[nick_charles]

Quote:

How is anything over half not significant?  The controlled tests are propaganda to keep CD around and not move technology forward.

Are you being serious ?
 
Do you have any knowledge about probabilities, 6/10 is absolutely not significant, 60/100 is , it is all about the likelihood of obtaining a given result by chance. 6/10 is very likely by chance while 60/100 is much much less so, the more trials you run the better the strength of the statistical tests.
 
As for your last sentence, this does not seem likely given the large players who are continually attempting to get folks to part with money to get yet another music format, this is by no means new - LP, Quad, Compact Cassette, 8-Track,VHS, CD,DAT,R-DAT, DCC, Minidisc, HDCD, SACD, DVD-A, Blu-Ray audio the list goes on and on.....

 

[ramicio]

CD itself is only around anymore because of audio.  Games are larger than CD-ROM anymore.  I can't think of any instance where the CD medium is useful anymore.  They don't even make CD-ROM or CD-RW only drives anymore.  How many different 120mm discs do we need?  How many different wavelength optics do we need to keep cramming into read heads?  It's getting ridiculous.  It's not like a new format on say DVD would be bad, DVD has been here for a while, and it's basically the same technology, just shorter wavelength, so it's not like much would need to be adapted.  24/96 would have plenty of room on DVD5, and artists wouldn't need to put out 2 discs for longer albums.  24/192 would be a little over 2 hours on DVD9.  It's not going to hurt the sound to upgrade.  They could even make tighter standards on what could be called the format, and even bring loudness into it, so if artists want loud music, then it won't constrain to the format and therefore they won't be able to label it as such.  Even metadata could be added to have a loud version or a normal version to apply DRC, or even 2 different versions entirely!  I could understand if they were trying to push a whole new medium entirely, which could be good depending on what it is.  Flash memory could be viable.
 
People bitch about HD video having film grain which they didn't see on DVD.  They'd see it if they were watching it on film.  People just get adapted to lower-res stuff, and when a new format comes out that blows the old one away, they are going to see the physical imperfections of what the cameras themselves can't hide.  Ya don't bitch about film grain in the theater, why do it for home video?

 

[fuzzy1969]

dvd5 is also sacd single layer format which has been around a while

 

[jbluzb86]

For me 192 KBS has more relevant effect in classical and rock music. But relatively slow songs quality is barely noticeable.  
 
But on some poorly mastered records dynamics are lost due to compression. You can actually hear it in music loosing difference in soft and loud sounds.

 

[cuznsteve]

iTunes was in AAC Encoder, and 256......it offered a b unch lower kbps but hoigher was  288 kpbs and 320 kbps, ...isnt 320 better than 256? bit rate and  setting switches to costom but is iTunesPlus better? and VBR, is this really truly better than say High Efficiency? (settings) see iTunes, Edit, Prefrences, Advanceed, under General.get back to me ---email...thanks.....cuznsteve

 

[CyberGhost]

An unfortunate part of this is that Windows XP (if you're using it) handles audio poorly. This is a well known problem. Comparing tracks over XP and then switching to your portable could yield different results. Make sure you are using Kernel Streaming or ASIO when you do an A/B comparison in XP.

 
THANK, YOU!
 
What a difference, I've been listening to foobar through DirectSound on XP for years! Some tracks sounded clear but harsh, so I thought it was just the way the track was encoded, recorded or that my equipment simply could not handle it. I think I deleted couple of tracks and chose a less harsher version because of this.
 
Saw your post, got Kernel Streaming plug in, I repeat... what, a, difference! The clarity went up, the harshness is gone! Amazing! Thank you sir, thank you!
 
For the future, does Windows 7 or 8 have these problems?

 

[adisib]

 
For the future, does Windows 7 or 8 have these problems?

 
No. After windows XP they added WASAPI for lower-latency audio, and services for prioritizing CPU resources for time-sensitive data like audio, and I believe XP only had 16 bit audio processing which was increased in Vista. Windows Vista and onwards can play bit-perfect audio no worse than Mac's OS. People generally prefer to play their music in Vista Onwards using WASAPI's exclusive mode, so that the Windows mixer is bypassed entirely and no outside sounds can interfere with music. Kernel streaming is no longer needed.

 

[blades]

I've always ripped my files in 192 kbs audio format, but some people will only accept 320 kbs. Is there really an audible difference? If I ripped all my music in 320 would there be a noticble difference in sound or will I just be using up more space? What about 192 kbs and windows lossless?

Also, is there a sound difference between mp3 and wma?

 
I've done many bias controlled tests.  In my tests 320 and 256kbps MP3 sound the same as an original CD.  192 begins to show some sonic degradation and 128 is really noticeable.  Below that MP3's sound awful to me.  MP3 and WMA are comparable.  What matters is not so much the encoding but rather the amount of digital compression.

 

[CyberGhost]

   
No. After windows XP they added WASAPI for lower-latency audio, and services for prioritizing CPU resources for time-sensitive data like audio, and I believe XP only had 16 bit audio processing which was increased in Vista. Windows Vista and onwards can play bit-perfect audio no worse than Mac's OS. People generally prefer to play their music in Vista Onwards using WASAPI's exclusive mode, so that the Windows mixer is bypassed entirely and no outside sounds can interfere with music. Kernel streaming is no longer needed.

Thank you for the explanation adisib!

 

[nicholars]

I've always ripped my files in 192 kbs audio format, but some people will only accept 320 kbs. Is there really an audible difference? If I ripped all my music in 320 would there be a noticble difference in sound or will I just be using up more space? What about 192 kbs and windows lossless?

Also, is there a sound difference between mp3 and wma?

 
If you honestly cannot tell the difference between a 192kbps and a 320kbps you either have very cheap headphones (although it should still be noticeable) or hearing loss, I can 90% of the time notice a quite big difference between FLAC and 320kbps (although 320 sounds decent), anything under 320kbs I instantly notice it sounds bad, anything 192kb or under is just poor.

 

[cswann1]

If you honestly can tell the difference...I truly feel sorry for you.  And I would bet a large amount of money in a true blind comparrison test you'd identify the higher bit-rate files roughly 50% of the time.

 

[cjl]

I can 90% of the time notice a quite big difference between FLAC and 320kbps (although 320 sounds decent), anything under 320kbs I instantly notice it sounds bad, anything 192kb or under is just poor.

Have you tested yourself recently? 320 is pretty much audibly transparent (meaning that there is no audible difference between 320 and FLAC) if encoded properly.

 

[nicholars]

  Have you tested yourself recently? 320 is pretty much audibly transparent (meaning that there is no audible difference between 320 and FLAC) if encoded properly.

 
As I said 320kbps sounds decent, but FLAC seems better, anything under 320kbs starts to sound quite bad, 256 is sometimes acceptable but 192 and lower is just bad. I don't need to test myself because I do it all the time when listening to music, I put a track on, think "hmm this sounds bad I bet it is low bitrate" and it always is, if you have decent equipment and headphones it becomes painfully obvious the difference between anything under 320kbps to the point I do not listen to hardly anything under 320kbps, most of the time I listen to FLAC... The differences with FLAC and 320kbps are more subtle and more noticeable on good headphones / equipment, 320kbps is decent though I don't mind listening to that, but with broadband these days I have no idea why people encode at anything lower than 320kbps. Not sure I could 100% tell the difference between flac and 320 every time in blind A/B but I could tell the difference between 320 and 192 or 128 every time.

 

[castleofargh]

Quote:

...I don't need to test myself...

...if you have decent equipment and headphones...

 
typical.
 
 

The differences with FLAC and 320kbps are more subtle and more noticeable on good headphones / equipment, things like frequency extension, detail, seperation, sibilance etc.

that also tells a lot about your actual expertise on 320mp3...

 

[nicholars]

  Quote:
 
typical.
 
 
that also tells a lot about your actual expertise on 320mp3...

 
mmm thanks for the derogatory tone in your post.... To be honest everything I said is 100% correct... Not really interested in arguing about it, but as I already said 320kbps is fine and can not always be A/B from FLAC, 128 and 192 are just bad, 256 is sometimes *ok*, FLAC does sound noticeably better than 320kbps most of the time with good recordings, using more expensive headphones the differences become a lot more obvious, sorry but what I have said is 100% correct and you probably don't know what you are talking about.