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Heres My ABYX Results: Lossless vs MP3 at 96,128,256KBps

post #1 of 18
10/13/09 at 3:35am
Thread Starter 
This is my first time ABXing and started out low at 96 to get the feel of artifacts and distortion. I find at 128KBps its very easy to pick a 5 sec long section of a song and play it over and over and easily get 20/20. When I jumped to 320, the distortion I was looking for in a 128 was no longer there and I had to look for something else that I could latch onto, the farthest I got was 7/7, and a couple 5/5. I got too many wrong so I went down to 256 and its a little easier to pass the test. I will continue to compare Lossless to MP3 @ 320 until I got it down perfect. If anybody has any tips how to pass a 320 vs lossless ABX, I could use them.
These tests are on my PC with Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium with all enhancements off, with Monster Turbines fully burned in at 200+ HRS.

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foo_abx 1.3.4 report
foobar2000 v0.9.6.9
2009/10/09 12:08:13

Song is: "Three Days Grace: I Hate Everything About You"

File A: C:\Users\INTEL EXTREME 9650\Music\ - Track03.mp3 (96KBps)
File B: C:\Users\INTEL EXTREME 9650\Music\ - Track03.wav

12:08:13 : Test started.
12:10:15 : 01/01 50.0%
12:11:23 : 02/02 25.0%
12:12:55 : 03/03 12.5%
12:15:52 : 04/04 6.3%
12:19:51 : 05/05 3.1%
12:29:16 : 06/06 1.6%
12:34:20 : 07/07 0.8%
12:41:17 : 08/08 0.4%
12:43:22 : 09/09 0.2%
12:45:37 : 10/10 0.1%
12:47:40 : 11/11 0.0%
12:56:43 : Test finished.

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Total: 11/11 (0.0%)
----------------------
foo_abx 1.3.4 report
foobar2000 v0.9.6.9
2009/10/10 10:39:40

File A: C:\Users\INTEL EXTREME 9650\Music\Crystal Method, the\Tweekend\Crystal Method, the - 02 - Wild, Sweet and Cool.mp3 (96KBps)
File B: C:\Users\INTEL EXTREME 9650\Music\Crystal Method, the\Tweekend\Crystal Method, the - 02 - Wild, Sweet and Cool.flac (original CD lossless)

10:39:40 : Test started.
10:40:46 : 01/01 50.0%
10:41:09 : 02/02 25.0%
10:41:38 : 03/03 12.5%
10:42:33 : 04/04 6.3%
10:43:50 : 05/05 3.1%
10:45:07 : 06/06 1.6%
10:56:00 : 07/07 0.8%
15:03:59 : 08/08 0.4%
15:04:52 : 09/09 0.2%
15:05:54 : 10/10 0.1%
15:07:16 : 11/11 0.0%
15:09:55 : 12/12 0.0%
15:12:01 : 13/13 0.0%
15:19:05 : 14/14 0.0%
15:19:10 : Test finished.

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Total: 14/14 (0.0%)
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foo_abx 1.3.4 report
foobar2000 v0.9.6.9
2009/10/10 15:22:23

(ABYX TEST)

File A: C:\Users\INTEL EXTREME 9650\Music\Crystal Method, the\Tweekend\Crystal Method, the - 02 - Wild, Sweet and Cool.mp3 (128 KBps)
File B: C:\Users\INTEL EXTREME 9650\Music\Crystal Method, the\Tweekend\Crystal Method, the - 02 - Wild, Sweet and Cool.flac (original CD Lossless)

15:22:23 : Test started.
15:23:54 : 01/01 50.0%
15:24:41 : 02/02 25.0%
15:25:29 : 03/03 12.5%
15:27:04 : 04/04 6.3%
15:27:38 : 05/05 3.1%
15:28:09 : 06/06 1.6%
15:28:50 : 07/07 0.8%
15:29:25 : 08/08 0.4%
15:31:06 : 09/09 0.2%
15:31:37 : 10/10 0.1%
15:32:27 : 11/11 0.0%
15:32:33 : Test finished.

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Total: 11/11 (0.0%)
-------------------------------
WinABX v0.42 test report
10/12/2009 14:41:36

Song is "Linkin Park: What Ive Done"

A file: C:\Users\INTEL EXTREME 9650\Music\ABX TESTING\Track06.wav (Original CD Lossless WAV)
B file: C:\Users\INTEL EXTREME 9650\Music\ABX TESTING\Track06.wav (Converted Original Wav lossless to 256KBps then back to Wav)


14:51:08 1/1 p=50.0%
14:51:48 2/2 p=25.0%
14:52:40 3/3 p=12.5%
14:56:02 4/4 p=6.2%
00:28:29 5/5 p=3.1%
00:31:48 6/6 p=1.6%
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post #2 of 18
10/13/09 at 4:35am
TYVM
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post #3 of 18
10/13/09 at 10:47am
I suggest training with an ABX tool that provides immediate audible feedback. Also make sure you can do the test without having to open your eyes. Also only do the ABX when you aren't feeling tired, as I find this reduces the score by a lot.
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post #4 of 18
10/13/09 at 12:54pm
Looks good to me.
Aka you can hear an audible difference between Audio CD and MP3 at 96, 128 and 256kbps. Those specific files that is.
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post #5 of 18
10/14/09 at 10:32am
Quote:
Originally Posted by krmathis View Post
Looks good to me.
Aka you can hear an audible difference between Audio CD and MP3 at 96, 128 and 256kbps. Those specific files that is.
Not quite, 96, 128 sure, but 256 you really need a minimum of 10 trials to avoid lucky streaks biasing the results, I have had runs of 6 or 7 in FooBar just by guessing, 10 trials is better.
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post #6 of 18
10/14/09 at 11:24am
I've yesterday taken a test of FLAC vs mp3 320 and well, scored 8/10.
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post #7 of 18
10/14/09 at 1:28pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by nick_charles View Post
Not quite, 96, 128 sure, but 256 you really need a minimum of 10 trials to avoid lucky streaks biasing the results, I have had runs of 6 or 7 in FooBar just by guessing, 10 trials is better.
Ok, fair enough.
Wonder why he did not complete 10 trials for 256, while doing so for the two lower bitrates. Especially when the result were identical after 6 trials for all of them.
1.6% chance of guessing that is...
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post #8 of 18
10/14/09 at 3:51pm
There's no way to guarantee you're going to be able to hear a difference. There's a chance you'll have a killer track that has a difference and a chance that there's no way to discern them at all. More tracks AFAIK fall into the latter category.

This also isn't taking into account what encoder you're using, how you encoded them, etc.
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post #9 of 18
10/18/09 at 11:28am
I read your thread title as saying that the bitrate you picked was 98 million, 128 thousand and 256 thousand bits per second. That would work up to... 98 gigabytes per second?

I was wondering what kind of DAC you had to decode that file.
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post #10 of 18
11/4/09 at 8:14am
Quote:
Originally Posted by moogoob View Post
I read your thread title as saying that the bitrate you picked was 98 million, 128 thousand and 256 thousand bits per second. That would work up to... 98 gigabytes per second?

I was wondering what kind of DAC you had to decode that file.
I just sneezed cornflakes and milk all over my keyboard!



EK
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post #11 of 18
11/4/09 at 2:45pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by moogoob View Post
I read your thread title as saying that the bitrate you picked was 98 million, 128 thousand and 256 thousand bits per second. That would work up to... 98 gigabytes per second?

I was wondering what kind of DAC you had to decode that file.
Nay, Giga means billion not million.
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post #12 of 18
11/5/09 at 8:13pm
If it's so hard to tell 320kbps from FLAC, what's the point? Assuming there are no lucky guesses, you have proved that FLAC is superior but not night and day superior. Just saying.

Oh and I used to think 160kbps was great and with ok gear, it sounds . .. . crap. lol
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post #13 of 18
11/6/09 at 1:03pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by MomijiTMO View Post
If it's so hard to tell 320kbps from FLAC, what's the point? Assuming there are no lucky guesses, you have proved that FLAC is superior but not night and day superior. Just saying.
Exactly!
Just use FLAC (or any other lossless codec) and be done with it. No need to worry if you are missing out of something or not...
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post #14 of 18
11/18/09 at 5:43am
Out of curiosity, what programs are people using for these ABX tests, where can I get them, and how do they work? So far I've just been playing a lossy version and a lossless one and opening my eyes to see if I got it!
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post #15 of 18
11/22/09 at 1:17am
Quote:
Originally Posted by cyberidd View Post
Out of curiosity, what programs are people using for these ABX tests, where can I get them, and how do they work? So far I've just been playing a lossy version and a lossless one and opening my eyes to see if I got it!
I second this. I've been wanting to try doing some tests but I don't know what method/programs to use.
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