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Topic: Helix vs. Lame (Read 11343 times) previous topic - next topic
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Helix vs. Lame

So I've seen that Helix was rated equal if not superior to Lame at the last mp3 listening test. I've done a few tests with Helix on my own at 192 kbps with the result that it does a lot better than Lame on many "killer" samples. However there are issues with the handling of high frequencies at bass heavy material, e.g. that quite audible content is removed when a kick appears (was also noticed in this thread), which seems to be little dependent on how high the choosen bitrate/quality is.
From that perspective alone I would prefer Helix, also regarding the encoding speed, but I don't know if this is the only "Achilles heel" of this encoder. Are there any other reasons than the performance at high frequencies to choose Lame qualitywise over Helix?

Helix vs. Lame

Reply #1
So I've seen that Helix was rated equal if not superior to Lame at the last mp3 listening test. I've done a few tests with Helix on my own at 192 kbps with the result that it does a lot better than Lame on many "killer" samples. However there are issues with the handling of high frequencies at bass heavy material, e.g. that quite audible content is removed when a kick appears...

Which mp3 listening test are you referring to?  I'd be interested in seeing the results - particularly since my hearing isn't good enough to ABX even so-called "killer samples" at high bitrates on either player.

That said.  I've been using halb27's 3.100h LAME variant and have been very happy with the results.  LAME 3.100 is an alpha build that is reported to resolve most of the preecho issues with earlier versions of LAME.  And halb27's h variant forces higher bitrates in certain situations, which typically resolves temporal or tonal issues.

Helix vs. Lame

Reply #2
You can find the listening test here. The killer samples I've used are mostly easy ones to catch, as Lame is introducing obvious distortions/glitches at the midrange there, haven't checked them with Halb's extension yet, though.

Helix vs. Lame

Reply #3
You can find the listening test here. The killer samples I've used are mostly easy ones to catch, as Lame is introducing obvious distortions/glitches at the midrange there, haven't checked them with Halb's extension yet, though.

If you want to try, it would be very interesting to learn about Lame 3.100a2's behavior which has the potential to improve problems. Sure the results of my extension are interesting as well.
lame3995o -Q1.7 --lowpass 17

Helix vs. Lame

Reply #4
If you want to try, it would be very interesting to learn about Lame 3.100a2's behavior which has the potential to improve problems. Sure the results of my extension are interesting as well.

They are all present here on HA, not that many ones from myself though:
Sycho Active
Meduzz (Pre-echos)
Poquito Mas (Already included in the sample section of 3.100h)

I compared V2 of 3.100a2 and V2+ of your 3.100h extension with these, with the result that it performs better on the last two but not really much on the first one, despite the bitrate boost.

Helix vs. Lame

Reply #5
Thanks for testing.
Does Helix provide a better quality for these samples?
lame3995o -Q1.7 --lowpass 17

Helix vs. Lame

Reply #6
From that perspective alone I would prefer Helix, also regarding the encoding speed, but I don't know if this is the only "Achilles heel" of this encoder. Are there any other reasons than the performance at high frequencies to choose Lame qualitywise over Helix?

What i like on lame is that gapless works really well. Helix has no delay/padding info for playback.
Is troll-adiposity coming from feederism?
With 24bit music you can listen to silence much louder!

Helix vs. Lame

Reply #7
Thanks for testing.
Does Helix provide a better quality for these samples?

Helix did worse at the Sycho Active sample, but was on par/better at the rest with -V120/192kbps, at least to my ears.

From that perspective alone I would prefer Helix, also regarding the encoding speed, but I don't know if this is the only "Achilles heel" of this encoder. Are there any other reasons than the performance at high frequencies to choose Lame qualitywise over Helix?

What i like on lame is that gapless works really well. Helix has no delay/padding info for playback.

That's fortunately not an issue for me as a non-audiobook-listener, but still a good point.


Helix vs. Lame

Reply #9
You mean like fades between songs on an album? Forgot about that, why didn't get it fixed btw?

Helix vs. Lame

Reply #10
This thread makes me wonder if the LAME and Helix teams have considered joining forces.  Why have two competing encoders when you can have one that is the best of both worlds?

Helix vs. Lame

Reply #11
This thread makes me wonder if the LAME and Helix teams have considered joining forces.  Why have two competing encoders when you can have one that is the best of both worlds?


Generally speaking, the challenges of merging two very different approaches to the same problem are often greater then just improving each individually.


Helix vs. Lame

Reply #13
Generally speaking, the challenges of merging two very different approaches to the same problem are often greater then just improving each individually.

That's probably true.  Still, if Helix and LAME both use relatively similar principles - i.e. if they both use a psychoacoustic model - it might be possible to conjure up a program which encodes each frame under both models and then keeps the "most accurate" frame.

And yes, that may make no sense whatsoever given the technical details of how the two work.

Helix vs. Lame

Reply #14
While one MP3 encoder puts a short block another will put long block. Both can have good reasons to do so.
You can't get the best of both because it will imply to go with short and long blocks at the same time.

Some recent codecs can use long and short blocks at the same time at different frequency bands. But MP3 format doesn't allow it.

Helix vs. Lame

Reply #15
I think I've found the reason for the mentioned poor high frequency handling, at least in some cases. It seems to be simply a bug that content at the right beginning of a file is not encoded properly. If this "beginning" part is set somewhere else, everything's fine again. Can it be fixed somehow?