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Topic: ABX Just Destroyed My Ego (Read 101216 times) previous topic - next topic
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ABX Just Destroyed My Ego

Reply #75 –
Quote from: Pio2001 on
However, this is not the stereo that made the difference, it's the fact that the V2 -ms encoding sounds as bad as the -V3 one 

wow...that's a difference almost 60kbps that was saved using Joint Stereo
--alt-presets are there for a reason! These other switches DO NOT work better than it, trust me on this.
LAME + Joint Stereo doesn't destroy 'Stereo'

ABX Just Destroyed My Ego

Reply #76 –
Quote from: token on
When people tell you you need training to ABX, they are absolutely right. I believe almost ANYBODY can ABX something if they know what to look for. While I didn't have formal training, I did a lot of experimenting to figure out what to look for. My brain tells me whats wrong, not my ears. If you can't do 64kbps, then do some experimenting (actually, you know what? Don't. It'll ruin music for you... Ignorance is bliss when you can fit 2x-3x more music than someone who knows what to look for... That's one thing I miss... When downloading a 64kbps mp3 simply meant 'faster download' to me, I was much happier)


Welcome in our strange world, where searching for the best quality cause the perceived quality to actually decrease!
That is why many people, while still interested in lossy audio, are starting to use lossless encoding.

ABX Just Destroyed My Ego

Reply #77 –
Yeah, I'm pretty much the same in that regard. I still encode mostly to q4-q6 vorbis out of habit (and because I lack in harddrive space), but every encode feels like a waste to me. I still love playing with lossy encoders, even if they make me hate what I listen to.. I can't tell you how many times I encoded "Blackout" by (hed) pe and listened to it in the quest for finding the magical settings at each bitrate. It's still extremely interesting to me, but at the same time, I still wish I was fine with 128kbps mp3s.. Even ones not encoded by your lovely encoder (which makes mp3s tolerable, so thank you!).. I'm talking early fhg encodes with no joint stereo, the ones that warble and hiss, with nasty preecho and dull highs... I still find some of my early files and wonder what was wrong with me for getting those songs, but neglect to remember that I used to not notice and/or care about it.

Not to discourage any people who want to be good at ABX testing, but there is a downside to it that I'm not so sure is worth it yet... At least until I get more harddrive space... Then I wont care.
q4 AoTuV Vorbis is my friend.

ABX Just Destroyed My Ego

Reply #78 –
my pleasure to meet you all.(newby here)   

@ Gabriel
Quote
That is why many people, while still interested in lossy audio, are starting to use lossless encoding.
i'm AC-3(lossy) user because i use dvdplayer(DD 5.1 decoder built in) with 6 discrete amplifiers.(no HT or receiver/decoder)
i think(not sure) that don't need ABX for lossless formats and of course i want to use.(flac for example)
(maybe don't will run in my system but) what lossless format can be used for dvds or mini-dvds?

thanks.

@ token
i read the whole thread and your posts/argumments.
very cool.

regards all.

ABX Just Destroyed My Ego

Reply #79 –
Quote from: jlt on
what lossless format can be used for dvds or mini-dvds?


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

ABX Just Destroyed My Ego

Reply #80 –
all right but if i use 6 discrete amplifiers(2*3RCA cables) like i wrote in my last post will work?
(i think that i only hear 2 channels...hard doubt    )

thanks!

ABX Just Destroyed My Ego

Reply #81 –
6ch PCM on DVDV is theoretically possible, however you will have trouble finding the right authoring procedure (i dont know one) and also trouble finding a standalone player that will actually play that....
PANIC: CPU 1: Cache Error (unrecoverable - dcache data) Eframe = 0x90000000208cf3b8
NOTICE - cpu 0 didn't dump TLB, may be hung

ABX Just Destroyed My Ego

Reply #82 –
you're right.
i only can do is 5.1 wav 44100 16 bit and burn as cda in nero( a trick).
the cd play in the HT of my friend very fine using digital output or coaxial but,poor me,in my discrete channels i only have "stereo".
i think that "no way out" with my audio system,for now i have to stay with AC-3.

but thanks so much (and sorry to be off topic here,cool thread).

ABX Just Destroyed My Ego

Reply #83 –
Welcome to "The Club", dpaint4

ABX Just Destroyed My Ego

Reply #84 –
I guess this is the thread to come clean for us tin-ear types. I recently started using EAC/Foobar instead of iTunes to store and listen to my music on the computer. The biggest reason for the change was to be able to try some true ABX tests, which I'd always been interested in.

At first I couldn't tell the difference in anything which I blamed on the AC97 or whatever it's called on my computer. So I installed a E-MU 0404 and rigged it to run on ASIO from Foobar with no resampling and what have you. Straight from the 0404 into my Portaphile and HD595. Nice sounding setup.

I still can't tell the difference in anything. I ripped my whole CD library to WavPack files on the computer and then encoded AAC (using Nero) at -q .55 for around 170-200kpbs typical rate. No need to ABX between WavPack and 190kpbs AAC because I can't hear a thing different between A and B. So I went as low as 82kpbs before I thought I heard something. However, I still ended up less than 50% correct on ABXing various samples of my favorite music.

Last night I finally found a distinguishable point. I encoded a few tracks at (IIRC) -q 0.25 or something silly like that, resulting in some approximately 60kbps lossy files. I haven't done any "real" tests yet but on a couple of tracks I tried I can get my first two or three trials in a row correct. So my basic conclusion is that Nero AAC is transparent w.r.t. WavPack down to at least 100kpbs and probably lower. And that's listening with my best gear. Most of the time I use an unamped PX200 straight from the iPod or listen in the car with an iPod and cassette adapter. Ye Gods!

I'm tempted to re-encoded my whole library at -q .40 and save a third of the space on my iPod.

ABX Just Destroyed My Ego

Reply #85 –
LOL, congrats Brent, for your ABX experience!

The problem with training yourself for ABX, as token had said, is that once you know what to listen to, you'll start hearing artifacts everywhere.

I train myself to hear artifacts, and untrain myself after ABX. How? Basically it's kind of a self-hypnosis thingy, so I can't recommend the right way; y'all have to find how yourself heh heh

Happy un-training, all!

ABX Just Destroyed My Ego

Reply #86 –
pepoluan,

I spent way too many afternoons hanging around a high-end stereo shop while playing hooky from school and/or work back in the early 80's. After a while, I got so good and picky that everything sounded bad!

Unfortunately, I never learned the self-hypnosis thing. I just had to spend 20 years listening to my Ford car radio and avoiding decent audio equipment. But now I can happily jam along with my mid-fi equipment and think I'm in heaven.

So I have no, no, no interest in learning how to ABX better. I'm quitting while I'm ahead.

ABX Just Destroyed My Ego

Reply #87 –
Quote from: dpaint4 on
Quote from: sld on

dpaint4, what's your laptop's soundcard? A better external soundcard may help, unless the existing one is from m-audio or something.


I'm absolutely sure that my laptop has some kind of integrated sound thing. It's seriously not high end. But I don't think I can hide behind that excuse. Certainly my laptop sounds as good as my iPod or my X5. And it's better than my last computer which had awful ambient noise. This one is at least silent when it's supposed to be.


I was doing some listening of FLAC on my laptop this weekend and was suitably impressed with the sound (I was using some new headphones I bought).  Then, I plugged in my external sound blaster "card" (USB) rather than using my internal soundcard and the sound difference was HUGE.

So perhaps you can hide a little bit behind that excuse - the internal sound cards in laptops can be horrible.

ABX Just Destroyed My Ego

Reply #88 –
Quote from: Brent Hutto on
Unfortunately, I never learned the self-hypnosis thing. I just had to spend 20 years listening to my Ford car radio and avoiding decent audio equipment. But now I can happily jam along with my mid-fi equipment and think I'm in heaven.
Basically, unlearning is like that. You play the lower-quality audio, forcing yourself to believe that there is no difference with the higher-quality audio (but do not play the higher-quality audio just to compare). It is imperative that you do at least 1 or 2 rounds of unlearning before you sleep or nap. Your brain will somehow believe what you want it to believe when you sleep. If you failed to unlearn before you rest, then your brain will reprogram itself to always recognize the artifact(s) next time it hears an audio. That will make unlearning a royal PITA, like you experienced.

Quote from: Brent Hutto on
So I have no, no, no interest in learning how to ABX better. I'm quitting while I'm ahead.
Wise of you  so, if you really want the smallest file, just transcode it to the smallest you guess possible, and listen without ABX-ing. If you find it inacceptable, raise it by an arbitrary amount.

I once tried transcoding with ABX-ing to find the 'perfect' low bitrate... and have to live in great disappointment for 2 weeks... while busily unlearning

Now I transcode to Vorbis -q -1 ... and not bother to ABX, just mumbling to myself, "Oh goshwow, this is perfect..."

Note that I'm not claiming, not even opinionating, that -q -1 is transparent, mind you

ABX Just Destroyed My Ego

Reply #89 –
I just try not to care too much, and concentrate on the music rather than the sound  .
Edit: That's probably easier for me because I don't have great equipment anyway... but sometimes when (at a party for example) the quality is bad, i just try to ignore the fact and enjoy the music anyway.

ABX Just Destroyed My Ego

Reply #90 –
Quote
Now I transcode to Vorbis -q -1 ... and not bother to ABX, just mumbling to myself, "Oh goshwow, this is perfect..."

I'm with you on this, pepoluan.

If it was WMA from a few years ago, I would certainly not be making such a "goshwow" proclamation (the metallic smearing would be unmistakeable) but with the modern incarnation of Vorbis at the same bitrate, the most noticeable artifact (distortions in stereo separation) is simply undetectable without ABX'ing or side-to-side comparison at the very least.

ABX Just Destroyed My Ego

Reply #91 –
Quote from: dpaint4 on
(snip)

You have no idea what that did to me. I am so embarrassed to post it here, but on the other hand, I think I should because there are possibly many folks out there who, like me, ASSUME that they have golden ears, when really the truth is less than flattering.

Of course, AoTuv is fabulous. I already knew I loved it, but it still hurts when you're the type that assumes you need the latest LAME at high variable bitrates and then tell yourself that you still prefer the FLAC files. I'm the guy who wouldn't touch a 128kbps AAC file. Wake up call for me I guess.


Yeah, I have to add my $.02 to this thread... Hello, I'm Michael and I'm a recovering audiophile (Hi, Michael).

A few months back I encoded everything I had on CD or in FLAC format to lame 3.97b2 -V 1 --vbr-new, because I wanted no compromises in my music and never wanted to have to re-rip/re-encode, and because I just *knew* I could tell the difference between -V 1 and -V 2.  God *forbid* I should try -V 3 or even worse, -V 4 or 5.

Well... I wasn't able to fit as much of my music on my 60GB iPod as I'd like.  So now that iPods are gapless I started using iTunes (and stopped using Rockbox on it), I decided to see if perhaps I could save space using AAC instead of lame.

I decided to finally install the ABX plugin on foobar and tried a few samples using my Shure e2c's comparing a FLAC source and an iTunes AAC encode of the same file @ 128 VBR.  I got 10/16 -- and honestly... half of those correct answers I know for a fact were lucky guesses. 

So I've got some re-encoding to do...    Now I have to convince my brother, who says he can *only* listen to ALAC on his girlfriend's iPod because he simply *can't* listen to compressed stuff of *any* bitrate, because he'd just *know* it was compromised.

ABX Just Destroyed My Ego

Reply #92 –
I too have concluded that I can get no useful information from most ABX testing unless the circumstances are dire. Can one "train" oneself to hear certain items? Perhaps, though I doubt that most of HA's golden ears wound stand up to external scrutiny, just like the rest. I did too much academic work in acoustics to believe otherwise.

Suffice to say, the differences between well encoded 128kbps AAC, LAME -V 3 and FLAC (as examples) are all very, very small when compared with more glaring variations such as loudspeakers, headphones, and room acoustics. Tiny. Infinitesimal.

The broader point is: does it matter? What is one trying to achieve? What exactly are you listening for? Should I worry about a paint chip on my car when the bigger problem is that the engine is blown?

Given that stereo recordings never, ever sound convincingly like the source (for myriad reasons), what is the goal of "perfect" playback?

If your goal is to feel some deep inner satisfaction that you are listening to the "most perfect copy" of some music, then by all means knock yourself out. Fix that paint chip.

If you wish to concentrate on the emotional and artistic merits of music, then it may not matter one whit. Or more importantly, there may be other things that can serve this goal that have nothing to do with bitrates and compression. Things like decent speakers and headphones, both of which exhibit high degress of variability.

I am much older than most HA posters - 48, an ex-professional musician, and my ears are certainly used - and I recall many years of vinyl use. Good lord, the things we would do to make that miserable medium sound decent - custom tonearms, endless cleaners, weighted platters, turntables suspended from the ceiling, preamps galore - there was no end to the effort. And you know what? Even the most mild artifacts from LPs are 10 times worse that those exhibited by MP3/AAC. I mean bad, non-musical, annoying stuff - crackles, warps, inner-groove distortion, pre-echo. And you couldn't rip another copy to make it better, either. When the CD matured in the late 1980s, I was thrilled at the improvement over vinyl - it is simply a better medium for accurate data.

So given this life experience, I will listen happily to 128kbps AAC all day long. I used to hear defects in my LPs. Now I hear music.

ABX Just Destroyed My Ego

Reply #93 –
Quote from: BradPDX on
So given this life experience, I will listen happily to 128kbps AAC all day long. I used to hear defects in my LPs. Now I hear music.
*high fives*

Okay, I'm not anywhere as old as you  but I dig your attitude

Really, folks. If you want to know whether a certain encoding strategy (i.e. format, compression level) is good for you, ... just encode and enjoy.

Hmm... somewhere in the forums I posted my methodology of finding the highest level of compression with acceptable result...

To summarize the methodology: Just compress. And enjoy. If it is not enjoyable, compress at slightly lower compression. And enjoy. Keep doing it (track-by-track) until all tracks you have is enjoyable.

Never even try to think about planning to compare your supercompressed tracks with the original. Now, that's the key for DigitalAudio Nirvana

ABX Just Destroyed My Ego

Reply #94 –
Quote from: pepoluan on
Quote from: BradPDX on
So given this life experience, I will listen happily to 128kbps AAC all day long. I used to hear defects in my LPs. Now I hear music.
*high fives*

Okay, I'm not anywhere as old as you  but I dig your attitude

Really, folks. If you want to know whether a certain encoding strategy (i.e. format, compression level) is good for you, ... just encode and enjoy.

Hmm... somewhere in the forums I posted my methodology of finding the highest level of compression with acceptable result...

To summarize the methodology: Just compress. And enjoy. If it is not enjoyable, compress at slightly lower compression. And enjoy. Keep doing it (track-by-track) until all tracks you have is enjoyable.

Never even try to think about planning to compare your supercompressed tracks with the original. Now, that's the key for DigitalAudio Nirvana


You know, I think it has a lot to do with how obssessive someone is.  If you are an obssessive compulsive, you will not accept to convert your CDs to even very high bitrate lossy compression (with whatever high quality codec).  You will always fear that some track you have encoded will exhibit some kind of artefacts 5 years from now when you will get to listen to it.

I AM an obssesive compulsive.  I know what I am talking about.  I *KNOW* I don't have the ability to detect an artefact, but the very possibility that there will be one in my whole collection makes it impossible for me to use a lossy codec.

If I wasn't mentally challenged, I would use a modern codec at a relatively high bitrate and be happy.

ABX Just Destroyed My Ego

Reply #95 –
Absolute certainity doesnt exist. Neither your data is 100% secure, nor are your speakers perfect, nor the room, nor your ears. Live is a game of risk-management where you cannot get a perfect score but only try to loose the least with the lowest possible effort: Efficiency. Get used to it.

- Lyx
I am arrogant and I can afford it because I deliver.

ABX Just Destroyed My Ego

Reply #96 –
Quote from: Lyx on
Absolute certainity doesnt exist. Neither your data is 100% secure, nor are your speakers perfect, nor the room, nor your ears. Live is a game of risk-management where you cannot get a perfect score but only try to loose the least with the lowest possible effort: Efficiency. Get used to it.

- Lyx

Regarding this, but not too diverging as to be off-topic, I was astounded recently to learn that lossless can actually be non-lossless, provided an error occurs in the RAM (or on HDD write, or in the cache) which cannot be corrected in real-time, or delayed-corrected...  Then you'd get a signal stream which isn't the exact replica of the original.  I found that funny.

ABX Just Destroyed My Ego

Reply #97 –
Quote from: Lyx on
Absolute certainity doesnt exist. Neither your data is 100% secure, nor are your speakers perfect, nor the room, nor your ears. Live is a game of risk-management where you cannot get a perfect score but only try to loose the least with the lowest possible effort: Efficiency. Get used to it.

- Lyx


Are you sure about that?

ABX Just Destroyed My Ego

Reply #99 –
Quote
' date='Sep 20 2006, 16:12' post='433192']
Quote from: Lyx on

Absolute certainity doesnt exist. Neither your data is 100% secure, nor are your speakers perfect, nor the room, nor your ears. Live is a game of risk-management where you cannot get a perfect score but only try to loose the least with the lowest possible effort: Efficiency. Get used to it.

- Lyx

Regarding this, but not too diverging as to be off-topic, I was astounded recently to learn that lossless can actually be non-lossless, provided an error occurs in the RAM (or on HDD write, or in the cache) which cannot be corrected in real-time, or delayed-corrected...  Then you'd get a signal stream which isn't the exact replica of the original.  I found that funny.


Just as once in a while a ZIP file gets corrupted on your HDD for "no reason".  How often does that happen?  That's why I always inject MD5 signatures in the WavPack files I create.  I can always verify if the data is intact.

Practically speaking, lossless is lossless.  We could say the quantization & sampling process is lossy but then, we would open one stinky can of worms.