Public AAC Listening Test @ ~96 kbps [July 2011], Nero, Apple, Fraunhofer and Coding Technologies (CT) Options

[IgorC]

Today we have a chance to see the performance of well known AAC encoders like Nero, Apple and Coding Technologies (previous versions of Winamp).
Also Fraunhofer have released their totally new AAC encoder.


The following codecs are presented in this test:
Nero 1.5.4
Apple QuickTime 7.6.9 true VBR
Apple QuickTime 7.6.9 constrained VBR
Fraunhofer (Winamp 5.62)
Coding Technologies (Winamp 5.61)
ffmpeg's AAC (low anchor)

The homepage of the test:
Public AAC Listening Test @ ~96 kbps [July 2011]


There are 20 samples. Please, don't hurry. Take your time as there will be enough of it. It's better to do fewer samples per day and avoid a fatigue.
The test will be open during 10 days (until July 27)

As always every single result is helpful.
Have a good time testing it!

[guruboolez]

My first listening tests since many years
I probably lost most of my skill, but it's very interesting for me to see if I'm still able to make a distinction between ~100 kbps encoding and an uncompressed PCM sound. I guess encoders have progressed during the last years. I remember that last time I tested LC-AAC at this bitrate, I was rather disappointed. But is was four or five years ago and I was at the apogee of my skill.

For now, I completed the five first samples. Well, it's interesting! It's nice to see that so many implementations in one test (but it makes the evaluation longer and harder).
Thank you IgorC and other people involved for organizing it!

This post has been edited by guruboolez: Jul 21 2011, 22:00

[IgorC]

My first listening tests since many years

I'm glad to see You back.

As first observation, some listeners are expecting to hear the same artifacts as in past. And of course there are new versions of codecs and artifacts are different.
The more listener tries to listen some particular artifacts the less chance to spot any of them. But if the listener just tries to enjoy the music itself then the artifacts appear themselves.

Also it's very important to mention about some practice with headphones. It's known that even good headphones can sound bad because of not optimal position on the head. It's easy to check. While the music is playing the listener should try different positions and distances (different adjustment of the rim) without set the headphones completely on the head.
It might sound crazy but it works.
More here:

http://www.meier-audio.homepage.t-online.de/tipstricks.htm

headphone position

It's so easy, but did you ever test for the optimal position of your headphone? With many headphones the soundstage and the balance of sound are strongly dependent on the position of the driver to our ears.

Scientific research has shown that our perception of depth is increased when the driver is placed more forward and lower with respect to the entrance of the ear channel.

Experimenting doesn't cost you anything and may improve sound considerably.

This post has been edited by IgorC: Jul 22 2011, 19:31