High bitrate MP3 vs. Lossless ABX Tests?, Are there any studies...? Options

[Street Samurai]

Hi All,

I've been corrected before on this site for making the statement: "I can tell the difference between an MP3 and lossless". I've never ABX'ed myself but I was wondering if there has been a statistically significant (with regard to population) ABX study done with (say) Lame insane vs. Lossless?

Clearly for myself it makes more sense to do a personal ABX but I was wondering in general about the population.

I searched manually through the posts in this forum (since search seems useless for the term 'mp3') and didn't see anything.

Thanks for help,

ss.

This post has been edited by Street Samurai: Jun 2 2005, 01:02

[Jebus]

To summarize:

a) A "lossless to high-bitrate MP3 ABX" test = a "high-bitrate MP3 ABX" test. No need to specify lossless, all ABX tests are done against a lossless source by definition. A test comparing two codecs (again, against a lossless reference) would be an ABC test.

b) Even the 128kbps tests usually come up with statistically insignificant results because the public just isn't able to distinguish. So the only way you'll ever get interesting results at high-bitrates is to either do it yourself, or read the results of someone who did. Guruboolez is about the best person here for this sort of thing... he can tell the difference on some problem samples, but not must samples.

This post has been edited by Jebus: Jun 2 2005, 21:33

[Zurman]

To summarize:

a) A "lossless to high-bitrate MP3 ABX" test = a "high-bitrate MP3 ABX" test. No need to specify lossless, all ABX tests are done against a lossless source by definition. A test comparing two codecs (again, against a lossless reference) would be an ABC test.

No
mp3 ABX test does mean ABX vs original source (or lossless, it's the same), but nothing prevents you from ABXing mp3 vs mpc, mp3@128 vs mp3@256 and so on...

b) Even the 128kbps tests usually come up with statistically insignificant results because the public just isn't able to distinguish. So the only way you'll ever get interesting results at high-bitrates is to either do it yourself, or read the results of someone who did. Guruboolez is about the best person here for this sort of thing... he can tell the difference on some problem samples, but not must samples.

True.... Even in this forum, which probably is the place where most motivated and skilled people can be found, 128> listening tests don't involve many people, because all codecs are nowadays excellent (I didn't say perfect, or CD quality...) at any bitrate >= 128...

[Lyx]

True.... Even in this forum, which probably is the place where most motivated and skilled people can be found, 128> listening tests don't involve many people, because all codecs are nowadays excellent (I didn't say perfect, or CD quality...) at any bitrate >= 128...

Thats certainly true for recent times(i think the fact that most lossy codecs are "too good" is also a factor which seems demotivating to even try ABXes for many people. Multiple people mentioned that they got the feeling that "there isn't much going on in the lossy department anymore, because it is already so efficient"). However, i've heard so often that the tests on lame 3.90.3 were massive in numbers - did those also include many high-bitrate tests? I dont know, because i wasn't there, but i would guess yes, considering the reputation of preset standard? What about the pre 1.0 tests on vorbis? Were there many high-bitrate tests? And MPC? I think it would be interesting to get some info from long-time board-members, because i have the feeling the time where most of the majority of tests were done is a few years back in time. And during this "peak-time" codecs just became so good that ABXing them at high bitrates became very difficult? Insight from someone more knowledgeable would be greatly appreciated.

- Lyx