Pictures generated from audio files, mp3 aac ogg etc compared visually Options

[Donunus]

http://www.head-fi.org/forums/showthread.php?t=227727

What does this mean??? Does this mean that the most identical looking to the original sounds best? I posted this here cause I want a developers view of this

[Sunhillow]

There have been many questions like yours...

short answer is: the sense of hearing has other preferences than the visual sense. Comparing spectrograms does not say a lot about audible quality

[john33]

We see these misguided individuals from time to time. The whole point is that these visualisations demonstrate absolutely nothing about the quality of a lossy encoder. The only way to establish the relative merits of the different encoders at differing bitrates, etc., is to use your ears - they were made for hearing!! The eyes were made for seeing, just to state the obvious, and you wouldn't dream of using your ears to decide on the relative merits of the pictures produced using different digital camers would you? This guy obviously doesn't understand anything about the principles of how lossy encoders are designed to work. Ignore him.

[Mike Giacomelli]

What does this mean???

Probably that Head-Fi is pretty worthless for anything but speakers and headphones.

[Raiden]

The reason why Blade (nowadays an obsolete MP3 encoder) is described as "almost perfect" is the lack of a
proper psychoacoustic model. Blade (and Shine, too) just encodes without exploiting the characteristics of
human hearing.
Vorbis on the other side probably does just that, what explains the somewhat ugly frequency graph.

Isn't it amazing how many people are taken in by those pictures, even experienced head-fi member with a post
count of 1000+.
But if it gives you peace of mind, use Blade instead of lame...

[Donunus]

The reason why Blade (nowadays an obsolete MP3 encoder) is described as "almost perfect" is the lack of a
proper psychoacoustic model. Blade (and Shine, too) just encodes without exploiting the characteristics of
human hearing.
Vorbis on the other side probably does just that, what explains the somewhat ugly frequency graph.

Isn't it amazing how many people are taken in by those pictures, even experienced head-fi member with a post
count of 1000+.
But if it gives you peace of mind, use Blade instead of lame...

hehehe I have actually abxed lame and blade before and lame won hands down. I just wanted your takes on this though cause the 224 vbr aac looked darn tempting and perfect I couldn't just ignore the post that quickly.

This post has been edited by Donunus: Mar 26 2007, 19:00

[madorangepanda]

I almost feel like bothering to register on Head-fi to respond to that.

Any chance somebody can get a Jpeg at 2 different quality settings, somehow convert them into an audio file of some description, then ask them which picture looks better based on the sound?

Also, the main reasoning in some of those peoples arguments is that a graph is scientific, so anybody care to post this?

[Raiden]

Any chance somebody can get a Jpeg at 2 different quality settings, somehow convert them into an audio file of some description, then ask them which picture looks better based on the sound?

Actually this should be possible. There was an interesting thread on this topic quite a while back.
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....showtopic=14103

[Deep_Elem]

I feel especially sorry for that one sap over there who looked at the graphs then asked how to configure Blade to work with EAC. Yikes.

[Techno]

is r3mix making a comeback?

[Donunus]

I feel especially sorry for that one sap over there who looked at the graphs then asked how to configure Blade to work with EAC. Yikes.

Hahahaha. Gawd even at 320, blade was bad

[EnOYiN]

I almost feel like bothering to register on Head-fi to respond to that.

Any chance somebody can get a Jpeg at 2 different quality settings, somehow convert them into an audio file of some description, then ask them which picture looks better based on the sound?

Also, the main reasoning in some of those peoples arguments is that a graph is scientific, so anybody care to post this?

Don't worry about Head-Fi. There are enough people who know that spectrograph's aren't the best method to determine whether a codec is good or not.

And I might just post that picture in the thread. I had a good laugh just now.

It has already been post by someone else. I guess I won't have to any more.

This post has been edited by EnOYiN: Mar 27 2007, 12:16

[beto]

(...)I just wanted your takes on this though cause the 224 vbr aac looked darn tempting and perfect I couldn't just ignore the post that quickly.

you should. most current lossy codecs are almost transparent (in the sense you cannot pinpoint the compressed one from the original) at 128kbps.
This was proved by a controlled and serious listening test that used several subjects, real music and statistical techniques to reach an acceptable confidence level.
IMO this is much more scientific than the graph approach vented by the guy at head-fi. By reading that thread I got the impression he and many others do not know what they are talking about and are spreading misinformation. Sad.

[2Bdecided]

And if it LOOKS the same it ALWAYS SOUNDS the same, vice versa it doesnt.

...because clearly a 664x212 jpeg includes all the information present in a 6-second long 44.1kHz sampled wave file. (4233600 bits, if you're interested - about 0.5MB, ignoring the fact it's stereo).

There couldn't possibly be any details in the .wav file which aren't present in the 88.2KB jpeg.

Heck, forget mp3, let's just use jpeg for audio!

Cheers,
David.

[greynol]

Hahahaha. Gawd even at 320, blade was bad

Have you conducted any ABX tests to back this up? If so, please post the results.

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....st&p=149481

[TREX6662k6]

Sorry for OT...
But having browsed this site for a few months now, it seems that head-fi comes up with some pretty absurd content...

When ever I see them mentioned its like
head-fi = n00b (to cut a long story short)

This post has been edited by TREX6662k6: Mar 27 2007, 17:15

[drumliner]

Hahahaha. Gawd even at 320, blade was bad

Have you conducted any ABX tests to back this up? If so, please post the results.

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....st&p=149481

oh come on... stop going overboard with the TOS 8. blade being bad is a known fact, has been proven such in the past and nothing has changed with it, so there's absolutely no need to post further tests just to make you happy.

[greynol]

oh come on... stop going overboard with the TOS 8. blade being bad is a known fact, has been proven such in the past and nothing has changed with it, so there's absolutely no need to post further tests just to make you happy.

Further tests?

Let's see a link or two to some tests showing that Blade 320 is bad.

This is a clear-cut violation of TOS 8. We back up our "facts" with evidence around here, drumliner. This is what sets this forum apart from those like head-fi. Let's not be hypocrites.

While you're at it, provide some evidence showing that I've gone overboard with TOS 8...

This post has been edited by greynol: Mar 27 2007, 18:46

[drumliner]

true i don't post much round here, but if you check the date i joined, you can clearly see i've been here a lot longer than you, so you can spare me the lecture about the ins/outs of this forum. go search for the proof yourself if you're not aware of it, why should others do the work to compensate your lack of info?

edit (you added the last line while i was already posting): to me calling up TOS 8 about a known fact is going overboard. stuff doesn't need to be proven over & over again for those that might have missed it the past.

This post has been edited by drumliner: Mar 27 2007, 18:50

[greynol]

Gee, you've been really helpful.

At this point I'm simply asking for a link.

This post has been edited by greynol: Mar 27 2007, 18:57

[drumliner]

whatever makes you happy. now go find me a link or two that proves i really couldn't or stop claiming it.

[greynol]

Why be so evasive? If you can you should.

...or are we supposed to take you and Donnus at your word?

[john33]

Have you conducted any ABX tests to back this up? If so, please post the results.

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....st&p=149481

I'll be honest, I thought this was a joke when I saw it, but obviously it wasn't intended to be!! How about we stay on topic and forget about a supposed TOS 8 violation that is of no real interest to anyone?

[Filburt]

I really don't know what else to say there. It's as though they are deliberately evading serious critical discussion of the merits of the methodology. I'm trying to be as helpful as I can, but maybe the demand for such discussion is simply not there; I don't know.

[Febs]

I really don't know what else to say there. It's as though they are deliberately evading serious critical discussion of the merits of the methodology. I'm trying to be as helpful as I can, but maybe the demand for such discussion is simply not there; I don't know.

I appreciated your efforts!

This post has been edited by Febs: Mar 27 2007, 21:56