Personal evaluation at ~130..135 kbps, 200 samples, AAC (iTunes, Nero) - MP3 - Vorbis aoTuV Options

[henkersmahlzeit]

Thanks Thanks Thanks ... what a job!

[Zurman]

Surprising to see how close Vorbis and iTunes are to the high anchor. I guess one could safely use 160kbps VBR for transparency with iTunes now (I previously used 192kbps).

Well, I think this test shows exactly the contrary
Good quality, yes, but transparency, no (at least to Guru's ears )

[rjamorim]

Surprising to see how close Vorbis and iTunes are to the high anchor. I guess one could safely use 160kbps VBR for transparency with iTunes now (I previously used 192kbps).

Well, I think this test shows exactly the contrary

How come? If VBR 128 comes close to transparency even to Guruboolez, VBR 160 should be transparent to most of us.

[Zurman]

Surprising to see how close Vorbis and iTunes are to the high anchor. I guess one could safely use 160kbps VBR for transparency with iTunes now (I previously used 192kbps).

Well, I think this test shows exactly the contrary

How come? If VBR 128 comes close to transparency even to Guruboolez, VBR 160 should be transparent to most of us.

I messed up with the bitrates

[DARcode]

Wow ! How far can a guruboolez appreciation month be now ?!

Seriously, your contribution to the community and HA site is incredible and very much appreciated, man!

A whole hearted thank you very much!

Spent the whole lunch break brwosing your results, awesome stuff!

[arman68]

Thanx!
guruboolez, how about low-bitrate comparision (64kbps and below)

I'm not very happy with the quality of current encoders at this bitrate. Not really suitable for my personal use. Curiosity would therefore be my only motivation for such exercise.

Although I do agree it would be nice to have someone as professional as guruboolez to do those tests; with such low bitrates, almost anyone can ABX and make their own mind. Why don't you try it? It is very interesting to discover the different audio artifacts introduced by lossy compression. It kinds of ruins your listening experience, as you will then recognize them easily but I think it is worth it.

This post has been edited by arman68: Nov 15 2005, 15:29

[Sunhillow]

DARcode seems to be VERY impressed

guruboolez should write for a big HiFi magazine... No, wait, he doesn't support voodoo thingies! Noone would like to read him there!

Really impressing and, as always, very conclusive. From me also a big Thank you!

[lordraiden]

Somebody can do a short conclusion about test I don't understand very well

What is the best? and the 2º.....

[kornchild2002]

Wow, thanks guruboolez as you have done so much work that I myself just could not do. I am quite surprised at the results. I is nice to see that Vorbis is still going hard and strong but I was really surprised by the iTunes mpeg-4 AAC results in that it narrowed the gap between itself and Vorbis for all sample stested. It is also nice to know that consumers can get their hands on both products for free.

Even after all the buzz about the new Nero AAC encoder it is interesting to see that it is beaten out by the iTunes AAC encoder. Hats off to the Lame community as the Lame mp3 encoder is still in healthy competition with other formats.

Again, thanks buruboolez for the results and all the hard work. I will make sure to use your results in further discussions.

[guruboolez]

Somebody can do a short conclusion about test I don't understand very well

What is the best? and the 2º.....

The absolute best encoder is the high anchor (LAME -V2 at ~190 kbps), but this setting is off-competition (bitrate is too high, and comparison with other would be unfair).
That's why the real first place is for iTunes AAC and Vorbis aoTuV, which are statistically equivalent.
With classical music, LAME is third and Nero Digital fourth.
With non-classical, LAME and Nero Digital are both last, despite the better mark obtained by Nero.

[lordraiden]

is better iTunes AAC than Nero Digital for music at 160 kbps or 190 kbps?

[guruboolez]

is better iTunes AAC than Nero Digital for music at 160 kbps or 190 kbps?

You should try yourself. There are not many people that will be ready to start a listening comparison with modern AAC encoders at high bitrate.

[Gambit]

is better iTunes AAC than Nero Digital for music at 160 kbps or 190 kbps?

You should try yourself. There are not many people that will be ready to start a listening comparison with modern AAC encoders at high bitrate.

I think that we will soon see that even the planned 128kbps test will be very hard for some people. The performance of modern codecs at those bitrates is really good, and I dare to say transparent for Joe Average's casual listening.

[arman68]

I think that we will soon see that even the planned 128kbps test will be very hard for some people. The performance of modern codecs at those bitrates is really good, and I dare to say transparent for Joe Average's casual listening.

I could not agree more. I will try to take part in the test if I find the time, but I doubt I will be able to hear any difference in most cases, unless they are problem samples.

[SirGrey]

Uh. Thanks, guruboolez !

The performance of modern codecs at those bitrates is really good, and I dare to say transparent for Joe Average's casual listening.

Yeah. I completely agree.
I'm still unsure if I should participate in 128 kbit test

[Sebastian Mares]

I'm still unsure if I should participate in 128 kbit test

It's appreciated if you do.

By the way, thanks Guru for the effort and the excellent test!

This post has been edited by Sebastian Mares: Nov 15 2005, 17:23

[kuniklo]

One more voice of thanks for your thorough and professional work. Your tests should be in print somewhere.

[singaiya]

Like everybody else... wow! merci beaucoup. I think this is the last piece of evidence for my switch to Vorbis.

One interesting thing I noticed is that the high anchor (Lame V2 vbrnew) did much better with this expanded classical set than in your previous test of high bitrates
MPC vs VORBIS vs MP3 vs AAC at 180 kbps, 2nd checkup with classical music
where on those 18 classical samples it received a score of 3.6, here it gets 4.61. Actually, in that test you used 3.97alpha11 but I think there was no change to 3.97beta1.

edit: linked to post(#2), punctuation

This post has been edited by singaiya: Nov 15 2005, 18:44

[richard123]

Allow me to add my thanks.

Great job.

Makes me feel better about using iTunes AAC at 160k

[yulyo!]

Great test Guru.
it seems Nero new encoder isn't that good as Gabriel said.
by the way...where is Gabriel's and the others nero aac encoder devs?
do't get me wrong, i love Nero AAC and i hoped that the new one wil be better, but...

[Sebastian Mares]

Great test Guru.
it seems Nero new encoder isn't that good as Gabriel said. 
by the way...where is Gabriel's and the others nero aac encoder devs?
do't get me wrong, i love Nero AAC and i hoped that the new one wil be better, but...

Gabriel is a LAME developer. I think you mean Garf.

[kwanbis]

cool guru.

[yulyo!]

right
sorry, my mistake

[Garf]

Great test Guru.
it seems Nero new encoder isn't that good as Gabriel said. 
by the way...where is Gabriel's and the others nero aac encoder devs?
do't get me wrong, i love Nero AAC and i hoped that the new one wil be better, but...

1) I'd wait for results from more than 1 person before making a conclusion.
2) Guruboolez already stated it was a major improvement over his previous test.

[yulyo!]

i know Garf, it really is.
but i remember someone saiying that the new encoder will be the best encoder
by the way, great work.