Skip to main content

Notice

Please note that most of the software linked on this forum is likely to be safe to use. If you are unsure, feel free to ask in the relevant topics, or send a private message to an administrator or moderator. To help curb the problems of false positives, or in the event that you do find actual malware, you can contribute through the article linked here.
Topic: Vorbis Sounds better than Opus at 192 kbps. (Read 15174 times) previous topic - next topic
0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Vorbis Sounds better than Opus at 192 kbps.

I have been listening to Opus for the past few months and i love it's audio quality at low bit rates (128 Kbps). Today i tried Vorbis and it sounds better than Opus. Vorbis Sounds softer and less aggressive as compared to Opus at 192 Kbps.

I know Opus has surpassed many other lossy codecs in listening tests but after listening to few songs in vorbis i think it offers better quality at high bitrates.

Opus sounds sharper whereas Vorbis sounds more analog to my ears. I have nothing against Opus. I just wanted to share what i heard from these two codecs.

and for the clarification I am using the real OGG Vorbis not the modified aoTuv or something.

Re: Vorbis Sounds better than Opus at 192 kbps.

Reply #1
Be careful, this may be veering into TOS 8 violation territory.

It would be best if you compared the two at the stated settings using an ABX test to see if you can genuinely hear a difference.
Lossless: flac --best --verify
Lossy: opusenc --bitrate 160

Re: Vorbis Sounds better than Opus at 192 kbps.

Reply #2
Like blurry_light mentioned, I think some around here won't like that kind of claim because at that high of a bit rate (i.e. 192kbps) AAC/Opus etc are pretty much transparent across everything or pretty darn close to it. so in other words, it's not really possible for OGG (and the like) to top them and will basically boil down to a ABX test if your going to make a claim like that. because if you can't ABX Opus or OGG at 192kbps (like compare, through ABX, the 'lossless file to OGG' and then do 'lossless file to Opus' and see if you can even detect a difference) then basically your not hearing any difference. hence, that claim would be false.

or to sum it up... Opus is pretty much the all around king as it tends to be the same or better than everything else (sound quality wise) at a given bit rate and mainly shines at lower bit rates, like say 128kbps and less, even though it's still great at higher bit rates but starts to lose it's advantages at the higher bit rates.
For music I suggest (using Foobar2000)... MP3 (LAME) @ V5 (130kbps). NOTE: using on AGPTEK-U3 as of Mar 18th 2021. I use 'fatsort' (on Linux) so MP3's are listed in proper order on AGPTEK-U3.

Re: Vorbis Sounds better than Opus at 192 kbps.

Reply #3
For sure different sound formats have at least to some degree a "distinct special sound" - which results in many cases from one thing... progress of technology as time moves forward and formats get more efficient and better in general.

But quality wise Opus is better at lower bitrates and size wise often more efficient (compared with various encoded files in OGG/Vorbis and Opus - Opus encodings of the music which i encode are often smaller because Opus demands less Bitrate for the same quality setting) and either equal or marginally better (keeping more sound elements so the resulting converted songs feel more "full") at higher bitrates. Granted, the higher the bitrate the harder the differences can be detected.


Re: Vorbis Sounds better than Opus at 192 kbps.

Reply #4
As others have said I have my doubts that you can ABX either Vorbis or Opus from a lossless source, so I'm quite skeptical about your claims in regards to such "obvious" differences in tonality.

Quote
Opus sounds sharper whereas Vorbis sounds more analog to my ears

These are the kind of buzzwords that have been used through the ages for non existent differences in sound quality by HiFi-Snake-Oil salesmen everywhere and are completely meaningless if you do not substantiate your claims.

Re: Vorbis Sounds better than Opus at 192 kbps.

Reply #5
My experience is that Opus suffers from very occasional killer samples (or occasional incidents in longer tracks if you have the patience to listen for them) that don't completely resolve with higher bitrates.  Some of these have been fixed as outright bugs, but some remain.  Vorbis is generally worse than Opus at a given (relatively low) bitrate, as shown in multiple listening tests, but also more consistent in improving at higher bitrates.  I haven't found any Vorbis killer samples that don't just fade away for my ears by about 192 kbps.

Re: Vorbis Sounds better than Opus at 192 kbps.

Reply #6
Might be worth the OP explaining just how the tracks being compared were generated.  Any easy-to-identify widespread differences between modern codecs at 192 kbps are more likely due to mistakes in encoding or playback than inherent in the codec itself.

 

Re: Vorbis Sounds better than Opus at 192 kbps.

Reply #7
My experience is that Opus suffers from very occasional killer samples

As it is also stated in the Opus part of the wiki (https://wiki.hydrogenaud.io/index.php?title=Opus):
"160-192 kbps - Transparent with very low chance of artifacts (a few killer samples still detectable)."

So far i had no issues when creating Opus variants of tracks with a length of 5 minutes or more. Using here 256 kbps.

Re: Vorbis Sounds better than Opus at 192 kbps.

Reply #8
You cannot trust yourself in these things. You need to ABX this. If you don't, then the only answer you can receive here is "you are mistaken."

Re: Vorbis Sounds better than Opus at 192 kbps.

Reply #9
"Opus sounds sharper whereas Vorbis sounds more analog to my ears"

It might be also case when someone prefers slight coloration over near-transparent quality. I saw that a few times and similar situation happens around solid state vs tube amp

Anyway ABX and/or ABCHR is the only way to validate  such statements.




Re: Vorbis Sounds better than Opus at 192 kbps.

Reply #10
I have been doing some listening tests for the past two days and i think i was wrong. Opus is really good at low as well as high bit rates. when i said Vorbis sounds better i was doing a big mistake by comparing/playing Vorbis and opus back to back. That was a huge mistake.

After Comparing Opus @128 kbps with flac i couldn't spot a difference. I should've done the proper listening tests before posting here. I apologize for insulting such a wonderful codec. Opus is the future!!

I request anyone who has the authority to delete this thread because the title of this thread affects the reputation of Opus.

Excuse my english. Sometimes i have trouble making full sentences in english.

Re: Vorbis Sounds better than Opus at 192 kbps.

Reply #11
Any easy-to-identify widespread differences between modern codecs at 192 kbps are more likely due to mistakes in encoding or playback than inherent in the codec itself.

I want to strengthten this. Especially one should check whether the fact that Opus uses 48khz internally doesn't make it sound differently that Vorbis @ 44.1Khz on particular hardware.