Quote: Originally posted by Pepzhez My tests, however, still show that ATRAC-R is the best lossy codec we have. It still has the edge over both MP3 and AAC. I've done some blind tests in the past comparing good quality mp3 (~200 Kbps VBR, Lame 3.90 encoder) and ATRAC 4.5 (standard...

AndreYew and Joe Bloggs are right. Quote: Originally posted by JaZZ [B] I'm about to get tired from that litany... But yes, I can imagine the filter work in a certain degree... And you also can, if only you could free yourself from that belief in dogmatic formulas and trust your own...

Quote: Originally posted by halcyon - 44.1kHz/16 bit is still resampled to 48kHz with a bad algorithm - bad intermodulation distortion (much worse than original Audigy) That intermodulation distortion is amazingly bad, and at first attributable to the resampling algorithm...

Audigy2 is still worse in terms of audio quality than non-expensive 24/96 cards from M-Audio, Echo or similar. Audigy2 still resamples 44.1 KHz audio to 48 KHz, AFAIK. I wouldn't buy anything from Creative existing several more serious soundcard makers.

Cd players have little buffers because they need them. The data written at cd's is sort of messed up at the bit level to facilitate error correction, so that in order to recover one whole 16 bit sample, you have to read quite many more than 16 bits from the cd. After a "group" of bits is...

Well, jitter exists, and I think it may be audible if high enough. However, jitter is a non-issue in any minimum quality cd player. Why? Because in a cd player, the read data that goes to the DAC is clocked exclusively with the DAC internal clock, and this same clock is the one that...

Quote: Originally posted by Joe Bloggs It would be interesting to hear opinion about mp3 from somebody who can actually hear MD artifacts... try encoding to mp3 using LAME --alt-preset standard? Pre-echo related, LAME 3.92 with --alt-preset standard is noticeabily better than ATRAC...

Quote: --alt-preset standard (LAME 3.92) (also only use EAC in secure mode to rip) Same here.

Quote: Originally posted by Sol_Zhen No way around that, but better than MP3. Not in my experience... Some MD artifacts (pre-echo) can be heard with cheap cans.

You're right, Joe. But what you suggest as a fair comparison is the same as playing the MD sample on that page and a MP3 compressed and uncompressed sample with the same soundcard or cd player.

I have to say that I have also listened to the MD sample posted at that page, and the mentioned castanets sample has a lot of pre-echo in comparison with the original sample. As I've said at another thread, a 230 Kbps VBR MP3 made with LAME 3.92 shows nearly unnoticeable pre-echo in comparison...

Well, what you hear at those samples is just ATRAC effect on those clips, not more, not less. Since the all the process is carried on digital domain, the only process altering the signal is the ATRAC encoding/decoding stage. What you suggest would be more like to compare ATRAC+ MD DAC to MP3...

Quote: Originally posted by MacDEF Regardless, modern ATRAC is still the best compression format I've yet heard, much better than any MP3 encoding I've experienced. I've listened to the some ATRAC 4.5 MD samples posted at http://www.pcabx.com/product/mds-jb920/index.htm and I...