Extensive Format Comparison WAV FLAC APE MP3 MP3PRO MPC OGG WMA(french)

[donunus]

If you base the sound on those graphs, the lame mp3 should be better than ogg

[lordmozilla]

can you explain how you come to this conclusion?

[Audax]

Originally Posted by donunus

If you base the sound on those graphs, the lame mp3 should be better than ogg

The guy is joking.. well , hope for him that he does. Describes himself as a connaisseur.. probably in spirits but not in maths ..

[EnOYiN]

Originally Posted by ADD

Maybe I have super ears, but the difference between an uncompressed WAV file and the highest possible 2 channel stereo bitrate MP3 (320), WMA (high 400s) and OGG (505) are so obvious to me it's not funny. That is not to say that the high bitrate compressed files sound bad - but they do sound different and are lacking accuracy, detail, tonal timbre and dynamics compared to the original. Apart from that, WMA adds a "sheen" to the extreme high end that is not there in the WAV file, the Fraunhofer softens the high end and LAME hardens it. So if for nothing else, they all have their own sound signatures at maximum birtates that make then easy to distinguish from the originals.

So, where in this part you wrote is the explanation which makes bigshots statement incorrent? I can't find it. Maybe you should read the sentence of which you quoted a part one more time.

Aside from that: There are no such things as super ears. There are people who are better at interpreting the information they receive, but other than that there is no such thing.

If you find the differences between lossless and OGG "so obvious to me it's not funny" I really start thinking there is something wrong with your lossless files. I don't know anyone who can distinguish between lossy and lossless files easily and I do know that when people are asked to back up their experiences with a DBT they come up with all kinds of excuses why you should believe them and that they don't care whether you believe them or not, but they are right anyway.

Originally Posted by ADD

PS: not at all interested in the advice about not attacking Bigshot. Would much rather be banned please. I can't stand know-it-alls who...umm...don't and who furthemore give idoitic and misleading advice to people who just suck it all up without using their own judgement.

I knew that as well before you even wrote it and trust me, it saddens me. Why not disagree with someone in a respectful and friendly manner? I see such things a lot on the internet and it really makes me lose my faith in humanity as a whole. (the faith that's left that is)

* You don't have to respond to any of this since I won't look at this thread any more. (running away might be childish, but it sure does improve my enjoyment when reading threads on Head-Fi)

[donunus]

Originally Posted by Audax

The guy is joking.. well , hope for him that he does. Describes himself as a connaisseur.. probably in spirits but not in maths ..

Lossy encoders are supposed to be lossy therefore you will lose data and the visuals should have losses compared to the original wav. It is up to the developer to choose which data to discard to get the best possible sound for the filesize targeted... After saying this though, Look at the pics... ogg does not look as good as the wav with all that purple crap around the line. AAC looks the best and mp3 lame is a close second if we were to base them on those graphs. What are you guys seeing that makes ogg look better???

[krmathis]

Originally Posted by stevenkelby

Does anyone here think that if a bitrate comparison/difference is inaudible to their ears with their system, it will therefore be inaudible to my ears with my system?

No! We don't have identical gear and certainly not identical ears. So our ability to hear audible differences vary...

[Audax]

Originally Posted by donunus

Lossy encoders are supposed to be lossy therefore you will lose data and the visuals should have losses compared to the original wav. It is up to the developer to choose which data to discard to get the best possible sound for the filesize targeted... After saying this though, Look at the pics... ogg does not look as good as the wav with all that purple crap around the line. AAC looks the best and mp3 lame is a close second if we were to base them on those graphs. What are you guys seeing that makes ogg look better???

I won't look at the graphs with the straight line. They are not detailed enough, on the other the hand have a look at the graphs linked at the beginning of this thread. They do show a clear difference between ogg and lossless.

[b0dhi]

Originally Posted by ADD

Maybe I have super ears, but the difference between an uncompressed WAV file and the highest possible 2 channel stereo bitrate MP3 (320), WMA (high 400s) and OGG (505) are so obvious to me it's not funny.

Feel free to prove it here.

[stevenkelby]

Originally Posted by stevenkelby
Does anyone here think that if a bitrate comparison/difference is inaudible to their ears with their system, it will therefore be inaudible to my ears with my system?

Originally Posted by krmathis

No! We don't have identical gear and certainly not identical ears. So our ability to hear audible differences vary...

Right, so any conclusion in the negative is only relevant to that person/track/gear etc. Results are not universal and it is naive to assume they are.

I can't believe people still think "I compared/ABX'd/DBT and there is no difference, therefore, there is no difference."

[shigzeo]

why would dononus joke? s/he said a very good point: according to the graph, ogg looks nary far from bad when back to back with lame which has only fuzz at the top or aac which seems to have none.

graphs can represent audio quality however they only show how the encoder looks, rather than how it sounds. there was a test some years ago and the terrible mp3 ripper razor i think it was called looked great on the graphs but sounded rubbish on the system.

according to the pics and links, indeed ogg looks worse than do the lame and aac codecs. in a blind listening test, we can see how well the psychoacoustics play out as psychoacoustics in audio and video are well different.

actually, mp3 and jpeg can be used interchangeably though for less than stellar results in many cases and in some quite good indeed.

[donunus]

Originally Posted by Audax

I won't look at the graphs with the straight line. They are not detailed enough, on the other the hand have a look at the graphs linked at the beginning of this thread. They do show a clear difference between ogg and lossless.

The graphs linked on the first post don't even have lame mp3 or aac

[jiiteepee]

Originally Posted by donunus

The graphs linked on the first post don't even have lame mp3 or aac

I think Audax refers to those graphics I linked on couple of my replies.

By measures I did, AAC @ CBR 196kbps would be closer to the original data than any other lossy format from those others I included in my tests ... even those were encoded to 320kbps. My test was quite simple ... encoded the reference wav file to lossy format using CBR and then decoded it back to wav format using exact the same brand codec than the encoding were made with (i.e. lame encoder - > lame decoder, fh encoder -> fh decoder, etc.).

jiitee

[Audax]

Let alone losers who never bought an album in their entire life. Why do audiophiles still use lossy formats ? Nowadays an ipod can store up to 160 Gb of music and a 100 $ HD up to 750 Gb. Is their still a need for higher compressed formats ?

[Febs]

Originally Posted by Audax

Let alone losers who never bought an album in their entire life. Why do audiophiles still use lossy formats ? Nowadays an ipod can store up to 160 Gb of music and a 100 $ HD up to 750 Gb. Is their still a need for higher compressed formats ?

Regarding your first question, if by "album" you mean "vinyl," why would someone be a "loser" for not having purchased music on a medium that has been out of the mainstream for 20 years, and requires expensive playback gear and relatively high-maintenance to sound good?

Regarding your second question, here's what I posted a few days ago in response someone who raised the fact that 500 GB hard drives are inexpensive these days:

Yeah, I have one of those at home, and many CDs ripped to FLAC or WavPack stored on it. How exactly does that help me on a plane, in a hotel, in the car, on a train, or at the gym?

Given how frequently I travel, those are the places that I do most of my listening, and given the fact that well-encoded lossy files are indistinguishable to my ears from the lossless files, there is no logical reason that I should substantially reduce my choices, waste space on my portable players, and take the battery life hit by using lossless files on my portable players.

[nick_charles]

Originally Posted by Audax

Let alone losers who never bought an album in their entire life. Why do audiophiles still use lossy formats ? Nowadays an iPod can store up to 160 GB of music and a 100 $ HD up to 750 Gb. Is there still a need for higher compressed formats ?

Losers ? , because someone chooses downloads over physical storage they are losers, that seems a little harsh.

I have 700 CDs at ~ 700MB each = 490,000 MB. Even at 50% lossless compression that is still 245 GB, this is more than a 160GB iPod can hold, however with MP3 my 3 (2 x 30GB and 1 x 40GB) DAPs could comfortably hold everything I have, if I ever get round to ripping it that is

Also with MP3 the hard drive doesn't spin so much so you get better battery life.

Also for a lot of people, myself included the difference in quality from high bit-rate MP3 to lossless is not noticeable and even if it were, for portable or casual use hardly worth the extra resources, for serious (weekend) listening I use CDs anyway.