:arrow: i trust in his tests and they are serious like you wrote!

looking the listening tests in hydrogenaudio,
i saw tests with 64K, 175, 320k, and in the top(today) 128k!
all this tests are useless for my taste cos....
i don't encode audio after 256k or above 192k no matter what format choosed.
above 192k only in the future when the encoders encrease quality !
space to backup this files isn't a problem for cd-r or dvd-r medias
cos the proposal of this thread now is: "audio cd's to "...we are testing to choose!
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/...p?showforum=40

then,
reading the first post from proposal on listening tests
by rjamorin using his avatar LSD (Look, Seems Dope)
http://www.digitalfaq.com/archives/i.../2004/09/3.gif
---> just kiddin :roll: :lol:

"....and I'd like to propose some tests that can be conduced by the more courageous people out there.
It's about time new tests start getting planned."
:arrow: very cool,...just what i (we) want to do here !

and
"Sthayashi proposed a test comparing several AAC encoders againt Vorbis,
to see how Vorbis performs againt encoders other than iTunes.
I guess that the answer is now clear that Vorbis will perform better
than all AAC encoders at 128kbps, since if it won even over the best of them.
But the proposal is made."
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/...pic=25835&st=0

i trust in his tests and results,
:arrow: i only wrote here why i don't post my opinions there ! :wink:
best regards muADdib!

Well, I did not test winamp with the new in_mp4.dll against foobar. But What I know for sure is that foobar is a great player that will play all audio formats that you put into it with excellence.

Besides that, IMHO you should not make tests with winamp. Every time you change tracks, the filters will be reinitialized and so will be your ears :wink: You can start hearing “placebos” much easier with winamp then with a proper ABX tool. If you don’t want to use foobar, then use WinABX or ABC/HR.

But give foobar a chance… just mark two tracks and select “ABX two tracks”. As I said, it is a great player, plus you will get a thousands great features as replaygain native support, truly gapless mp3 playback, mp3 header fix, mass tagger, low memory footprint, efficient handling of really large playlists, highly customizable playlist display, easy to use ABX tool, etc, etc... and most of standard components are opensourced under BSD license (source included with the SDK).

At a first sight foobar is neither impressive nor beautiful, but it has an amazing background, and even the way it looks is totally customizable.
Here are 3 different display styles that I use:
foobar1.png - default UI (that’s the way I most like it)
foobar2.png - footunes UI
foobar3.png - foo_looks (skin - I almost never use skins)

Please, don't get me wrong... I also use winamp, and I think it is a great player too. 8)


That's the way it should be! :wink:

Foobar2000 is really the bomb 8O
I hadn't seen all the options it had :!:
I like Winamp too, but I think I'll be using foobar from now on.
Thanks muaddib ;)

-kwag

That can't be LSD - Syd Barrett's already been replaced by David Gilmour :lol: Anybody ever seen The Syd Barrett Story?

yes , i know his story(little fragments)and i have 1 lp(vinyl) of Syd after PF and with PF too!
in the end we.....

L-oose
S-yd....... :(
D-amn ! :x

.........

testing FooBar *( fuba? ) now! :wink:

* in portuguese the "foobar" pronunciation seems "fubá" (maize flour,corn meal)

all right boys see what i did.
like i posted before i change the in_mp4.dll to use winamp see here:

then i install foobar to test everything again.
sounds exact like winamp using the same in_mp4.dll(09-07-04) with 243kb
in winamp or foobar!
nothing is change and my opinion remais the same:

:arrow: test-ogg-40kbps.ogg ....still a winner using foobar that sounds like winamp with the in_mp4.dll(09-07-04) 243kb!!
:wink:

doubts:
we're still doing our own tests in kvcd forum? anyone have samples or tests?
:?

@muaddib (and all!),

I just ran several tests, using the song "Survivor - I Can't Hold Back", and indeed, using ABX function I am able to tell "someting" is not the same, even with Q = 4.0 in oggenc.exe. :!: :!:
The quality is just excelent, but there's something missing in the VERY high frequency spectrum.
At a Q = 5.0, it's VERY hard to tell, but I DID still find some differences.
So I downloaded the oggenc_aoTuV.exe (optimized for lower bitrates), and ran the tests again. ( as documented here: http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/...howtopic=15049 )

This time, with a Q = 3.0 (default), ABX test results in ~70% guessing, so it seems that with oggenc_aoTuV, the high frequencies are much better encoded than with the standard oggenc :)
Even with Q = 2.0, it's very hard to tell the difference, and that's an average bitrate of around 96Kbps.
Give it a try :)


All tests were conducted listening on my "Bose Wave Radio".

I'm running more tests now with Sony earphones.
It seems to me that the most closest to perfect reproduction of sound and size ratio, would be using oggenc_aoTuV with a Q of ~2.0.
This is under the size of a 128Kbps MP3, but with sound quality equal to the original Audio CD (To the ears, that is. Not mathematically).

Comments :?:
Anyone compared oggenc_aoTuV to other Codecs, to find lowest bitrate for transparency point :?:

-kwag

hi all :D

i'm still testing...anyone more?

please, don't left this thread alone without a final conclusion(consensus from all)

thanks! :wink:

Hi Jorel,
I dropped my tests due to lack of time :(
I'm planning to come back in 2 or 3 weeks, though.
I really like Ogg quality.
But I'm still stuck at q=6 :evil:
Maybe I'll try that other version Karl recommended :)
Cheers

Hi Guys,

Well, I have to say that I found something better than MP3's "--alt-preset standard" :D

It's "--vbr-new"

Here's what happens. When you encode with "--alt-preset standard", you are basically encoding with a VBR Q of 2, and clamping the MIN bitrate to 128Kbps.
As we old dogs know :lol:, that's a waste of bits, because some parts of silence, spaced gaps on music, silence gaps , etc., can drop bitrate way below 128Kbps, and we can use those bits on high complex frames.
That's exactly what "--vbr-new" does, because without any parameters, it sets MIN bitrate to 32Kbps and MAX bitrate to 320Kbps, and uses a default VBR Q of 4 :!:
But the good news is that the file sizes are SMALLER than using "--alt-preset standard", because of the MIN bitrate usage.
This is almost as good (or better!) as using a setting of "--alt-preset extreme" :)

So now, I'm getting file sizes slightly lower than ogg vorbis (with -q 5), but fully transparent.

@muaddib,
Give this a try ;)

-kwag

bahahaha :blabla: ....without samples we can't trust! :rotf:

Kwag, welcome back after the hurricame, i read your news there! :D

It's very easy to test it yourself :)
Just extract your favorite audio CD track to WAV, and type:

lame --alt-preset standard mywavefile.wav
Note the file size.

Then try this:

lame --vbr-new mywave.wav

Take particular atention at the encoder screen. Notice that --alt-preset standard uses a MIN of 128Kbps, where the --vbr-new uses 32Kbps and a V Q of 4, as opposed to a V Q of 2, as used on --alt-preset standard.
So the final quality of --vbr-new is two points higher than alt-preset standard :) Thanks ;)

EDIT:

Please note that a Q of 4 is actually lower quality than a Q of 2, when using LAME.
The higher the number, the lower the quality.

-kwag

Hi kwag and all!
I tried ogg aoTuV and think you are 100% right about the high frequencies been much better encoded than with the standard oggenc at low bitrates.

I will try “--vbr-new” as soon as I get some time... (I wish a day with 30 hours :roll: )
BTW, are you sure that “--altpreset standard” does not go down to 32kbps?
Well, I’ll check that too. :wink:

PS: What LAME version are you using?

Me too :mrgreen: Yep. For sure. It's limited to 128Kbps min Version 3.96.1
BTW, my latest (and probably last settings) are now.
-vbr-new -q 2 -V 2 ;)
You get full range from 32Kbps to 320Kbps, and a SUPERB quality (to me, it's CD quality), and file size is smaller than -alt-preset standard, because the bitrate can go down to 32Kbps.

Edit: -q 2 -V 3

-kwag

And with the --vbr-new option, you can use q=0 without any huge performance hit, getting the best out of the encoder :D

Nope. Don't do that.
There's a bug in LAME :!:
Don't use a q lower than 2.
Check hydrogenaudio forums. I can't remember the link right now, but it's there.

-kwag

BTW, I just bought this last night: http://www.iriver.com/product/info.a...P-700%20Series the iFP-790 (256MB model), and it plays my OGGs sweeeeeet :cool:
Only problem, which I already wrote an E-Mail to support, is that the OGG format must be a minimum of ~90Kbps. If I encode something with Q=2 or less, it's not recognized.
So they are not fully compliant on Vorbis specifications.
I already downloaded the latest firmware, and installed it flawlessly.
Sound is beautiful, and it's a very neat unit. :)

-kwag

Found it: http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/...c=26895&hl=-q0

I've been using 3.90.3 for a long time so didn't know this. Thanks for the info :D

Great :D

BTW, new release of Vorbis :cool:
http://www.vorbis.com/news.psp

-kwag

hey,thank you all.you're too fast to post ! 8)