, conditions but discussions can be endless.  Just my thoughts as they are 

Autumn 2006 Listening Test

Reply #315 –
Quote from: guruboolez on
I wonder: now that the 48 kbps multiformat listening test is possible, does it still make sense to perform an 'intermediary' one dedicated to mp3?
As far as I can see, people didn't show that much enthousiasm about the latter. I'm maybe wrong but... the competitors are decided but nobody dared to publish a bitrate table; few samples were suggested; you always have to lauch people,etc...
Moreover the choice of settings often lead to debate (forced JS or not, VBR for iTunes, for GOGOG, for Fhg; dedicated commandline for HELIX and now GOGO...). As far as I can remember I never saw such inextricable situation and lethargic attitude in any previous listening test. It's maybe just a feeling of mine and in any case I'm trying to blame someone.

But I wonder if it wouldn't be better to immediately start a debate about a multiformat test and to postpone the current one. Maybe will we find a better occasion to test different MP3 encoders. But the currents audio developments (aoTuVb5, WMA10 or 9.2) are clearly far from GOGO, Helix and Fhg MP3.

What do you think? Or are you personaly interested by a MP3 challenge?


I kinda lost interest in faster MP3 encoders @ about 128 kbps after this:

Quote from: Alex B on
As a quick rehearsal I tried this sample

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....showtopic=47370

using the following encoders & settings:

LAME 3.97b2, -V5 --vbr-new
WMP10 / FhG, 128 kbps CBR default settings (I used the acmenc command line interface)
Helix (hmp3enc.exe 23.7.2005), -X2 -U2 -V60 -HF2 -F17000
iTunes 6.0.5.20, 128 kbps, VBR, Quality: Highest, Joint Stereo, Smart enabled, Filter below 10 Hz enabled
iTunes 6.0.5.20, 128 kbps, CBR, Joint Stereo, Smart enabled, Filter below 10 Hz enabled
Gogo 3.13, -a -b 133 -m j -q 2

The first few distorded rock guitar chords sent all other encoders except LAME straight to the Hell.

I ABXed them all 8/8, but LAME was difficult and the others were quick and easy.

In general, LAME was quite good, not annoying at all, FhG was barely usable, the others were bad.

I don't know if the encoder versions and settings I used were optimal, but if the actual test samples behave even partially like this I think we may have a good chance to find a clear winner this time.

Personally, after this rehearsal, I would use only LAME at this bitrate. Even the other samples would be transparent with all encoders a standard rock quitar sound is too important for me.


I have used and will probably continue to use GoGo, Helix or WMP FhG (with Nyaochi's excellent ACMENC) for quickly encoding files for MP3 CD-RW discs, which I use with my car and portable MP3 CD players, but then I use bitrates at about 192 kbps or more. (Which encoder of these I select depends on my mood and the star positions, I guess...).

BTW, besides the iTunes bitrates that I already published I have encoded my usual 25 test files with Real VBR 128 and GoGo -a -b 135 -q 2. Real was 130 kbps and GoGo 133 kbps. I have not updated my bitrate table yet, but I uploaded MrQuestionMan reports here: http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....st&p=445461

Autumn 2006 Listening Test

Reply #316 –
I am not sure what to do either to be honest. The lack of interest showed in the discussion can also mean lack of interest when it comes to testing which then means that I won't have enough results. On the other hand, discussion is pretty much over now, finally, and starting another discussion for another test somehow sucks IMO.

Autumn 2006 Listening Test

Reply #317 –
OK, no problem  (and sorry)

Autumn 2006 Listening Test

Reply #318 –
I will participate in the test.
With this bitrate range I do not expect another result than AlexB does, but I find it interesting to learn about how big the differences are.
lame3995o -Q1.7 --lowpass 17

Autumn 2006 Listening Test

Reply #319 –
I was thinking of another plan: test ~48 kbps Multiformat now and ~128 kbps MP3 in January after the Christmas and New Year period is over. Having discussed everything regarding the MP3 test already, I don't think it will take much to get it started then.

My main concern is that I will not have enough testers now since not many people are really interested.

Autumn 2006 Listening Test

Reply #320 –
I am interested in both tests, but I think that I should not participate in the samples selection if I have a contender taking part of the test.

Autumn 2006 Listening Test

Reply #321 –
Hmm... probably a new discussion about new WMP pro / aoTuV beta / Nero AAC+ etc would take a couple of months more. Perhaps it would be better to test MP3 @ 128 now if it is going to be tested.

Sebastian,

Would you mind gathering the samples suggested so far in one post with download links if available. Perhaps that would bring up ideas about additional samples if needed.

Besides listening to through them I could also compare GoGo default quality vs. -q 2 with these samples since no one has actually tested this. It would be a pity if the better setting would not be used. Because GoGo is not maintained by a software company (or anyone else as it appears) it is a "tweaker's choice" anyway. Major software companies are supposed to use the best encoding parameters by default.

Autumn 2006 Listening Test

Reply #322 –
I think sufficiently many problem samples have been suggested taking into account Sebastian Mares' and
guruboolez' samples and harp40_1 which I suggested (hope I didn't forget a proposal).
lame3995o -Q1.7 --lowpass 17

Autumn 2006 Listening Test

Reply #323 –
OK, I went through this thread. I found these:

guruboolez's list
Quote from: guruboolez on
Suggested samples for common problems:

• PRE-ECHO: eig.wv (submitted by Mo0zOoH) -- Link: http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....ost&id=2619

• MICRO-IMPULSE: E50.wv or Mahler.wv (both are from mine)

• LOW-VOLUME PERFORMANCE: Debussy.wv (LAME VBR performed poorly in the past with -V5; better performance since 3.97 beta 2 and even better ones with 3.98 alpha)
halb27's list
Quote from: halb27 on
As for the killer samples I suggest to use (among others).
It's all natural music with the special effect that without knowing in advance that these are problem samples one would not easily beleive how big the problems are for encoders and settings that are usually transparent on most music (with the exception of castanets).
Sebastian's list
Quote from: Sebastian Mares on
Bleh guys, come on... Holidays are here and I really want to set up the test this week.

For the samples, here is purposal regarding old ones:

DaFunk -- Link:  http://www.rarewares.org/test_samples/DaFunk.wv
gone -- Link:  http://www.rarewares.org/test_samples/gone.wv
mybloodrusts -- Link:  http://www.rarewares.org/test_samples/mybloodrusts.wv
polonaise -- Link:  http://www.rarewares.org/test_samples/Polonaise.wv
riteofspring -- Link:  http://www.rarewares.org/test_samples/riteofspring.wv
Scars -- Link:  http://www.rarewares.org/test_samples/Scars.wv
Waiting -- Link:  http://www.rarewares.org/test_samples/Waiting.wv

These are the samples that performed pretty bad in the last MP3 test - 7 files. If 12 samples should be tested, this makes room for 5 problem samples. Which ones to use?

As for the encoder setting. I think I will force JS with everything since I am also forcing it with iTunes.
I'll try to find the missing links too.

Edit: added the links