Made listening test - can someone confirm?
Reply #4 – 2004-01-20 20:21:28
according to your suggestions i did another testing (identical source like the above). The ABX tests themselves look ok now, but there seem to be still a few (probably minor) issues:I can't see if replaygain was used for decoding to avoid clipping (or if you have checked manually (e.g. using a wave editor) if the decoded files clip. I suggested foobar2000 for decoding because, besides applying replaygain, it is able to decode mp3 encoded with lame without offset. With corrected offsets (can be done manually as well) ABX tests are more reliable. This only affects the mp3s IIRC. It would be good to provide a description of the differences you heard (not only which position in the sample, but also what it sounded like), so it's easier for others to repeat the test If you're asking yourself why the hell i did use such big lame syntaxes and didn't just use --alt-preset standard or perhaps --alt-preset extreme i'm gonna tell you why: the whole test-idea came to me as i wrote that hifi-forum thread where i was talking about selling music on the internet (like popfile.de) and how quality may be to which prices. but that isn't worth discussing because musiclabels won't sell mp3s or other non-drm-fileformats and if they'll do they won't do it with great quality, or am i wrong? I've read your post in the other forum. What I don't understand is: If you want to test settings based on your assumptions on what music labels would choose for download services, why do you test musepack and vorbis at all? BTW, there are already legal download services providing --alt-preset standard downloads. You'll find more information about it if you browse/search the "validated news" forum here.btw: wouldn't have my soundcard if it resampled the output to 48kHz (which i'm quite sure it doesn't) this also done on the original wav? wouldn't that mean that the particular error(s) must have been on all replays so it's meaningless? No. Crappy resampling can cause aliasing and distortion. Inaudible differences can become audible if 'processed' this way. A good (extreme) example is 'udial.wav' from this thread . (Read before playing back, especially the warning!)... what about you? I replied in the 1st place to help performing the ABX test correctly. I'm not sure if I would pay for music downloads unless they're losslessly compressed, and ATM I'm rather not interested in the topic. I can get the CDs I like for reasonable money e.g. used at ebay.