Best Lossy Format?
Sep 28, 2009 at 8:59 AM Post #32 of 57
Sep 28, 2009 at 11:20 AM Post #36 of 57
atracplus has never fared well when placed next to other formats including lossless unless you take a page from sony's marketing advertisements. it is document in hydrogenaudo website also.

i should edit this to say though, that Sony and microsoft and apple are the only ones to make me smile and include gapless playback. i used atrac for live recording for many years and got into himd and pcm lossless recording, but my excellent auvi recorder unfortunately did not support pcm and the sony were far slower, made more noises and didn't have 30 second buffering.
 
Sep 28, 2009 at 12:43 PM Post #37 of 57
Quote:

atracplus has never fared well when placed next to other formats including lossless


What do you mean about lossless?
Lossless is better than atrac3plus lossy? That is obvious.
"Usual" lossless is better than atrac3plus lossless? That is obvious false, lossless is lossless independent of codec used.
 
Sep 28, 2009 at 2:51 PM Post #38 of 57
Quote:

Originally Posted by thread /img/forum/go_quote.gif
Doh, I knew that. Of course I think of ogg cuz it's the extension.

Though one could also say that the Vorbis part is assumed -- especially given the context... and that I was just calling "Ogg Vorbis," the Vorbis codec used within the Ogg container, Ogg for short.

tongue.gif



Ok, then we talk similar language ..
smile.gif

I just pointed out because it seems like most people refer to Ogg as a lossy audio codec without knowing what it really is.
 
Sep 28, 2009 at 10:16 PM Post #39 of 57
Quote:

Originally Posted by penartur /img/forum/go_quote.gif
Has anyone compared Atrac3plus to AAC? What is better on 256+ bitrates?


Having an A829 and a host of ATRAC player/recorders, I've done unofficial results: I think in general AAC256 is the equivalent of HiSP (256kbps) and AAC320 or better (I use AAC350VBR) is the rough equivalent of ATRAC3+/352. These are extremely unscientific (by ear) of course, but based on 'the Sony sound' on these DAPs, close. I will point out (again) that a 3 minute song in ATRAC3+/352 is approximately 3MB, while the same song in AAC350 is approximately 7MB. With higher capacity DAPs this makes less and less difference, but ATRAC3+ is still gapless making it a still desirable format that I'd wish Sony would continue to offer in North America (c'mon Sony, a 64GB A840 that carries A3+ as an option...). Cheers.
 
Sep 29, 2009 at 3:14 AM Post #40 of 57
Tonight, I decided to try OGG Vorbis -q 0.8. It sounds really good, and takes up about 1/4 of the space of FLAC. Soon, I'll convert more of my stuff from FLAC over to it, but certainly not all of it. I'm converting songs that weren't mastered and/or recorded very well and songs I don't listen to a whole lot but I still want to have on my iPod. So far, I'm very pleased with this quantity/quality compromise. The soundstage still seems as wide as FLAC, instruments are still separated quite well, and I'm not hearing any audible distortion or "metallic" sounds that I heard with 128 MP3 and 128 AAC. There seems to be slightly less "life," but in a blind test, I doubt I could tell the difference (at least for now).

For a while, I used 192 WMA (not WMA Pro) with my 120GB Zune (unamped with Sony MDR-EX55's which were given away to a friend later on). After a few months, I switched back to WMA lossless and almost immediately heard a whole new layer of sound that just wasn't there with 192 WMA. I was reluctant to try OGG Vorbis (or any lossy codec), but from what I'm hearing so far, I really like it.

Whatever you do, I highly suggest staying at a bitrate of 192 or above. MP3 and WMA (I'm sure AAC and OGG do too, but I haven't tested them yet) sound very listenable at this point, but going lower really starts to bring out the flaws of lossy codecs (distortion, "metallic" sounds, etc.).
 
Sep 29, 2009 at 4:42 AM Post #41 of 57
Quote:

Originally Posted by fredman22 /img/forum/go_quote.gif
Having an A829 and a host of ATRAC player/recorders, I've done unofficial results


Thanks for an answer
smily_headphones1.gif

So, for NW-series i should use widely-supported AAC in favor of ATRAC in the cases i don't need "true" gapless?
 
Sep 29, 2009 at 4:59 AM Post #42 of 57
of course atrac3plus doesn't perform well against lossless, but sony engineers have since 1996 told the world that atrac is the equivalent of DAT at 48k and 16 bit. The whole format has been engineered to sound more dynamic than CD or other formats simply to make it 'sound better' when it doesn't sound as much like the original. As soon as my mind got out of Sony's gutter, I was able to think again... what a nice feeling.
 
Sep 30, 2009 at 4:39 PM Post #43 of 57
Thanks for all the help everyone.

From what i'm hearing, OGG Vorbis is best sounding, but least universal, while MP3 is worst sounding but almost completely universal, with AAC in the middle.

Considering I use iPod and AAC is sort of a middle ground i think i'll stick with AAC. Thanks!

Do you think sound technology will ever progress to the point us normal music fans will be able to tell the difference between Lossy and Lossless?
 
Sep 30, 2009 at 9:03 PM Post #44 of 57
Quote:

Originally Posted by JohntheChristian /img/forum/go_quote.gif
Do you think sound technology will ever progress to the point us normal music fans will be able to tell the difference between Lossy and Lossless?


What do you mean by "normal music fans"? Do you mean non-audiophiles with halfway decent (or slightly worse) equipment, kids with 10,000 songs on their iPods, or something else? As for the average iPod owner being able to tell the difference, I could only imagine it being 128 MP3 or 128 AAC compared to a lossless file. Unless Apple sends out ADDIEMs with every iPod they sell, the average iPod user isn't going to care or even know what lossy or lossless means.

I know people that use iBuds that say they can hear a difference between 128 and 256 AAC. Does that count? Even two years ago when I used $10 Sony earbuds, I still felt unsatisfied with 128 MP3 and 128 AAC. Now I'm happy with FLAC, but I'm switching over alot of my stuff to OGG. It's stuff that isn't audiophile quality to begin with and the negligible difference that I can't hear yet is completely worth the ~75% less space it takes up (so far).

Forgot about this suggestion earlier, but why don't you try out different lossy formats at different bitrates and do some tests yourself? Get a good-sounding CD and rip it with dBpoweramp in secure mode. I'm pretty sure there's a free trial of it, and there's addons for it to where it can deal with almost any audio codec you can think of.
 
Sep 30, 2009 at 10:13 PM Post #45 of 57
Hmm. Well its hard to say what i mean, because while i am not an audiophile i do think i have a higher than average ear. (Dynamic compression is the only audiophile no no i can usually detect, Metallica's Death Magnetic was great music compressed to crappiness).

Whenever possible I buy physical cds and rip to 256 or 320 Kbps AAC. I can hear the difference between 256/320 and 128, though admittedly with my equipment i have trouble hearing any diff between 256 and 320.

Listening VERY VERY VERY VERY VERY closely i feel I can hear a SLIGHT difference between high quality lossy and lossless (treble seems more "crisp") but as I strain to hear the difference its not enough to bother me.

I hear no difference between my ipod and my computer, using the same earphones. (
 
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