Ogg -q4 transparent to you? Options

[TimSee]

I'm -q1 all the way. I use FLAC for my home stereo setup (Sonos) and Vorbis -q1 for my flash based DAP...allows me to carry around ~35% more tracks vs -q4 with no discernible difference (to me).

My recommendation -- setup some listening tests and see how low you can go!!

[Martin H]

I use aoTuV-b5/Lancer encoded Vorbis track files at it's default compression level(-q3, which averages at about 112KB) for PC playback(and FLAC images for archiving), since in ABX tests then i personally find -q3 to be perfectly transparent to me. I didn't try to go lower though, as even though i maybe could get away with using a lower setting, then i thought that it would be wise to have a little safety margin for possible problem samples. Before changing to Vorbis, then i used LAME at it's -V5 setting and so by using Vorbis instead of MP3, then i am able to save a little extra space on my lossy collection, since Vorbis -q3 uses about the same average bitrate as LAME -V6 does

This post has been edited by Martin H: Feb 9 2007, 12:14

[rudefyet]

With aotuvb4 to b5, -q4 makes my music is transparent to me about 80-90% of the time.

I haven't tested older versions, but i remember lots of bad noises in -q4 w/ libvorbis 1.0 back when I first really got my own computer.

I've abxed quite a few tracks, and most the time aotuv is transparent to me, only a few choice tracks have not been. Comparing it to LAME and iTunes AAC, it always gave me a larger quantity of transparent results, so I prefer it.

Since my iPod is now broken, I'll be looking into a new player that either runs rockbox, or supports Vorbis natively.

I stick with -q4 for size reasons. -q5 would probably make everything I have transparent, but then again I can't drag myself to go lower then 128kbps either to save more space. It's an OCD thing.

This post has been edited by rudefyet: Feb 8 2007, 20:30

[gameplaya15143]

BTW: with the new b5, I can see (by no way hear) low-level noise in the spectrum at about 20kHz (with 1kHz bandwidth) when using q5 that did not appear when encoding to q5 with aoTuV r1. What is the cause of this?

Are you referring to the occasional 'stuff' above the lowpass frequency (as seen with a spectrum analyzer like analfreq)? That has been happening with all versions I have tested. Drop the lowpass to 10khz or something and see if you can hear it (try using wavgain before encoding and see what happens )

Is q4 transparent for me? In general yes, but I don't feel like wasting that much space when q0 with the lowpass boosted makes me plenty happy.

[Bourne]

I did a pratical listening test to figure the superiority of OGG over MP3.

Depeche Mode - Policy of Truth (Violator, 1990)
Kraftwerk - Homecomputer (Minimum-Maximum CD2, 2004)

These two songs have quite a good dose of well mastered bass, and loads of cymbals and subtleties.

Each song had a version:

WAV
OGG Q2
OGG Q1
OGG Q0
LAME V6
LAME V7

With LAME, you can easily pick up that V7 is unusable, coz it drops straight to 32kHz in that setting. V6 would be pretty transparent if not for the bass that is less present and less dense than the WAV.

With OGG, the funny thing is that all are seem transparent and similar to WAV, I kept encoded all the way down to Q -1.0 to see if it became anything like LAME V6. And no... not even the Q -1.0 setting was anything like V6, but with much superior quality. Although the Q -1.0 I found the cymbals a bit "fuzzy" compared to WAV. But it was quite transparent at Q1, Q0.

Of course, these are my personal testing, for what I could catch up. I ended up with the files:

Policy of Truth WAV - 50MB
Policy of Truth V6 - 4.4 MB
Policy of Truth Q0 - 2.3 MB

Homecomputer WAV - 61MB
Homecomputer V6 - 5.7 MB
Homecomputer Q0 - 3.0 MB

[shadowking]

With OGG artifacts are just a bit different than mp3 - coarse fat sound, noise, stereo image irregularities. I can pick it up at 64-80k even outside abx. I doesn't sound half bad for the bitrate and aotuv version are much improved, but I would not want to listen to it at home on music that I like.

This post has been edited by shadowking: Feb 10 2007, 05:37

[ChesterB]

Offtopic

Nice avatar shadowking
Paradise Lost are great.

[shadowking]

Hehe.. Thanks , I want a PL tatoo !

[Nikaki]

I "ABX"ed with Winamp a while back. I created samples and put them in the Winamp playlist in random order, so I don't know if this counts as "ABX".

Result: I was always able to ABX -q1, barely able -q2 and -q3 was transparent to me 100% of the time.

At -q2, the only samples I was able to ABX were all of the psy trance samples (the beat sounded flat) and AC/DC's bell in the into of "Hell's Bells".

I encode at -q5 because of plain paranoia


Edit:
Paradise Lost rules Draconian Times is still one of my favorite albums, even if I bought it right after it got released.

This post has been edited by Nikaki: Mar 7 2007, 11:00

[HbG]

I can ABX q2, but i'm fine with q1 for portable listening. At home i got my .flac files.
As for 128kbps, remember that it scores very high on listening tests even with LAME MP3. IMHO the idea that more than 128kbps is somehow required for decent quality is horribly outdated.

Anyway, this thread needs a poll. It'd be useful to see what -q levels are most common these days.

[pepoluan]

Anyway, this thread needs a poll. It'd be useful to see what -q levels are most common these days.

I agree. I suggest multiple questions:
- What -q level you use at home (with option: No Vorbis @ home)
- What -q level you use on the road (with option: Never on the road)
- What -q level *in your experience* is transparent enough for at least 90% of your music collection (with option: Never test this objectively)

The -q level should range from -2 to 6 (10 options only, IIRC. Besides, I don't believe -q 6 is not transparent enough for 90% of the musics in the universe)

Any other suggestion? If no, then someone should start the poll.

Edit: Mistyped '6' as '7'. Corrected.

This post has been edited by pepoluan: Mar 7 2007, 16:53

[rockcake]

The -q level should range from -2 to 6 (10 options only, IIRC. Besides, I don't believe -q 6 is not transparent enough for 90% of the musics in the universe)

Any other suggestion?

Or perhaps the first & last options should be "less than -q-1" and "more than -q5" or something like that.

The results of the poll (if it gets done) would be interesting, but as has been said many times before, one's own needs/priorities/perceptions are more important for these things than everyone else's; after all, I'm the one listening to my music, not everyone else.

Edit: forgot to say that I use -q2 for my CDs and -q3 for friends' CDs (ahem! - purely for evaluation purposes only! Of course I delete the files after I've 'evaluated' the music, your honour! Each and every time! )

This post has been edited by rockcake: Mar 8 2007, 03:14

[pepoluan]

Of course I delete the files after I've 'evaluated' the music, your honour! Each and every time! )

*cough* I usually *cough* forgot *cough* to delete the files...

[dyneq]

Anyway, this thread needs a poll. It'd be useful to see what -q levels are most common these days.

I agree. I suggest multiple questions:
- What -q level you use at home (with option: No Vorbis @ home)
- What -q level you use on the road (with option: Never on the road)
- What -q level *in your experience* is transparent enough for at least 90% of your music collection (with option: Never test this objectively)

The -q level should range from -2 to 6 (10 options only, IIRC. Besides, I don't believe -q 6 is not transparent enough for 90% of the musics in the universe)

Any other suggestion? If no, then someone should start the poll.

Edit: Mistyped '6' as '7'. Corrected.

I have a suggestion, but I'm not sure how to implement it in the poll: try to ascertain whether people got their opinions/findings via ABX or not. Maybe, "I came to my conclusions based on..."?

[DreamTactix291]

I haven't been able to ABX anything encoded with aoTuV b5 that's in my music collection at -q4, but I use -q5 as an added bit of security (plenty of room on my DAP). Used to use -q6 but realised I'm just wasting space.

Vorbis has come a long way quality wise thanks to aoyumi. I'm sure there are problem samples out there, but for the majority of music -q4 is impressive (and I'd wager the same for a lot of stuff at -q2 and -q3 though I haven't really tried ABXing much at those -q levels).

[Raptus]

Ogg -q4 transparent to you?

Not always. I managed to ABX a few non-killer samples at q5 so I use q6 for my collection.

[pepoluan]

In finality, I guess the acceptability of -q4 depends on (in no particular order):

- Quality of speakers
- Quality of listeners
- Ambient noise
- Expectancy of listener
- Nature of encoded waveform (i.e. problem samples/killer tracks)

So a listening test is the only way to determine if -q4 (or any value) is transparent for a particular person, with a particular setup, in a particular situation.

[Zarggg]

I used to use -q6 before switching to MPC for a while. Now that I've back on Vorbis, I'm using -q5.

But I'm still not sure if that's transparent.

[Silversight]

With most music, -q4 is transparent to me, but for the safety margin I use -q5 for home listening. On my laptop, where space is quite limited, -q3 sounds good enough for me (for comedy CDs, -q0.5 is sufficient).

pepoluan's (I think) tip to un-train one's artifact listening is really good.

[zima]

Absolutelly transparent.

Disclaimer: Totally against TOS #8...didn't do much ABXing except occasionally for HA listening test. And I want it that way...I feel no need to train myself in capturing flaws of lossy audio compression.

This post has been edited by zima: Mar 22 2007, 12:32

[Kef]

Yeah it's transparent to me. I could easily abx q0 & q1, I had problems with q2 but I could still abx it. I was unable to abx q3 so I took the safe route and I use q4 for all my music. I tested with AoTuV b5 on my favorite tracks.

I'm sure I can find songs / problem samples where I can abx q4 as well but I don't see the point of it. q4 is simply good enough for me.

/Kef

[pepoluan]

With most music, -q4 is transparent to me, but for the safety margin I use -q5 for home listening. On my laptop, where space is quite limited, -q3 sounds good enough for me (for comedy CDs, -q0.5 is sufficient).

pepoluan's (I think) tip to un-train one's artifact listening is really good.

Yup, that's me:

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....st&p=425910

If one don't unlearn after ABX, his/her ear-brain auditory system will be very sensitive to artifacts, even to the point of hearing artifacts that are *actually* in the original recording. Like I did when I didn't unlearn after some intense ABX session.

If you are not (yet) fluent in unlearning your auditory system, here's a shortcut:

With a DAP, go out to a rather noisy environment (e.g. a park where there's a lot of children playing, preferably near a rather busy road so there's low-frequency rumbling of traffic), and listen to any non-transparent audio track. Lie back, enjoy your time in the shades (keep away from heatstroke, heh), and relax. Enjoy the music. The key: relax. You're unwinding your auditory system.

Then you can start unlearning after you've unwound your auditory system.

Trust me: For personal use and enjoyment, ABX-ing is totally useless. You'll never be able to enjoy your songs again, always worrying that it is non-transparently encoded.

Which is why, in the poll, I did listening tests but not ABX test, to determine what -q I shall use. Just simple test to hear if the song become less enjoyable.

[penvzila]

For my mp3 player & headphones, -q2 is sufficiently transparent.

I've been using this encoder:

http://homepage3.nifty.com/blacksword/

under wine in linux, because it seems the default oggenc doesn't support multiple cores, and I like the speed.

[naylor83]

For my mp3 player & headphones, -q2 is sufficiently transparent.

I've been using this encoder:

http://homepage3.nifty.com/blacksword/

under wine in linux, because it seems the default oggenc doesn't support multiple cores, and I like the speed.

Yeah those lancer builds sure are zippy.

[micmac]

Yeah it's transparent to me. I could easily abx q0 & q1, I had problems with q2 but I could still abx it. I was unable to abx q3 so I took the safe route and I use q4 for all my music.
/Kef

Hello!

Same here. Yesterday I spent 1,5 hours trying to ABX ~10-15 samples of
music I like, all of it classical, pop, rock or metal, using foobar2000's ABX
utility. I made samples from flacs and encoded them with -q -2, -1, ..., 6
using libvorbis with the aotuv r1 patch.

Everytime I was able to tell the difference I dropped the rest of the samples
of the same quality. -q -2 to -q 0 were not too difficult, -q 1 and especially -q2
I found hard to ABX. In the end I couldn't ABX any sample I encoded
with -q 3. I had already encoded my collection with -q 4, so I guess I'm
lucky that way, because I'd have added +1 as a safety net.

I'm not deaf yet, I can still hear the the mosquito ringtone loud and clear
and every "broken" tube tv emitting this high pitched noise makes me want
to leave the room. I'm pretty amazed what vorbis and aotuv can do.

Regards
micmac

This post has been edited by micmac: May 15 2007, 08:57