HydrogenAudio

A Newbie Guide to MP3 (http://www.3dsoundsurge.com/features/articles/MP3/MP3-p3.html)
Key Tip:

When encoding MP3s, the ideal goal is to get the file to sound the same as the original, which is known as transparency. Achieving this and keeping the file small is a tough combination. Fortunately, the fine people over at r3mix.net have been working and tweaking this for MONTHS and the fruits of their labor is in your hands, in the form of presets in LAME. Use “--alt-preset standard” for very high audio quality and “--alt-preset extreme” for archiving respectively.

The Guide (http://www.3dsoundsurge.com/features/articles/MP3/MP3.html) is quite good overall, but maybe someone should E-Mail the author and tell him about the differences between --r3mix () and the --alt-prsets ()...

dev0

Well, Dibrom WAS one of the "fine people over at r3mix.net ".

But WAS r3mix ever the home of the --alt-presets?
I haven't been in the "audiocoding-community" for to long, but I don't thnink so...
dev0

Originally posted by dev0
But WAS r3mix ever the home of the --alt-presets?
dev0

Originally, the r3mix forums were the place were developments like this were discussed. This site came along once it became clear that r3mix's objective was not to promote the best setting but just 'his' preset.

I think to this day he still promotes r3mix as the one true preset for high quality audio.

So yes, the presets were developed there, but not by the 'r3mix.net' people

--
GCP

Originally posted by Garf

I think to this day he still promotes r3mix as the one true preset for high quality audio.

Not quite true, actually (not any more at least). From the news page at www.r3mix.net (http://www.r3mix.net), regarding the --r3mix setting (emphasis is mine):

Undeniably improvements have been made by many people on the encoder since then, but the setting I'm using now is still as good for me as it was last year.  imo 'perfect' and can't be beat in quality : size ratio as of yet, for me.

He says it is 'in my opinion, perfect', while he is well-aware of the flaws of the --r3mix preset. Moreover, he carefully avoids any mention of anything else besides --r3mix. If he urges people to compare, he might as well state what they can compare with.

Moreover, at the top right of the page you can still clearly see the old claim in the recommended settings: 'r3mix: best quality'

There is nothing better for him, because in his world, anything *besides* --r3mix doesn't exist.

I can say: 'IMHO, and for me, the earth is flat.' That doesn't make it flat.

--
GCP

To the best of my recollection the alt--presets were developed AFTER a large crowd (almost everyone) of developers had moved away from r3mix forum to HA.
The forerunner, the dm-presets, were developed before HA  though.

Originally posted by dev0
But WAS r3mix ever the home of the --alt-presets?

No, it never was.
--dm-presets started there. --alt-presets, especially the code level tweaked profiles (standard,extreme,insane) are completely different and all the development happened here.

Garf wrote
So yes, the presets were developed there, but not by the 'r3mix.net' people

--alt-presets were never developed at r3mix.net.

All I know is that the r3mix site should be taken down.  As a newbie, I came upon that site (actually, the Ephpod site links to it) and I took what I read as MP3 gospel.  Shame on me I know... but luckily, after being about 10GB into the encoding process, I came across HA.

I'm kinda weird in that I'm a research nut, so I came across HA, but I wonder how many people who aren't such dorks like me, just find the info at r3mix and call it quits using r3mix settings.

Ephpod website links to http://www.ping.be/satcp/tutorials.htm (http://www.ping.be/satcp/tutorials.htm) as does the sticky in THIS forum when you read up on LAME settings in the MP3 general forum.  Towards the bottom is the link to the EAC tutorial, which ANY newbie is going to read.  This "tutorial" suggests r3mix settings.

This needs to be changed.

I've compiled the presets history as a collection of links. I've posted it both here and at R3mix.net.
Unfortunately, r3mix.net is in maintenance-mode, and the FAQ section in here is moderator-only.

I just wrote an e-mail to satcp begging him to update the info.

chris

Originally posted by Pio2001
I've compiled the presets history as a collection of links. I've posted it both here and at R3mix.net.

Your history of --alt-presets were umm not very complete at all. Check the FAQ forum.

Thanks,
I'll update it...
...after having finished the CDex vs EAC test, setup a Ghost In The Shell DVD comparison page, setup a webpage showing different models of Othello games, and setup an index page for my website...

Guys,

what's up with you all? First you want to take down BladeEncs site, now it's Roel's r3mix.net! Boy would I be happy if every mp3 file out there would be encoded using --r3mix!

Roel started his r3mix forum, and I believe it started a whole lot of things. I still recommend it to newbies, as I feel that HA is a bit too techie sometimes.

Also, I personally would still use --r3mix if I'd still use mp3 (long live Vorbis!), because I have such lousy hearing that it sounds "perfect" to me.

BTW, Garf: we're not talking about measurable things here, we're talking about perceptual audio encoding, so YMMV!

To put it in other words: I found the perfect woman, I even married her. But I seriously doubt that it's your perfect woman as well...

Go show some tolerance, even if Roel wasn't the most diplomatic guy around. Show you can do better.

Originally posted by dors

BTW, Garf: we're not talking about measurable things here, we're talking about perceptual audio encoding, so YMMV! 

Why, yes, that's exactly my point. It's exactly my gripe with Roel and r3mix. There is more to the world than r3mix. r3mix is *not* perfect for anyone. So by pretending it's the only thing around, you are helping noone.

--
GCP

Nobody is saying r3mix.net has to go away, it would just be nice if it were updated with info that reflects the developments in LAME.

If r3mix weren't such a well-known site, it wouldn't be a problem, but there are many people out there who visit it all the time, and leave thinking that --r3mix is the switch to use.

But would r3mix.net have to change it's domain name? 

chris

Come on, it's his site, it's his setting, so he has absolutely every right to promote it. You're not buying everything you read on the internet as being the one and only truth, do you?  Like, e.g., NeoAudio being "all new"?

And again: if everyone would "only" use --r3mix, we would have a lot more good sounding mp3s in the world!

Originally posted by dors
Come on, it's his site, it's his setting, so he has absolutely every right to promote it. You're not buying everything you read on the internet as being the one and only truth, do you?  Like, e.g., NeoAudio being "all new"?

That's the problem...a lot of newbies do exactly that.

--
GCP

I could see your point if there were any possible advantage to using r3mix whatsoever, in any scenario, under any circumstances.

But obviously debating whether he should or shouldn't is pointless, because as you say, it's his site and his right to post any info he wants.

It's just my opinion, and the opinion of many others, that it should be changed to better educate people on how to use LAME effectively.

I don't think it really matters anyways, as word will spread and outdated info is eventually bagged up and taken to the Internet curb. 

chris

There are far too few newbies out there using --r3mix and way too many using 128 kbit/s.

Originally posted by dors
Go show some tolerance, even if Roel wasn't the most diplomatic guy around. Show you can do better.

Sorry, Dors, but you won't find tolerance here. I gave up searching long ago.

Originally posted by rjamorim

Sorry, Dors, but you won't find tolerance here. I gave up searching long ago.

The stake, or trial-by-water?

--
GCP

Originally posted by Garf
The stake, or trial-by-water?

Too cold to use water. But the stake makes lots of mess as well... :-P

Originally posted by dors
Go show some tolerance, even if Roel wasn't the most diplomatic guy around. Show you can do better.

Well, this is exactly what I did.  I created a better preset, but I also told people it was not perfect.  I created a better forum, but I also made it non-mp3 only.

I tolerate a lot of things, but one thing that I don't is people spreading false information when they know better.

Roel knows better, he just chooses not to acknowledge that he's wrong and that his site is inaccurate.

As Garf said, --r3mix is not about quality mp3s, it's about Roel and his switch.  And really, I'd have no problem with that at all if he actually represented it that way.  He doesn't though, he represents it as the be all end all solution for *perfect* mp3s.  The reality is that it's quite far from this, even for many people who have so-called "average" hearing.

Furthermore, Roel has no interest in other codecs no matter what listening test show in regards to their quality or what type of advances they continue to make in functionality and usability.  Try talking about the advantages of Ogg Vorbis or MPC or AAC over there and watch how he'll tell you they are useless (at least when he still posted).

R3mix.net is not about quality.  It's not about objectivity.  And despite it's banners which say the opposite, it's not about the search for the truth.  It's about Roel and --r3mix.  Always has been, and as far as I can tell, it always will be.  I mean, come on, the site and the preset are even named after the guy here.. isn't that kind of an indication of what they're about?

The r3mix forums may contain some useful information in spots, but if you really look through, most of that information has come from 3rd parties, a lot of it even from people who are now key members of HA.  The stuff which has come from Roel is all still almost entirely --r3mix centric.

So, you can go ahead and still point newbies to r3mix.net if you please.  I think you're doing them a disservice though, because it's starting them off on the wrong foot.  Almost all the stuff they'll end up reading on Roel's pages, they'll come to find later is inaccurate or just flat out wrong.  Additionally, they'll also not be exposed to any of the latest developments in the audio encoding community, or to any of the significantly better alternatives to mp3 (Ogg Vorbis, MPC, or AAC), even when using the --alt-presets.

I realize that HA is lacking on guides and FAQs and that this is very important for newbies, but I promise you that we are working on this.  As we speak right now, HA is coming close to unveiling an exciting new project which will not only address this matter (providing or at least attempting to provide relatively unbiased and objective information for newbies), but which will hopefully be the next step in bringing the entire audio community much closer together and really providing the resource necessary to leap ahead in the usability and functionality aspects of open source and end-user driven audio encoding.

Originally posted by Dibrom


R3mix.net is not about quality.  It's not about objectivity.  And despite it's banners which say the opposite, it's not about the search for the truth.  It's about Roel and --r3mix.  Always has been, and as far as I can tell, it always will be.  I mean, come on, the site and the preset are even named after the guy here.. isn't that kind of an indication of what they're about?

Problem is that a google search of mp3 quality takes you to r3mix still.

When there is a FAQ section with basic guides for eac and razorlame etc, we will be in a position to google bomb and get more hits.

God knows what complications this will bring but at least all the info will be accurate, and people will be exposed to objective testing measures.

The forum there is dead. There are rare newbie questions and of late a few trolls. Nothing creative or of real interest at all.

There was a time when r3mix was a great place for a newbie to learn a few things but this forum is quickly approaching the point where it can improve on this role without the ego problems that became so apparant as the community splintered.

Time to take over says I

Originally posted by rjamorim
Sorry, Dors, but you won't find tolerance here. I gave up searching long ago.

I disagree. IMO it shows great tolerance that this site covers many different formats, different bitrates, people using many different software are adviced here, without bigger flamewars (except maybe very rarely). IMO what is not tolerated is false info, spamming, and unjustified claims.
Every opinion is tolerated here, but if it's a wild claim without proofs, that's a different thing.

This from a newbie who has just completed 5 months of hard research into audio compression:

Originally posted by cmyden
I just wrote an e-mail to satcp begging him to update the info.

Here, Here.  SatCP's tutorial was invaluable to me, especially the links, but needs updating.

Originally posted by Dibrom

R3mix.net is not about quality.  It's not about objectivity.  And despite it's banners which say the opposite, it's not about the search for the truth.

These 'banners' retarded my search for a while.  As I posted somewhere yesterday, the reason I am a member here is because I trust the information to be accurate.  And quality really matters.

Originally posted by dors

I still recommend it to newbies, as I feel that HA is a bit too techie sometimes.

How could you do that, and not in the same breath send people here?  Had I been sent here sooner it would saved me at least a month and a half - and I would probably be 90 days ahead of where I am now.  It's dangerous to put people in a box.

Originally posted by Dibrom

So, you can go ahead and still point newbies to r3mix.net if you please.  I think you're doing them a disservice though, because it's starting them off on the wrong foot.   Additionally, they'll also not be exposed to any of the latest developments in the audio encoding community, or to any of the significantly better alternatives to mp3 (Ogg Vorbis, MPC, or AAC), even when using the --alt-presets.

Indeed.[/b]  Well said.

Originally posted by Garf
That's the problem...a lot of newbies do exactly that.

??? I just don't get it. WHY is it a "problem"? If my neighbor thinks that Blade, Xing, or r3mix is CD quality, why should that be a problem? It's his music - not mine. Are we hinting around about getting inferior pirated encodes? :eek:

I don't mean to start any flaming, just archiving every link I can find in order to answer more quickly and more accurately when the question is asked.

Is there already somewhere a test result showing that --alt-preset 160 or 170, something like that, is better than --r3mix ?

Originally posted by layer3maniac
??? I just don't get it. WHY is it a "problem"? If my neighbor thinks that Blade, Xing, or r3mix is CD quality, why should that be a problem? It's his music - not mine. Are we hinting around about getting inferior pirated encodes? :eek:

It's a problem cuz a newbie like me reads it, it seems definitive and we start encoding away at r3mix, and then later found out we wasted our time cuz there's a better way.

I know it's my problem for not researching more, but purposely leaving up false or inaccurate info is not cool.

Originally posted by nebuchadnezzar
It's a problem cuz a newbie like me reads it, it seems definitive and we start encoding away at r3mix, and then later found out we wasted our time cuz there's a better way.

Well, if you already think 128kbps is transparent, I see no sense in restarting encoding because someone else said there is a better way. If you always goes with what someone else says, you won't ever finish encoding your CD collection.

What I mean: If you have all your encodings in --r3mix and you are satisfied with that, why reencode with --aps? There will be no difference for you.

Originally posted by rjamorim
Well, if you already think 128kbps is transparent, I see no sense in restarting encoding because someone else said there is a better way. If you always goes with what someone else says, you won't ever finish encoding your CD collection.

What I mean: If you have all your encodings in --r3mix and you are satisfied with that, why reencode with --aps? There will be no difference for you.

It's that whole thing about learning how to hear artifacts. I used to encode all my mp3's using l3enc at 128kbps, and I was perfectly happy with them. Now, a good deal of 160kbps cbr mp3's have enough artifacts to irritate me.

There's no reason to tolerate screechy 128kbps MP3's when you can have >99% transparency without much more trouble. Even r3mix doesn't have to be "tolerated". I've only successfully ABX'ed a couple of my 100-or-so r3mix MP3's (perhaps a critical listening test could flush out some more, but frankly I don't care that much, and I'd rather not face the fact that I probably couldn't hear more of a difference anyway ). On one hand, the music mostly sounds perfect, so who cares if a couple are slightly flawed? On the other, I could have used the --alt-presets and gained a little more fidelity at about the same bitrate.

I'm not costing myself any more money by using --alt-preset instead of --r3mix, I'm not hurting the environment, and I'm not damning myself to hell. I'm just getting a better MP3. To promote a substandard preset as "the best" is to scam the public.

[span style='font-size:9'](Of course, there are benefits to --r3mix, such as a slightly lower bitrate and a faster encoding time. But r3mix.net should just admit that those are the only benefits!)[/span]

Originally posted by SometimesWarrior
It's that whole thing about learning how to hear artifacts. I used to encode all my mp3's using l3enc at 128kbps, and I was perfectly happy with them. Now, a good deal of 160kbps cbr mp3's have enough artifacts to irritate me.

OK. And when you learn to hear --aps artifacts? Then what?



[span style='font-size:9']1500 posts![/span]

As a newbie who got here only after finding r3mix.net, I agree with IveyLeaguer:  I wish I'd found HA first and I'd be disappointed if someone who knew about HA sent me elsewhere because they didn't think this site was newbie-friendly(from a technical standpoint)

Originally posted by rjamorim


Well, if you already think 128kbps is transparent, I see no sense in restarting encoding because someone else said there is a better way. If you always goes with what someone else says, you won't ever finish encoding your CD collection.

What I mean: If you have all your encodings in --r3mix and you are satisfied with that, why reencode with --aps? There will be no difference for you.

Roberto, I agree that trying to keep up with the Joneses is pointless if you've found a format and quality that works for you.  But this is another newbie specific situation....As we start learning what artifacts to listen for and actually being able to pick them out, very quickly some of those formerly "transparent" songs may not sound so great.  I'd hate to have several thousand newly created --r3mix files when that happened.

Originally posted by pantheranddawg
What was OK yesterday may sound awful today

.As we start learning what artifacts to listen for and actually being able to pick them out, very quickly some of those formerly "transparent" songs may not sound so great.

Going with that train of thought, the only solution is lossless.

Originally posted by rjamorim


Going with that train of thought, the only solution is lossless.

I disagree.  If I truly start hearing artifacts in more than a few aps files,  I wouldn't hesitate to go alt-preset extreme.  But going lossless isn't the natural extension of climbing the newbie learning curve and being dissatisfied with something you previously thought was transparent.  This doesn't fly in the face of what you said about not bothering with overkill if you're satisfied.  My comments are specific to those just learning to recognize artifacts in lossy compressed audio.

That said , I admit that everything I've got is lossless right now  cause 1)I've got the space and 2) I haven't decided on a lossless format and 3)I'm lazy sometimes....

Originally posted by pantheranddawg
That said , I admit that everything I've got is lossless right now

See?

You've already reached the final evolutional step.

what is better, --ape or cbr 320?

Originally posted by dreamliner77
what is better, --ape or cbr 320?

--api, that is CBR 320 btw.

Originally posted by pantheranddawg
[As we start learning what artifacts to listen for and actually being able to pick them out, very quickly some of those formerly "transparent" songs may not sound so great.  I'd hate to have several thousand newly created --r3mix files when that happened.

I've found a workaround: *Reencode* 10-20 of ur favourite songs (but of coz don't delete the originals) with vorbis -q-1 and hear those all nights before going to sleep for a week, at least. Voilaa! Your ears restored to the previous (and satisfactorial!) state of not caring atall about artifacts

Originally posted by layer3maniac
??? I just don't get it. WHY is it a "problem"?

This has already been outlined well enough, but I'll reiterate it anyway.

HA is here to help people learn how to work with audio compression.  It's here to increase the knowledge base and to provide a place for relatively BS-free quality discussion.  It's a place for people to perform objective testing, and share information.

Spreading false truths and misinformation goes completely against the whole idea here.  It also goes against what most people want who are trying to learn about this stuff.  As mentioned by some previous posters, the fact that r3mix.net masquerades as being some sort of source of factual information is harmful to people trying to get valid information.  It wastes their time and gives them the wrong ideas.  It promotes poor testing methodology (did you see some of the comments on slashdot and arstechnica about ff123s test?) within the audio community, and eventually, it hampers progress.

Surely you can see this.  If you feel that none of the above points are worth anything, and I'm not saying that's what you are implying, but if you don't understand why these are good things and why what r3mix.net stands for is not, then I'm not quite sure what you see in this community as a whole.  I don't understand where the desire to participate would stem from.

If my neighbor thinks that Blade, Xing, or r3mix is CD quality, why should that be a problem? It's his music - not mine. Are we hinting around about getting inferior pirated encodes? :eek:

Well again, that's not the problem.  The problem is when people put up information which is inaccurate and then play it off as being the absolute truth.  This does a disservice to everyone trying to learn about this stuff, especially people who don't know enough to be aware of the fact that the information is false.

Of course, a person can do whatever they want to on their website.  They can put up all the false information they like.  There's really nothing to stop them.  It's not in good spirit though, and so I don't think that fits in with this community, or with what most people learning about this are looking for.  It's not cool to deceive people for no reason at all, other than to feed your own ego.

And please don't start making accusations or implications linking this to piracy.  It's a flat out insult to do so, and it's completely unfounded.  This concern is made in the spirit of providing accurate information and providing a good knowledge base to others so that everyone can benefit.  It's kind of sad to think that people couldn't recognize that on it's on merit and must instead think that this notion is selfish and somehow related to the desire for higher quality pirated music

Originally posted by rjamorim
Well, if you already think 128kbps is transparent, I see no sense in restarting encoding because someone else said there is a better way. If you always goes with what someone else says, you won't ever finish encoding your CD collection.

Most of the people here have a desire to learn.  With that learning comes a higher degree of awareness of many of the issues involved with audio encoding.  And with that usually comes a greater ability to detect artifacts in compressed audio.  It's only natural, then, that people would also want to find a way to improve the quality of their encodings.  There's nothing wrong with this, just as their's nothing wrong with people learning about normal audio quality and eventually graduating to better sound systems, higher quality music, etc.  If we all took the "let's bury our head in the sand" approach, there would be no progress at all.  We'd all be using Blade.  And to provide an example closer to home, AAC wouldn't even exist.

This is really analogous to the whole "Igorance is Bliss thing".  Well, I don't buy into that.  I don't think most other people who have tasted knowledge do either.

There's always room for learning, and there's always room for improvement.  People who aren't interested in that can just kindly step out of the way, because I'm sure as hell not going to wait up for them in my own personal quest towards something better.

Originally posted by rjamorim
OK. And when you learn to hear --aps artifacts? Then what?

Well first of all, --aps will have far fewer artifacts than --r3mix.  That alone should not be overlooked simply because it still may not be perfect.

--aps is better than --r3mix, and just because it's not perfect does not lessen this to any degree.

And if someone needs something better than --aps, then luckily there are solutions: MPC, AAC, and in some cases Ogg Vorbis.

Yes, it's possible to always want more, but it's this desire that also drives projects forward and creates progress.  If we all just sit idly by and become "satisfied", then nobody will ever provide something better.

Maybe some people could be happy with this, but I'm not one of them.  I suspect most of the people at HA are here because they aren't either.

Originally posted by rjamorim
Going with that train of thought, the only solution is lossless.

That would be the easy way out.

The other solution would be to improve the existing options, or to create something new and even better than before.

Not again... :insane:

r3mix WAS great!
I came there as a newbie and now I know enough to help others.
If it wasn't for the r3mix forum  I wouldn't be here and this community evolved with alot of the ppl that used to go there.
Roel did a lot of good; his mistake was not to see when others did better.

rjamorim,

I understand that --api is cbr 320, but that applies the presets tunings, doesn't it?  Would just straight cbr 320 (ie, from the lame dll) offer any advantages or disadvantages?

The problem is "simple"... Remove the --r3mix switch in the next version of Lame and print out a message that recommends --alt-preset standard in case someone tries to use "the old shit"...

@dreamliner77

Yes, --api does use Dibrom's tuned preset and will provide far better quality than simply using CBR 320. Clearly, there will be no real difference in file size, but Dibrom's tunings will provide much better audio quality.

@Sachankara

It would probably be better to add a note when --r3mix is invoked saying that "The use of this preset is deprecated, the use of the --alt-presets is recommended.":D

I tried accessing the r3mix.net forum today:

"This Account Has Been Suspended Until Further Notice
Please contact the Xnull billing/support department as soon as possible.

Possible reasons for suspension are usually failure to pay bills, failure to reply to contact attempts, and/or failure to comply to Xnull's Acceptable Use Policy."

Last thing i heard of Roel is that he wanted to update the forum software to YaBB SE (http://www.yabb.info/). This was this tuesday.

Originally posted by rjamorim

OK. And when you learn to hear --aps artifacts? Then what?
[span style='font-size:9']1500 posts![/span] 

Report to Dibrom, I'm sure he'll get it fixed in no time.
Now try reporting problems with --r3mix to r3mix himself and see what kind of responds you will get

[span style='font-size:9']Spammer! [/span]

Originally posted by rjamorim
You've already reached the final evolutional step.

Final?
It's just the beginning. Then you start worrying about ape vs lpac vs flac etc etc... 

Originally posted by tangent
[span style='font-size:9']Spammer! [/span]

[span style='font-size:9']LOL![/span]

Isn't the most crucial piece of info in this thread that someone who is involved in the internet audio community, aware of HA, and I presume doesn't have an ego investment in --r3mix is intentionally sending newbies there instead of here?  Dors may have his reasons for thinking that HA is less n00b-friendly than r3mix.net, and if others share his opinion, here is where some dialogue and some persuasion would do some good.  I'm all for some honest criticism of misinformation at r3mix.net and applying some vocal pressure to change it, but I would guess that the likelihood of Roel changing his site to say that his preset is outdated and his analysis is faulty is small.

Hmm, I haven't checked this out in a while...

How far behind is --r3mix now, anyway?

I want to see a comparison of the --r3mix and aps switches. I haven't been able to see any expanded version of --aps or any other --alt-presents ???

OT:
Hi tangent! How much music do you listen to on mp3 and how much on CD? I don't think I'll buy that amp anymore, I got less money than I expected

The difference between HA and r3mix is very basic :
When clicking "technical articles" is HA, we get the following message :

This feature is not yet implemented. Check back shortly.

I insist on the "shortly", that must be there since many monthes, and clicking on the MP3 FAQ, we get

Question :
Answer :

I think HA lacks tutorials about what it deals with. R3mix had Roel's pages. People began by reading the site, and then came to discuss about it in the forum.
Doom9 has a lot of tutorials, and in the forums, people can discuss them. CDRinfo and CD Freaks have a lot of in depht technical papers online in their home page...

I think that the anti-newbie image that we have got comes from this. Here, people are supposed to have a knowledge by themselves in order to take part in the discussions, we're not providing any basis on which newbies could start from nothing.

On the other hand, I don't find it so negative. I use to browse www.hardware.fr (http://www.hardware.fr) forums. It's the perfect example (in french) of newbie forums : several thousand message per DAY ! Very difficult to hold any discussion, because in the ten minutes after someone asks a question, there are already 10 stupid answers from other newbies.

HA have earned its reputation as it is : IMHO a place for discussions at whatever knowledge level, but always with a scientific background. The danger would be to have the same members again and again, talking between themselves. Fortunately I don't feel that HA is exposed to this for the time being. It rather seems in a dynamic stage.

I think this dynamics must take shape into some pages, papers, or FAQs summarizing what is discussed in the forums. Administrators are working on it, but myself, I see nothing else than the FAQ-in-development section, that hasn't moved since some weeks. I've got some papers scattered here and there about experiments I've done measuring the losslessness of SPDIF, the offset of drives, the analog frequency response of a CD player, and the audibility of ultrasonics harmonics in music.
But not knowing what's up with HA's developments, I'm just putting them in my private webspace for the time being.

Just a few things to clarify: In the past, I've rerouted newbies to r3mix.net and SATCP tutorials. Recently, I've added HA as a link as well as pointed out the FAQ thread on both forums. I belive r3mix.net and HA appeal in large parts to different audiences, so I think that's no problem.

Also, as pointed out in some posts before, if HA puts up some nice FAQs and technical papers, some intro to the whole thing, I'd probably reconsider my rerouting again. A one stop solution for newbies would probably preferable. BTW: I'm open for any suggestion, I'm not monitoring the whole mp3/LAME scene that actively as I did in past times.

Finally, I'm all against removing the --r3mix switch. With the arguments I've read, you could also demand that other "harmful" switches should go away. Or even better: disable all switches and tell people to use Vorbis instead. And who are we anyway to tell people what to use, and what not?

And I still stand by saying that Roel did some very important things that helped the whole audio community. Dibrom came aboard later and probably did even more for it (and more important, is still actively helping it, contrary to Roel), but still, not acknowledging what he did, even if he (and his switch) certainly has some "flaws", seems just wrong to me.

Originally posted by Pio2001
I've got some papers scattered here and there about experiments I've done measuring the losslessness of SPDIF, the offset of drives, the analog frequency response of a CD player, and the audibility of ultrasonics harmonics in music.
But not knowing what's up with HA's developments, I'm just putting them in my private webspace for the time being.

Pio, check your private message..

Originally posted by Pio2001
On the other hand, I don't find it so negative. I use to browse www.hardware.fr (http://www.hardware.fr) forums. It's the perfect example (in french) of newbie forums : several thousand message per DAY ! Very difficult to hold any discussion, because in the ten minutes after someone asks a question, there are already 10 stupid answers from other newbies.

rhoooo... Bad boy !
Nevertheless, on hardware.fr, you will find nice things adressed to newbies :
ExactAudioCopy en détails (http://forum.hardware.fr/forum2.php3?post=30116&cat=3&config=&interface=&cache=cache&p=1&sondage=&owntopic=&trash=)
[us][TUTORIAL] => EAC, comment le configuer facilement ... (new)[/u] (http://forum.hardware.fr/forum2.php3?post=35981&cat=3&config=&interface=&cache=&p=1&sondage=&owntopic=&trash=&subcat=132)
Guide des formats audio + liens (http://forum.hardware.fr/forum2.php3?post=27946&cat=3&config=&interface=&cache=cache&p=1&sondage=&owntopic=&trash=)
Guide d'encodage parfait des mp3 (http://forum.hardware.fr/forum2.php3?post=27452&cat=3&config=&interface=&cache=cache&p=1&sondage=&owntopic=&trash=)

That were good basis for newbie people, wich increase global knowledge, global curiosity, and finally drain many people on HA forum.

LOL    !
You got me !

You are, of course, right.

Originally posted by Pio2001
Is there already somewhere a test result showing that --alt-preset 160 or 170, something like that, is better than --r3mix ?

Well, since there is no more answer here than at r3mix where if I remember well I saw the question asked once at least, I'm going to open my big mouth and put my foot in it !

I checked r3mix website and saw the r3mix switch had a 170-175 kbps average. Knowing that --alt-preset standard was higher, and that the use of -Y is not really what we seek, I went into the recommended Lame settings and found no VBR setting for this bitrate.
Therefore I went for --alt-preset 173 and encoded some samples :

Amnesia : r3mix wins
Short : alt preset wins
Drone : alt preset wins
BadVilbel : about the same result

So it doesn't seem so plain as one would think, maybe if there was a lower VBR alt preset ...
For the record, amnesia-alt is 219 kbps and amnesia-r3mix is 237 kbps.

One must keep in mind also that, if --alt-preset standard is 192 kbps in average, the difference is only 11% with alt-preset 173.

but for me the ca.11% difference was enough to turn MPC from --APS (both are transparent to me - so i went to one giving me the possibility to store more music on my HDD)

Originally posted by Pio2001
One must keep in mind also that, if --alt-preset standard is 192 kbps in average, the difference is only 11% with alt-preset 173.

But only --alt-preset standard,extreme and insane are code-level tweaked.

Anyway, there may be hope for going lower bitrate while keeping high quality, by using Naoki's sub-step noise shaping. I think when hopefully at some point there will be a new --alt-preset setting, it will use that with some code-level tweaks.
Should be possible to go near 160-170kbps average while maintaining pretty nice quality.

Substep noise shaping should help with the missing sfb21/bloated bitrate problem, and it could further increase quality..
Unfortunately seems that nspsytune2 is not going to happen anytime soon. Naoki has practically disappeared...

Observations from a recent newbie:

1.  More than likely, anyone reading r3mix or HA wants to learn how to create, to one degree or another, a high quality mp3.
2.  More often than not, they have a substantial collection of music.
3.  There is a tremendous difference in --r3mix and --aps as a starting point for compressing a collection (or in my case --ape-Z and mpc--quality7and8).  Will I abandon switches and formats for higher quality as improvements are made? - you bet - but I think it will be a long time before I want re-encode everything from scratch.  That wouldn't be the case with --r3mix. 
4.  Roel deserves credit for his (past) contribution and for the role he played.
5.  Yes, HA needs to add some tutorials, a concise crash course for newbies, papers, etc., etc..  But it's not like a newbie can't come in here and get help.  I'll admit to having done some homework prior to my initial post here - most of it here after doing SatCP's tutorial.  And when I needed help to go further, I posted.  How long did it take to get the help I needed, on a Sunday evening?  Just a couple of hours, thanks to Sometimes Warrior, JohnV, quellcore, smg, kdo, and others.  It would have been nice to have been able to do all the homework here - and sooner is better but I suspect this is a very large project, and like everything else around here, it's important that it be done right.
6.  It's important that the boards stay as they are, and not get clogged up with newbie stuff, as previously mentioned.  There's a lot of time involved as it is.  I posted little at first because I felt there was nothing I could add - that's the way it should be.  That said, all the newbie posts (even at level 0) I've seen that were serious, have received kind and informative responses.

originally posted by dors
And who are we anyway to tell people what to use, and what not?

Simple.  You are people who have learned and have become very proficient at something.  Morally, if anything, you have a certain responsibility to share that knowledge with others who desire it.

BTW, I use Razorlame and like it very much.  Thanks.

Originally posted by dors
Finally, I'm all against removing the --r3mix switch. With the arguments I've read, you could also demand that other "harmful" switches should go away.

Well first of all, we have been demanding this...  The fact that people come up with commandlines 40 switches long or so is evidence enough that there's something wrong here.

In a project like LAME, when does one decide to remove the old and non-optimal code for the sake of streamlining, consolidation, and ease of use?  In my opinion, it's more important for a project to move forward and to do this, than to cater to someone's ego.

--r3mix had it's place when there was nothing else.  Now it's just as bad as the default presets in LAME, which really shouldn't be there anymore either.  The problem is that everyone is to caught up in this ego thing.  Nobody wants to remove --r3mix because it might "hurt" Roel.  To that I say: WTF?  Since when did the focus of the LAME project shift from being the best mp3 encoder, providing real improvements, to instead being a personal code deposit box (I think I'll add another preset with my name on it, thank you very much.. howabout a --hydrogenaudio-0wn$-j00 switch?) and a cache for ego tripping?

The truth of the matter is that --r3mix should have never even been included in LAME in the first place.  That was a very bad call on the developers parts.  Instead, r3mix should have been an .exe frontend or something which would just call Roel's preferred switches.

--r3mix never has really followed the progress of the other code in LAME, and it's not really an integral part of LAME.  It sticks out like a sore thumb.  Instead of following naming conventions, it has Roel's nick stamped on it.  Instead of fitting into an easy to use preset system which makes sense, it just kind of hangs out there on its own.  It's basically Roel's personal space in each LAME encoder.. and I don't see why that should be, especially when it's obvious he doesn't have any interest in even maintaining it anymore.  The whole thing is not really in the spirit of LAME as an encoder, it's in the spirit of Roel and his website encroaching upon the project.

Or even better: disable all switches and tell people to use Vorbis instead. And who are we anyway to tell people what to use, and what not?

How do you go from disabling non-optimal code in LAME to instead pointing people towards Vorbis?  That makes absolutely no sense.

You're basically saying that instead of trying to improve the usability of LAME, we shouldn't bother because it might be "harmful" to some people (most likely their ego), so instead we should drop it all together and just point them somewhere else?  I don't get it.

And who are we to tell people what to use?  Well as the people who actually work on LAME (speaking for myself and at least a handful of other LAME devs on this board), it's our responsibility to make sure that LAME works well, that it is designed well, and that it continues to improve in all areas possible.  If this means ease of use, or improved usability (by removing non-optimal and confusing switches), then so be it.

As far as I'm concerned, anyone who disagrees with this can go make their own version of LAME.  That's another thing that probably should have been done for this whole --r3mix thing, if not a frontend instead.  Then, when Roel decided to no longer be involved in the mp3 community, the official encoder would no longer be burdened by his outdated preset.  Instead as his encoder went out of date, people would naturally move back to the official LAME where improvements are continuing (well.. at least sort of, but they continued beyond what Roel did at least).

And I still stand by saying that Roel did some very important things that helped the whole audio community. Dibrom came aboard later and probably did even more for it (and more important, is still actively helping it, contrary to Roel), but still, not acknowledging what he did, even if he (and his switch) certainly has some "flaws", seems just wrong to me.

Sure.  Roel did some useful things to start with.  However, it became apparent over time that his intentions were not in the best interest of the community, but rather more in the line of self promotion.

I personally ran into this and was involved in some rather unpleasant situations.  My original intentions were, believe it or not, to actually work with Roel.  Since this got thrown back in my face time and time again, it's easy for me to simply disregard Roel's "contributions".  I mean, if the actual intent behind accomplishments is not honest, does that still make the accomplishments meaningful?  To me, it doesn't really.  Perhaps I value integrity too highly though..

This is probably the last I'm going to say on this matter.  If people want to recommend newbies to r3mix.net, there's nothing anyone can really do to stop it.  However, this person is making a big mistake, and in the end it's only going to come back to be harmful to the community and to promote the kind of thinking we've been subjected to lately on Slashdot and Arstechnica.  Oh well..

Eventually, HA will have guides, it will have FAQs, and it will have user driven content.  I hope that might make a difference in deterring some people from pointing others to outdated and invalid information, but who really knows.

Originally posted by Pio2001
I checked r3mix website and saw the r3mix switch had a 170-175 kbps average. Knowing that --alt-preset standard was higher, and that the use of -Y is not really what we seek, I went into the recommended Lame settings and found no VBR setting for this bitrate.

Before I recently devoted all of my time to getting our new project off the ground, about 3 or 4 weeks ago I had actually created a new preset using Takehiro's experimental CVS branch.  The bitrate is significantly lower than --aps (sometimes a good bit lower than --r3mix even), and the quality on difficult samples is usually much higher than --r3mix.  However, there were still some tuning issues that I didn't have time to work out.  Once things with our new project get straightened out, I plan to go back to this and to create 2 more vbr presets.  One which is at the --r3mix bitrate, and one which is even lower.  Of course, these presets wont offer transparency to the degree that aps will.. but they should still be pretty much equal to or better than r3mix at lower or equal bitrates I think.

I will be making use of -Y too.  The difficult part about this will be convincing people to use their ears to find that this preset which does not encode as much over 16khz as --r3mix, still actually sounds better in almost all cases.  People are going to use graphs and have a field day with this one...

Originally posted by Joe Bloggs
I want to see a comparison of the --r3mix and aps switches. I haven't been able to see any expanded version of --aps or any other --alt-presents ???

--alt-preset doesn't have any switches like --r3mix, instead it's "adaptive" and change settings when needed during the encoding... Since --alt-preset can do that, it can simply encode music in higher quality... I think there's a FAQ describing how --alt-preset works... In one way or another anyway...

In other words, you simply can't compare command line switches...

Originally posted by Dibrom
HA is here to help people learn how to work with audio compression.  It's here to increase the knowledge base and to provide a place for relatively BS-free quality discussion.  It's a place for people to perform objective testing, and share information.

SURE. But that doesn't answer my question. Why is the disinformation of others a "problem" for Garf?

It promotes poor testing methodology (did you see some of the comments on slashdot and arstechnica about ff123s test?) within the audio community, and eventually, it hampers progress.

I still don't "get it"? How do disinformed people "hamper progress"? Progress isn't made by disinformed people, it's made by INFORMED people. If someone's not intelligent enough to see through Roel's bogus crap or interested enough to seek out accurate information, how helpful to "progress" can they ever BE?

Surely you can see this.  If you feel that none of the above points are worth anything, and I'm not saying that's what you are implying, but if you don't understand why these are good things and why what r3mix.net stands for is not, then I'm not quite sure what you see in this community as a whole.  I don't understand where the desire to participate would stem from.

Of COURSE I understand and appreciate the reasons why HA is the way it is! HA is a GODSEND for people seeking accurate unbiased information on audio encoding. What I don't understand is why sites that promote disinformation are a "problem" for US. Heck, if it weren't for THEM, there wouldn't be a NEED for HA. There will ALWAYS be people with ulterior motives spreading disinformation. If not Roel, then Bill Gates. Do you think HE will ever stop doing it? If people aren't intelligent or interested enough  to seek out accurate information, that's really THEIR problem - not OURS. IMHO

Originally posted by layer3maniac
Why is the disinformation of others a "problem" for Garf?  What I don't understand is why sites that promote disinformation are a "problem" for US.

My friend, stop and think a second.  Disinformation is not a problem for the informed.  But have you no concern for the community at large?  Was there ever a time when you weren't 'informed'? 

Originally posted by IveyLeaguer
My friend, stop and think a second.

Friend? Do we know each other? I don't intend for that to be sarcastic, just curious if we met before. Perhaps under a different username? Either way, any friend of mine is... a friend of mine! 

Disinformation is not a problem for the informed.

Now THAT'S what I'm talking about!

But have you no concern for the community at large?

Sure, I'm a VERY concerned citizen! Generally, I make other people's problems my problems. If a stranger is hungry, I feed him. If a stranger needs clothes, I will given them the shirt off my back. You could say that I do good deeds religiously! But frankly, if my neighbor is happy using Xing, Blade, r3mix, or even (gasp) Windows Media, I really don't have a "problem" with that. I'm CERTAINLY NOT going to lose any sleep over it.

Was there ever a time when you weren't 'informed'?

Honestly, I LIVE in a state of confusion...

Originally posted by layer3maniac
Friend? Do we know each other?.....if my neighbor is happy using Xing, Blade, r3mix, or even (gasp) Windows Media, I really don't have a "problem" with that.

1) Sorry, it's just a common expression where I come from.  2) If there is an instance where somebody is happy using Xing, r3mix, etc. and who has been harassed by those of us who know better, I am not aware of it.  I don't have a problem with anything anyone does - whether its audio compression or anything else.  But if they care about what they're doing, and want to do the best they can with the time they have to spend on a project, then that's a different matter - and those are the people who are referred to here.  It's assumed (I assume) that people care[/b] whether or not one method is better than the other, or they wouldn't be hanging around here in the first place.

Originally posted by Dibrom

Nobody wants to remove --r3mix because it might "hurt" Roel.  To that I say: WTF?

I certainly don't mind about Roel's ego. But I really don't want to know just how many support mails I'd get if --r3mix would disappear. No thanks.  I'd have no problem, though, if --r3mix would issue a warning and be remapped to aps.

And Dibrom, --r3mix might not be perfect, but it certainly would be better to get r3mix encoded files then 128 kbit, and that's just what e.g. EMusic and many many other sites are selling.

How do you go from disabling non-optimal code in LAME to instead pointing people towards Vorbis?  That makes absolutely no sense.

That was may attempt to irony, you know...

My original intentions were, believe it or not, to actually work with Roel.

I know, I've been there. But it came as no big surprise to me that it didn't work out. In my eyes, you and Roel are very much alike, you both have very strong egos.

If people want to recommend newbies to r3mix.net, there's nothing anyone can really do to stop it.  However, this person is making a big mistake, and in the end it's only going to come back to be harmful to the community and to promote the kind of thinking we've been subjected to lately on Slashdot and Arstechnica.  Oh well..

What's this? A personal  attack against me, because I still recommend r3mix.net side by side with HA? So you're saying that I am being harmful to the community by doing so, that I'm making a big mistake?

Now, who's ego are we talking about, Dibrom? Roels, mine or yours?

Someone else said it before: let's close this and the Blade thread, it's turning into a flamewar. I for sure won't answer to any of them any more, although I'm sure that Dibrom will post a long answer telling me where I'm completely wrong again, and that it's nothing to do with his ego at all.

Don't get me wrong, Dibrom, you're doing some great services to the audio encoding scene, but sometimes you're coming over as undiplomatic as Roel to me.

Well, if you already think 128kbps is transparent, I see no sense in restarting encoding because someone else said there is a better way. If you always goes with what someone else says, you won't ever finish encoding your CD collection.

What I mean: If you have all your encodings in --r3mix and you are satisfied with that, why reencode with --aps? There will be no difference for you.

Damn, Roberto is a wise man.

So now everything is said and done lets all reencode to ogg vorvis.  j/k

Originally posted by rjamorim


Well, if you already think 128kbps is transparent, I see no sense in restarting encoding because someone else said there is a better way. If you always goes with what someone else says, you won't ever finish encoding your CD collection.

What I mean: If you have all your encodings in --r3mix and you are satisfied with that, why reencode with --aps? There will be no difference for you.

Well, the reason why everyone should encode their music in reasonable quality is because people tend to share their music for others.. Even if you are a person who enjoys music and only download because you want to hear how it sounds before you buy it, you still want good quality... I get discusted with the general audio quality people use, everytime I myself download files just to listen if the music is any good... For them, 128 kbit Xing sounds good, but not for me and it really lowers the "enjoyment factor" of the music which in turn can change my decision of buying the music... (Not that Lame --alt-preset 128 is that bad, but 128 kbit Xing/BladeEnc/Music Match, etc, really are bad...)

(Sorry for my grammar... I just hope you understand me...  )

Originally posted by Sachankara
Well, the reason why everyone should encode their music in reasonable quality is because people tend to share their music for others..

:eyebrow:

Sorry, but that sounds sooo much like the reason layer3maniac thinks people are pushing high quality encodes here...

Maybe he's right after all.

Originally posted by Sachankara
The problem is "simple"... Remove the --r3mix switch in the next version of Lame and print out a message that recommends --alt-preset standard in case someone tries to use "the old shit"...

Heh... all switches should be removed. Everything should default to --alt-preset standard

Originally posted by Dibrom
This is probably the last I'm going to say on this matter.

Originally posted by dors
let's close this and the Blade thread, 
...
I for sure won't answer to any of them any more,

I've read this many times already... I hope it's true this time !
If you can live with each other without saying anymore, then do.

But if there's something wrong, I'd say this :
According to the posts I've seen at r3mix and doom9, when Roel was already not there, --r3mix was wanted by some people not because of it's name, but because of it's inferior bitrate.

Originally posted by Dibrom
about 3 or 4 weeks ago I had actually created a new preset using Takehiro's experimental CVS branch. The bitrate is significantly lower than --aps (sometimes a good bit lower than --r3mix even), and the quality on difficult samples is usually much higher than --r3mix.

Now that's talking. This is the best answer you could give, though no one forced you into doing so.
Forget Roel, all this have been already said monthes ago...

Originally posted by dors
What's this? A personal  attack against me, because I still recommend r3mix.net side by side with HA? So you're saying that I am being harmful to the community by doing so, that I'm making a big mistake? 

Now, who's ego are we talking about, Dibrom? Roels, mine or yours?

Someone else said it before: let's close this and the Blade thread, it's turning into a flamewar. I for sure won't answer to any of them any more, although I'm sure that Dibrom will post a long answer telling me where I'm completely wrong again, and that it's nothing to do with his ego at all. 

Don't get me wrong, Dibrom, you're doing some great services to the audio encoding scene, but sometimes you're coming over as undiplomatic as Roel to me.

I'm not going to address any more "points" on this matter.

However, I do wonder how you perceived my comments as a personal attack.  What I said is in no way personal.  A personal attack would be if I would have called you a name or made some judgement about your character, neither of which occured in the passage you quoted from me.

Telling someone they are making a mistake, is not a personal attack.

Ironically, the way that you have now drawn my character into question, is a personal attack.

*sigh*... what are things coming to?

We can't imply that something might be flawed for fear of hurting someone's feelings, we can't tell someone they're making a mistake because it's a "personal attack".  How promising for the future.  This really starts to remind me of certain political situations in other areas of the technology industry.... particularly the way companies favor security through obscurity and how the DMCA is used to keep people's mouths shut.  "Don't say a word, or you'll regret it."

Oh, I guess you were right about me posting this long comment about how you are wrong again too.  Guess it makes for another personal attack, right?

I keep having to repeat this:

People posting here on HA need to understand that if they say something which other people feel is wrong, they can expect people to come out and say this.  This doesn't mean they hate you, it doesn't mean it's personal, etc, etc, etc.  It's the nature of open discussion forums.  I'm really getting tired of seeing this sort of misinterpretation occur.

Originally posted by rjamorim


:eyebrow: 

Sorry, but that sounds sooo much like the reason layer3maniac thinks people are pushing high quality encodes here...

Maybe he's right after all.

Speak for yourself.

Originally posted by Dibrom
Speak for yourself.

Maybe, Dibrom. Maybe

Or are you 100% sure noone here pirates music, and they aren't interested that the pirate material providers use high quality settings?

Of course, most people are here to help in audiocoding development. At least, that's what I hope. But to assume that everyone has purely well-intentioned reasons to be here is kinda naive.

Originally posted by rjamorim


Maybe, Dibrom. Maybe

Or are you 100% sure noone here pirates music, and they aren't interested that the pirate material providers use high quality settings?

Of course, most people are here to help in audiocoding development. At least, that's what I hope. But to assume that everyone has purely well-intentioned reasons to be here is kinda naive.

I don't care what "everyone" else here has in mind when they are discussing high quality encodes.  I only care about my own intentions, the intentions of HA as a whole, and the intentions of members in this community that I respect.

When you make sweeping accusations about the motivations of others in this regard, that includes me, and it includes all those other parties I mentioned.  Even more so since the most vocal people in this thread who are advocating high quality, happen to be included in these groups as well.

This is a direct insult.  I'm rather disappointed to see it too, to be honest.  I expect a little bit more from an admin of HA, even more so given your knowledge of our upcoming projects.

After all of this recent mess, I must say that I'm honestly left wondering why I devote so much time and money (which is soon to triple, just so you guys can have a great server to use for free) to this cause.  If it's so easy to trivialize it and play it off as some selfish whim, then I honestly can't see how you guys truly value it in the first place.  I know that there are those that do really care, but it seems that group is shrinking and perhaps much smaller that I originally thought...

Originally posted by Dibrom
When you make sweeping accusations about the motivations of others in this regard, that includes me, and it includes all those other parties I mentioned.

Huh... AFAIK, I didn't accuse anyone, Dibrom. I just mentioned that l3m MIGHT be right about SOME people being intersted in piracy. I didn't mentioned names, and I didn't implied you for sure.

Blah.

It's puzzling to see how easily Dibrom sees a "direct insult" where in my opionion is none, yet saying that I'm "being harmful to the community" is by no means a personal attack...

Pio: I promise to really really not post any more to this thread. No, really!

I'd say that the information I've gleaned from HA has actually caused me to stop pirating music. Fiddling around with all these codecs, switches, bitrates, and version numbers is a heck of a lot more fun than actually listening to music

Seriously, though, I'll never go back to downloading music, even if the l33t w4r3z H4x0r5 figure out how to use EAC secure and MPC standard. When I rip my own CD and encode and tag it myself, I'm making it mine, which just makes it more comforting to listen to. It's like comparing a burned CD copy (made by a friend) to the store-bought pressed CD. Even if the burned CD is exactly like the original (which is unlikely... so many burning programs still screw up pregaps and starting positions unless you know how to configure them), it still doesn't feel as valuable, which makes the listening experience less enjoyable.

I wouldn't have these strange, elitist notions about compressed audio and burned CD's if it wasn't for HA, but I'm still glad that I stumbled upon this place. I'm very thankful that Dibrom set up this site and continues to finance it, and I'm thankful for (most of) the regular posters here, those who want to teach, learn, commune, and always make things better.

I would just like to see us all help each other out.  That's why HA is here.  The way I see it, it's kinda like, well, let's say there's a site out there devoted to Corvettes.  They try to spread the virtues of Corvettes, the beauty, the power etc.  Well, that's all great and it's a great car and is great for all that own them.  But for plenty of people out there, a Hyuandi or Toyota is a good enough car for them.  Should the people on the corvette forum start flaming the Hyaundi or Toyota enthusiasts site?  I don't think so.

I would like to see people (in general) lighten up around here & stop taking things so seriously.  Save the "serious stuff" for work, or wherever it's required... life is too short.  If a message board isn't entertaining, who wants to participate?  Unless it was a developer's board or something intended mainly to exchange technical data. 

Who needs the emotional, reactive nonsense?  And how can someone "personally attack" another without knowing them, or knowing only a little?  The way you "take" a comment is in question, not the comment itself... the old saying, someone can hand you poison but you don't have to drink it.

Enjoy, everyone...

IMO all the strange switches and presets in LAME force people to go look for a site such as r3mix or HA to make sense of it all.  All the presets (including r3mix and phone, internet, etc) should be done away with and a quality scale introduced.  That way people won't have to necessarily search for a potentially misleading site to lead them through the switches.

I do think its necessary to have a preset with a lower bitrate than --aps occupy the default spot in the quality scale, however, so its nice to hear Dibrom's working on some new tweaks.

Originally posted by dors
It's puzzling to see how easily Dibrom sees a "direct insult" where in my opionion is none, yet saying that I'm "being harmful to the community" is by no means a personal attack...

I never said you directly (as in "dors, you're a bad person", etc, etc) were being harmful to the community.  I said the activity of directing people to r3mix.net can be harmful to the community.

Since I have a feeling this is going to drag on, and I don't think you got my point, I'll try to clarify.

Quick question:  Did you read any of the comments on Slashdot or on Arstechnica in regards to ff123's test, at all?

Did you see how many people said the test was invalid and then said that a better testing methodology was the kind shown on r3mix.net?

Now don't you think that with each person you direct there, it's likely to increase the number of people who subscribe to this misinformed nonsense, and only make it more difficult to get honest test results like these taken seriously?

Do you not see that point at all?

When someone is recommended to a site by a person they respect, they are naturally going to think that that site is fairly credible.  I suspect that a lot of people who you point there, respect you in this manner.  So they are going to believe the information there is correct.  They may even end up setting up their own sites with similarly flawed tests (how many times have we seen that?).

Valid and objective information about audio encoding and the appropriate ways to test it, is fairly hard to come by on the internet these days.  Sites like r3mix.net, Blade's quality page, etc, just make the whole thing worse because each person that buys into this is one more person likely to convince others to support the same flawed beliefs.

I'm sorry, but I really honestly can't see how anyone could choose to ignore this.

What's worse is when most of the newbies who have had this exact thing happen to them later come here and say how much they wished they had known beforehand how flawed most of this type of information out there is.

Having said all this, there's a very big difference between making a claim like this which is highly supported by even casual observations, and flat out making slanderous generalized comments about someone's intentions, which are not.

Originally posted by dreamliner77
The way I see it, it's kinda like, well, let's say there's a site out there devoted to Corvettes.  They try to spread the virtues of Corvettes, the beauty, the power etc.  Well, that's all great and it's a great car and is great for all that own them.  But for plenty of people out there, a Hyuandi or Toyota is a good enough car for them.  Should the people on the corvette forum start flaming the Hyaundi or Toyota enthusiasts site?  I don't think so.

I don't think that's an appropriate analogy. First of all, HA is hosting discussions about the Hyundais, the Toyotas, the 'Vettes, the Porsches, and the Minis of audio coding... the whole spectrum, from low-bitrate to lossless. After all, ff123 just had a 64kbit/s listening test, which is hardly a sports-car challenge.

Second, if someone offered you (you in the hypothetical sense, not directed at anyone in particular) either a new Hyundai or a new Corvette for the same cost, you could still make plenty of reasonable claims why you'd pick the Hyundai (more seating, better gas mileage, suits your personality, doesn't make you look like you're having a midlife crisis...). This is like the MPC vs. MP3 debate, and while MPC unquestionably sounds better at high bitrates, there are still reasons to pick MP3, such as for portable players or ease of playback on many computers/operating systems. The MPC users don't flame the MP3 users here, and in many cases people use both.

Third, this is a pretty open discussion board, and discussions get heated, but you can still say just about anything you want here, within reason. Dibrom almost never locks threads, even when they have some bad information, trolling, or insults, and I commend him for that. Anyone here who posts incorrect information will be corrected promptly, and that keeps the misinformation to a minimum, making it more like a "common myth about audio coding" than a misleading statement.

The only time the forum leaders get irritated is when someone says something rediculous like, "Corvettes perform better when you drain out the motor oil!" or, "No one buys those cars except for street-racing and running over grandmas!" Being incorrect is one thing, but making completely wrong and dangerous statements, when you know better, is something else completely. There's nothing wrong with saying you'd rather have a Hyundai then a Corvette, but if you say the Hyundai has better acceleration, you will be flamed, and rightfully so. (Okay, I think the car analogy is dead.)

To sum it up, I think that HA is much more than just an enthusiast site about one particular make or model. Anything that is true, interesting, or insightful about audo compression has a place here.

Well said SometimesWarrior.  It's nice to see at least a little support here

Hi Dibrom,

I think it's the natural response of the technically oriented to trust numbers and graphs rather than ears.  Testing of perceptual coding is different than almost any other kind of "objective" testing.  I'm sure you know this already, but I'm stating it as a reminder that many (most?) people who know little or nothing about psychoacoustics will NEVER be convinced, and repetition of facts is no help either.  So the "R3mix methodology" with graphs showing frequency responses and mathematical "proofs" will always look more convincing than double-blind testing using a large number of ears.  I don't think there's a solution to it, since most will never bother to learn how psychoacoustic encoding really works.

The way I look at it, might as well let people believe whatever they want (because they will anyway). 

Best Regards

fewtch:

While it's true that we'll never be able to convince the whole world, I still don't think that's reason to not at least try to make as much of a difference as we can

I mean, at one point there was no HA.  People didn't use ABX much, the --alt-preset didn't exist, Vorbis was still a pipe dream, and almost nobody had even heard of MPC.

Look at it all now

The main point here is that increased knowledge and awareness (on all fronts, including proper audio testing), can lead to great progress.

I just see sites like r3mix.net standing in the way of all of this.  These sites are like the thorn in the side of progress, and I just can't understand justifying why they "aren't so bad", or why they still need to exist, etc.  Certainly I can't understand knowingly pointing people to them.  It's the same as knowingly misinforming them really.

dors:
Roel started his r3mix forum, and I believe it started a whole lot of things. I still recommend it to newbies.

Dibrom:
Roel knows better, he just chooses not to acknowledge that he's wrong and that his site is inaccurate.

dors:
Come on, it's his site, it's his setting, so he has absolutely every right to promote it.

Dibrom:
This is probably the last I'm going to say on this matter. If people want to recommend newbies to r3mix.net, there's nothing anyone can really do to stop it.

dors:
Someone else said it before: let's close this and the Blade thread, it's turning into a flamewar.

Dibrom:
I'm not going to address any more "points" on this matter.

dors:
I promise to really really not post any more to this thread. No, really!

Dibrom:
Since I have a feeling this is going to drag on...

Perhaps it's best to just not post anything for 24 hours, rather than go back and forth, with one saying "I'm done responding, won't say another word... jackass!" and the other saying "It's inconceivable that I've typed 15 pages of replies and you're still not agreeing with me yet".

Originally posted by Dibrom
Well said SometimesWarrior.  It's nice to see at least a little support here

I don't want it to look like I'm siding up with the forum admin too closely...

Originally posted by Dibrom
I mean, at one point there was no HA.  People didn't use ABX much, the --alt-preset didn't exist, Vorbis was still a pipe dream, and almost nobody had even heard of MPC.

And Adam/Filburt posted that WMA IST GOD.

Originally posted by Dibrom
fewtch:

While it's true that we'll never be able to convince the whole world, I still don't think that's reason to not at least try to make as much of a difference as we can

I mean, at one point there was no HA.  People didn't use ABX much, the --alt-preset didn't exist, Vorbis was still a pipe dream, and almost nobody had even heard of MPC.

Look at it all now

Agreed, but I think it's because many people here do have an interest in "how it works."  Maybe getting people interested in that is the key to making a difference.  The "reputation" of MP3 among people who care about sound quality is already ruined for the most part (outside of this forum that is)... Vorbis and MPC still have a good chance.

There is a point where (imho) it isn't worth the frustration.  People have to learn for themselves (it was certainly true in my case, as there was a time when I was "VBR-phobic," against joint stereo, and was a big advocate of "-v -V0 -b64 -B320 -ms -h -k" ... all due to lack of knowledge).

Edit--

I just see sites like r3mix.net standing in the way of all of this. These sites are like the thorn in the side of progress, and I just can't understand justifying why they "aren't so bad", or why they still need to exist, etc. Certainly I can't understand knowingly pointing people to them. It's the same as knowingly misinforming them really.

Maybe a comprehensive FAQ stating the reasons why graphs and such don't indicate anything would help in that regard.  Give people something just as comprehensive & engaging for a newcomer as the R3mix website to point others to, and I suspect they would.  It seems there's a real need for a "newcomer-friendly" site like R3mix, but presenting facts instead of voodoo.

P.S... I'm not too shabby a writer and would be happy to help somehow, although I'm no expert on psychoacoustic encoding either.  Maybe if someone submitted rough drafts, I could help flesh them out & make them understandable to a beginner.

Originally posted by fewtch
I guess what I'm saying is that (to me) it isn't worth the frustration... IMHO by creating & maintaining these forums you've done all you can do.

Advertise! Branch out! Always think of new, better, more convincing, and simpler explanations. Look at some of 2BDecided's posts and papers, and you'll see that it's possible to clearly and understandably describe the fundamentals of psychoacoustic audio compression.

Find an audio clip where one codec visibly throws out more information but audibly sounds much better, and use that in an "audio myths" webpage. Ask a marketing professional how to gracefully tell someone that they've been completely wrong about something they were sure about. I don't believe in "having done all you can do," because that attitude would have left us with just the ISO MP3 implementation... if that, even!

But fewtch, you are completely right about trying to confront stubborn people. It's not worth the frustration, and it's not productive. You will not convince a single person to believe you by simply telling them that they're totally wrong and that their ideas should be shoved into a rocket and shot into space. You have to kindly lead them to water and hope they're thirsty

One good first step would be to publish some definitive guides here on HA, which I know are in the works. The FAQs will need to empower their readers, so a newbie can come to the site and feel that they're high and mighty because they've learned The Truth. A "myths" section needs to make people feel good when they realize they were wrong about using spectroanalysis and original-waveform-subtraction to judge quality, not make them feel stupid.

I also believe that it's possible to write an introduction to audio coding that's understandable by grandparents, thorough enough to be a one-stop-shop for making compressed audio, basic enough to act as a stepping stone for deeper understanding of the technology, and interesting and short enough to keep the attention of a 12-year-old.

A second step would be to hack into the Google servers and reroute "mp3 quality" searches to HA...

EDIT: Haha, I just read fewtch's edited post above mine, and it says almost exactly the same thing! Great minds think alike!

This is the main reason why I never got into audio processing (compared to video processing)! Politics, bickering, personal insults, yadda,yadda,yadda...

Back then, when I found R3mix I was amazed, at last a site with people that had a much greater knowledge than me. At last a site, where I couldn't find quotes like: "Audiograbber iz kewl"... BUT, then I saw the forum  .

After the censor incident I switched over to HA, only to notice that it is the same here (not censoring, but politics).

Some recommandations:

a) erase all users and make anonymous login possible so you can never have a agenda about person x (you can but you'll not know  )

b) see a)



BTW, r3mix's preset was a big help in the MP3 scene, it is better than 99% of the default settings. The fact that r3mix tuned the preset for his own hearing is his own thing (how he "sells" it is another  ). Now, Dibrom's APS is better, so what's the point? Tommorow, maybe person x, will make a preset that is better than Dibrom's, if so will Dibrom's preset be worse than it is today?

And so on.

BTW, in the last few weeks (months?) a very similar trend is happening in the video conversion "scene", much politics and personal agendas, less working, thinking and talking about old/mew methods.

End note: This posting is not directed to anyone specific here, I've only wrote some of my thoughts.

All the best and take care,

Mijo.

I first found r3mix.net, and was thrilled to think that I could really do better than the Xing encoder ... I was highly unimpressed with Xing output even at 192-256kbps, and after looking at the graphs on r3mix I felt I could tell why.

I used --r3mix religiously on my LAME+EAC combo for a long time, and introduced a fair number of newbies to the site and LAME as well.  I finally embarked on my project to rip all the CDs in the house and encode them to LAME using --r3mix.

Then I discovered --alt-preset (fast) standard.  Same encoding speed, some space penalty, but WOW, an audible difference even through cheap speakers!  (I was stunned not to have to boost the treble section of my RioVolt's amp to maximum to get decent-sounding midranges and highs!)  I bit the bullet and redid all the 50-100 CDs I had done in --r3mix in --apfs.

Unfortunately, I tried to convince one of the newbies that I had led to --r3mix that there was a better way (--apfs) and failed more or less completely :mad:  It was the same result I had gotten when I had tried to convince someone who had ripped all his CDs at home and encoded with Xing 128CBR.  Inertia had set in and they didn't want to revisit encoding, despite their considering themselves to be somewhat concerned with sound/music quality, and thinking that as a result mp3s could never be for "any kind of serious listening."

So I don't know what it is - possibly the force of the bombast on r3mix - but for some reason, when newbies get convinced there, they get STUCK there too

I wish I could figure out why that happens.  Maybe then I could do something about it!

(And, frankly, if I had a portable player that played Ogg, I'd consider it.  It's only my hardware limitations that keep me with mp3 right now - well, that, how common it is, and that --apfs sounds pretty darn good to me  )

Well, the reason why everyone should encode their music in reasonable quality is because people tend to share their music for others.. Even if you are a person who enjoys music and only download because you want to hear how it sounds before you buy it, you still want good quality... I get discusted with the general audio quality people use, everytime I myself download files just to listen if the music is any good... For them, 128 kbit Xing sounds good, but not for me and it really lowers the "enjoyment factor" of the music which in turn can change my decision of buying the music... (Not that Lame --alt-preset 128 is that bad, but 128 kbit Xing/BladeEnc/Music Match, etc, really are bad...)

No offense but you should encode your music to please yourself and not others.

Now, Dibrom's APS is better, so what's the point? Tommorow, maybe person x, will make a preset that is better than Dibrom's, if so will Dibrom's preset be worse than it is today?

This is exactly what i believe, someday in this world of infinite possibities one person will come up with something better than Dibrom's -aps, so should you drop all your -aps encodes just because suddenly they're not good enough.  Should Dibrom be forced to close his site or change his beliefs of what "he" thinks is the "Best"?  I think not.  So this all comes to subjectivity.  What is "Perfectly Suitable" for one person may not be "Perfectly Suitable" for another.  Now why dont we put an end to the flame wars and let everyone else use or do what they find "suits" them best.

Originally posted by Ookami

a) erase all users and make anonymous login possible so you can never have a agenda about person x (you can but you'll not know  ) 

b) see a) 

That won't solve anything.  Anonymous logins just create more problems, more flames.  See the forums on www.firingsquad.com (http://www.firingsquad.com) for a good example.

Originally posted by Ookami
This is the main reason why I never got into audio processing (compared to video processing)! Politics, bickering, personal insults, yadda,yadda,yadda...

Back then, when I found R3mix I was amazed, at last a site with people that had a much greater knowledge than me. At last a site, where I couldn't find quotes like: "Audiograbber iz kewl"... BUT, then I saw the forum  .

After the censor incident I switched over to HA, only to notice that it is the same here (not censoring, but politics).

Hrmm, that's too bad.  However, you are making quite a generalization here if you believe that this disagreement is some how indicative of how everything works around here.

In the real world, people disagree.  Especially in an open forum.  It happen's everywhere.  I am quite proud though that on HA, most of the disagreements that take place are at least of a higher mentality than those seen at most other places (/me seems to recall a fiasco about naming conventions for movies encoded with ogg vorbis......).

Some recommandations:

a) erase all users and make anonymous login possible so you can never have a agenda about person x (you can but you'll not know  ) 

I don't think so.  Allowing anonymous access gives free reign to the trolls.  It also removes all responsiblity from someone making a comment on a matter.  People should be able to put their character behind their concerns, and not need to hide behind the cowardly guise of anonymity.

Any who doesn't have the balls to make their point with their own username here, IMO doesn't belong here at all.

BTW, r3mix's preset was a big help in the MP3 scene, it is better than 99% of the default settings. The fact that r3mix tuned the preset for his own hearing is his own thing (how he "sells" it is another  ). Now, Dibrom's APS is better, so what's the point? Tommorow, maybe person x, will make a preset that is better than Dibrom's, if so will Dibrom's preset be worse than it is today?

First of all, let's seperate the websites from the presets.

The main issue at hand here is the inaccurate information on the r3mix.net website.  That is really what the problem is, and it has little to no relation to how "good" either --r3mix or --aps is.

Secondly, trying to imply that --aps is not really so much better than --r3mix because it is still not perfect, does not make it any less better.  We already covered that point somewhere here in the thread I think.

Building on that, --r3mix is no longer being maintained.  The author knows it has flaws but refuses to address them.  At least development with the --alt-presets is still possible (note that there's more than just --alt-preset standard out there), and probably even likely once I get done with my other projects.

Finally it's the idea behind the presets.  Roel claims that --r3mix is perfect.  It's not, and he knows it.  I've never claimed that --aps is perfect.  I also educate people about superior alternatives.

Originally posted by MyMaster
Should Dibrom be forced to close his site or change his beliefs of what "he" thinks is the "Best"?  I think not.

Firstable HA is much more than --APS. I'm a bit irritated that you say HA is (only) Dibrom's site, it's not. What makes HA what it is, is many knowledgeable people and developers, the sharing of the knowledge. Also the development of --alt-preset was a joint venture - Dibrom probably couldn't have done it as well all by himself.
It's never been HA's goal to be "Dibrom's site" in that regard that everything he'd say was gospel.

I'm going to close this thread now.

Is someone going to close this thread, or do I answer the last post of MyMaster ?
SometimesWarrior's last post would be a good start for another thread about the future HA Site's content.

Originally posted by MyMaster
This is exactly what i believe, someday in this world of infinite possibities one person will come up with something better than Dibrom's -aps, so should you drop all your -aps encodes just because suddenly they're not good enough.  Should Dibrom be forced to close his site or change his beliefs of what "he" thinks is the "Best"?  I think not.  So this all comes to subjectivity.  What is "Perfectly Suitable" for one person may not be "Perfectly Suitable" for another.  Now why dont we put an end to the flame wars and let everyone else use or do what they find "suits" them best.

You've entirely missed the point here.

First of all, --aps is not Dibrom, and Dibrom is not HA.  The system here is nothing like r3mix.net.  I do not *push* the --alt-presets here and build the entire site around it to the degree Roel is.  I do not think the --alt-presets are the "best", and I never make any claims that they are perfect.  Instead, I focus on providing a forum for discussion about more objective observations, such as how well the presets may perform in a given situation, or what alternatives to the presets might be, etc, etc.

If the --alt-presets ceased to exist, HA would still be just as relevant then as it is now.  If someone came out with something better than the --alt-presets (which I think is already the case with MPC, AAC, and to a degree Ogg Vorbis), then I would tell people this quite flatly.  Well... what do you know, I already do

We are not wanting sites like r3mix.net to go away simply because the methodogies they discuss are no longer optimal.  That's only a very small part of the equation.  The much larger issue is that much of the information posted there is flat out wrong.  This goes far beyond even just the recommendation of --r3mix.net.  I'm talking about testing methodologies.  This even goes beyond sites that discuss their encoders directly.  There are all kinds of sites out there which are full of complete BS that I feel exactly the same about.  One perfect example is the infamous Airwindows site, which tries to make  quality comparisons visually.  I hope I don't have to explain why this utterly flawed.

Please make sure you're paying attention to what we're really discussing here, and that you understand the matter fully