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Topic: What is better, LAME or Fraunhofer MP3 Encoder? (Read 162226 times) previous topic - next topic
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What is better, LAME or Fraunhofer MP3 Encoder?

Reply #75 –
You abxed it using foobar's abx tool?
Can you tell a bit more about it: with which track at what spot is it most easily abxable to you, what's your score when abxing it?

(I ask cause it's a bit similar to what I found using Lame 3.90.3 which was my favorite mp3 encoder some time ago. But I did not get very reliable repeatedly good abx scores so I wonder whether that's placebo. FhG however - I'm used to the dbpowerAmp version but don't think there will be big differences qualitywise with the various current FhG encoders - has never brought any doubt to me @ CBR 192 as far as tonal quality is concerned.)
lame3995o -Q1.7 --lowpass 17

What is better, LAME or Fraunhofer MP3 Encoder?

Reply #76 –
Ok, halb27, thank you.

Yes, no one is immune from placebo, maybe me too in this issue..
In fact (damn..) this, morning (to give more details) i tried 
some comparisons between two tracks encoded with Fraunhofer 192
and Lame 3.98b4 -v0 with no acceptable score.
Not enought time may be, sometimes my wife was bothering me, and now
I must run to work.

I don't use Foobar abx tool, but my own method...
I don't know dbpowerAmp version, only the olds slow encoders, the fast encoder
and the Acm v3.4.0.b0: Always i found them good, but not like Lame.

I'll try another time in some days.

Ciao!

What is better, LAME or Fraunhofer MP3 Encoder?

Reply #77 –
Quote from: Maurihal on
...I don't use Foobar abx tool, but my own method...

Own methods are suspected to be not valid.

Outside of this forum things are easier.
It is sufficient to feel a specific encoder is best in order to use it with pleasure. We (most of the time) should stick to our emotions. It's a proven superior decision making strategy against nitpickingly weighing arguments. Anyway this is about personal preference.

Here however we should learn about valid abx results.
lame3995o -Q1.7 --lowpass 17

What is better, LAME or Fraunhofer MP3 Encoder?

Reply #78 –
IMHO Fraunhofer have better low bitrate encoding <96kbs, it have Intesivity Stereo and Narrowing Stereo Image tool for very low bitrates.

Also i agree with Fraunhofer policy for Mid/Side JS coding, realy i know that is process totality lossless, but realy i'am feel safer when disable it on very high bitrates

What is better, LAME or Fraunhofer MP3 Encoder?

Reply #79 –
Quote from: starcy on
IMHO Fraunhofer have better low bitrate encoding <96kbs, it have Intesivity Stereo and Narrowing Stereo Image tool for very low bitrates.


Yes on the "Fraunhofer has Intensity stereo" and that this process helps getting more quality on the lower bitrate range. Not proven onto the "better low bitrate encoding".
I have a feeling it is more like a tie between both at their current stages, with frauhoffer *maybe* having a small edge over the other.

Quote from: starcy on
Also i agree with Fraunhofer policy for Mid/Side JS coding, realy i know that is process totality lossless, but realy i'am feel safer when disable it on very high bitrates


If i gave you 100 bucks for each 24kbps mono mp3 file you encoded, maybe you'd feel better encoding at that range.

Seriously, feelings are sometimes wrong. That's why we test things here. There have been a few cases of joint stereo being worse than simple stereo, but most of the times that was due to deficiencies in the way that was tested ( isolation of channels that don't represent the whole thing or simply ignoring that the better stereo was actually generating other artifacts).
The amount of bitrate is limited in MP3, and the more you want to store, the higher the bitrate needs to be.

What is better, LAME or Fraunhofer MP3 Encoder?

Reply #80 –
Quote from: starcy on
IMHO Fraunhofer have better low bitrate encoding <96kbs, it have Intesivity Stereo and Narrowing Stereo Image tool for very low bitrates.

Also i agree with Fraunhofer policy for Mid/Side JS coding, realy i know that is process totality lossless, but realy i'am feel safer when disable it on very high bitrates


I would recently have suspected the same thing, given that LAME doesn't even try to implement Intensity Stereo at low bitrates, which might seem a sensible tradeoff to reduce ringing and flanging type artifacts by throwing more bits at the mid channel.

However, in the MP3 encoder selection pre-test (in FRENCH) prior to Guruboolez's 96 kbps multi-format listening test (also in French), LAME came out better than either of the Fraunhofer encoders tested by a statistically significant margin (>95% certainty for mixed group, slightly less than 95% for the non-classical group). This was 2 years ago and according to Guruboolez's excellent hearing not yours, but with sound double-blind testing. Both encoders have changed a little since, but it's a large performance gap for FhG to make up.

I haven't read any tests actually below 96 kbps to compare a relatively recent LAME against Fraunhofer.

N.B. You can view Google's Automated Translation of the whole thread into English but you should note a couple of important mis-translations:
  • English "Hen 1" - should be "Pool 1" etc. from french poule, which can be translated as the aforementioned poultry bird 
  • "BLADE" should read "LAME" most of the time  , with wonderful irony uniting the best and worst MP3 encoders. The french noun lame means the blade of a knife, but blade is not a French word so comes out exactly the same.  As the words in graphs are graphical, they're neither translated nor mistranslated
  • "flow" should in this context have been translated as "bitrate"
The translation stops and returns to French someway down the thread after the MP3 selection, but it may be possible to view posts individually or simply paste the French into Google.com/translate.

It is a very informative and well-conducted test that is great amunition against people who claim that WMA at 64 kbps equals MP3 at 128 kbps, parrotting Microsoft's marketing claims from some time ago. Good LAME MP3s at 96 kbps actually beat the best WMA at 96 kbps, let alone 64 kbps, and 128 kbps LAME ABR was used as the high anchor and is far ahead of WMA96. Vorbis AoTuV at 96kbps seemed at the time to be the first to beat the current best MP3 at 128 in double-blind testing at lower bitrate, though not on classical (where it did well), just on 'varied' music (where it was exceptionally good). These comparisons cannot simply be read across to comparisons against current LAME -V5 (~130 kbps) or LAME -V7 (~100 kbps), which differ from the tested LAME settings in non-trivial ways.
Dynamic – the artist formerly known as DickD

What is better, LAME or Fraunhofer MP3 Encoder?

Reply #81 –
by the way is LAME 3.98 beta 4 stable ? , will it give me the same results of 3.97 ?

now i'm using 3.97

What is better, LAME or Fraunhofer MP3 Encoder?

Reply #82 –
Quote from: francesco on
by the way is LAME 3.98 beta 4 stable ? , will it give me the same results of 3.97 ?

now i'm using 3.97

a) 3.98b4 is stable.

b) 3.98b4 will not give the same results as 3.97.

Regarding quality there is no final answer. As for my best knowledge in an overall sense

- for bitrates ~ 128 kbps the results that are published so far seem to be in favor of 3.97

- 3.98's VBR mode seems to be more stable. So at a higher bitrate with a setting like V2 or V1 3.98 seems to be preferable.
This is especially true for certain tonal problems like trumpet or Birds with which 3.97's quality is worse than that of other encoders.

- For best quality like ABR ~ 270, CBR 256 or CBR 320 both versions are of the same good quality in a pratical sense.
lame3995o -Q1.7 --lowpass 17

What is better, LAME or Fraunhofer MP3 Encoder?

Reply #83 –
Quote from: francesco on
by the way is LAME 3.98 beta 4 stable ?



This question has to make wanting to commit suicide, (or homicide) to any developer.

"Hey! I see you're still painting my house, but you've finished, right?"

beta is beta. And nothing is stable.

What is better, LAME or Fraunhofer MP3 Encoder?

Reply #84 –
Personally I like Fraunhoffer IIS for encoding 112k and below.  I am not crazy about Lame, too much metallic hiss in higher frequencies.  I prefer older mp3 codecs, usually 224~256k for solid mp3 sound. (APE is my fav non mp3 codec).

What is better, LAME or Fraunhofer MP3 Encoder?

Reply #85 –
Quote from: MisterMeow on
Personally I like Fraunhoffer IIS for encoding 112k and below.  I am not crazy about Lame, too much metallic hiss in higher frequencies.  I prefer older mp3 codecs, usually 224~256k for solid mp3 sound. (APE is my fav non mp3 codec).

Wow, what is it with this thread that attracts the flamebaits like ants to a picnic?

What is better, LAME or Fraunhofer MP3 Encoder?

Reply #86 –
Huh??? hiss as an mp3 artifact?? This is something new to me.

What is better, LAME or Fraunhofer MP3 Encoder?

Reply #87 –
"Wow, what is it with this thread that attracts the flamebaits like ants to a picnic?"

The same thing that attracts the LAME fanboi's to the picnic.

What is better, LAME or Fraunhofer MP3 Encoder?

Reply #88 –
Quote from: abasher on
Quote from: MisterMeow on
Personally I like Fraunhoffer IIS for encoding 112k and below.  I am not crazy about Lame, too much metallic hiss in higher frequencies.  I prefer older mp3 codecs, usually 224~256k for solid mp3 sound. (APE is my fav non mp3 codec).
Wow, what is it with this thread that attracts the flamebaits like ants to a picnic?
Perhaps MisterMeow would like to post some examples encoded with both encoders for others to see, or risk a TOS #8.  Presumably at this bitrate asking for ABX results is futile.
I'm on a horse.

What is better, LAME or Fraunhofer MP3 Encoder?

Reply #89 –
What's better, FhG or LAME?
Answers:
From (censored)@iis.fraunhofer.de:
Of course we, as Fraunhofer Institute only recommend our Fraunhofer MP3
encoder.

Regards
Mandy Trommler

From (censored)@codingtechnologies.com:
I would suggest to use the Fraunhofer MP3 Encoder, but better use aacPlus
instead of MP3 :-)

Christian


Whats the latest version of Fraunhofer MP3 Encoder & where i can download it?

Answer from (censored)@iis.fraunhofer.de:
No problem! You can find our latest command-line codecs (encoder version 1.4, decoder version 1.3) on

http://www.all4mp3.com/tools/sw_fhg_cl.html

What is better, LAME or Fraunhofer MP3 Encoder?

Reply #90 –
Silver Wave: May I ask you what should we understand from your post?

Fraunhofer answer is clear enough to need comments

Coding technologies is nowhere a neutral party, and it also tells to use its technology intead of one of others.

And i guess we are aware of the mp3 surround encoded (Which was pointed previously in this same thread: http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....5784&st=25# )

Guess we cannot get a clear answer, because:
a) there's a too wide range of situations where to use an encoder (low bitrate cbr, portable bitrate cbr/vbr, high bitrate cbr, transparency level)
b) there's not enough sample values on the tests done here at hydrogenaudio to get a unquestionable answer, even when they are a good guideline on what to expect.
c) being two completely independend projects, both have strong and weak points in different places each. Only an average of the results can have a meaning as a whole, and that requires many samples.

Anyway, i guess the best we can do here, is wait for (and participate in) the next mp3 at 128kbps listening test, that is scheduled after the one that has just finished.

What is better, LAME or Fraunhofer MP3 Encoder?

Reply #91 –
Fraunhofer's advantage is speed.  It is significantly faster than LAME, at least on the Pentium IV and the PowerPC where there has been very good optimization done.

What is better, LAME or Fraunhofer MP3 Encoder?

Reply #92 –
FhG MP3 Surround Encoder (specially) optimized for Pentium CPU's.

What is better, LAME or Fraunhofer MP3 Encoder?

Reply #93 –
Has any testing been done on mp3sEnc's VBR modes?
we was young an' full of beans

What is better, LAME or Fraunhofer MP3 Encoder?

Reply #94 –
Quote from: skelly831 on
Has any testing been done on mp3sEnc's VBR modes?

Not much with mp3sEnc but quite a lot with other FhG versions. From that my experience is to better use CBR. (My experience was in the 192+ kbps CBR range).
lame3995o -Q1.7 --lowpass 17

What is better, LAME or Fraunhofer MP3 Encoder?

Reply #95 –
Quote from: skelly831 on
Has any testing been done on mp3sEnc's VBR modes?

Not much but some impulse samples.
Strong artefacts even in highest vbr quality. cbr is much better.

Edit: Try eig.wav this should be enough
Is troll-adiposity coming from feederism?
With 24bit music you can listen to silence much louder!

What is better, LAME or Fraunhofer MP3 Encoder?

Reply #97 –
Quote from: Wombat on
Edit: Try eig.wav this should be enough

Thanks for pointing me at that sample, mp3sEnc VBR doesn't do much good there, even at it's highest setting "-m 1" artifacts are apparent from the start, 192k CBR gives better results. I also tried this sample with LAME -V 3, MPC --standard, and Vorbis -q 4, all gave noticeably better results.

Quote
Test both encoder in the 128kbit CBR Joint Stereo.
LAME 3.98 Beta 5:
http://rarewares.poskolio.com/lame3.98b5.zip

FhG MP3 Surround 1.4:
http://www.all4mp3.com/dev/download.aspx?n...14_20070711.zip

Just test the latest...

With eig.wav at 128k, both produce annoying artifacts, mp3sEnc producing horrible clicks, I would choose LAME here simply because I find it less annoying.
we was young an' full of beans

What is better, LAME or Fraunhofer MP3 Encoder?

Reply #98 –
Just a reminder:
Please don´t use lame cbr under any circumstances until you have to use it on incompatible hardware.
When talking about a given bitrate please use lame at a correspondending vbr quality or at least in abr mode.
Is troll-adiposity coming from feederism?
With 24bit music you can listen to silence much louder!

What is better, LAME or Fraunhofer MP3 Encoder?

Reply #99 –
Does LAME support surround?