New lossless codec comparison (Jan '13), Lots of test results, lots of graphs Options

[ktf]

Hi all,

For the last few weeks I've been busy writing a new lossless audio codec comparison, after lots of talk about it here and here.

The full test report can be found here (PDF), the raw data and graphs can be found here (zip).

While the full report has lots of graphs it also has lots of text, so the 'main' graphs of the report are posted below.



The CDs used

• 30 Seconds to Mars - This Is War (rock)
  
• Confido Domino Minsk - Sacred choral music from White Russia (choral, religious)
  
• Daft Punk - Alive 2007 (electronic, live)
  
• Dan Brown - Angels and Demons (audiobook)
  
• Enya - Amarantine (new age)
  
• Fanfare Ciocarlia - Baro Biao: World Wide Wedding (world music, brass)
  
• Gilberto Santa Rosa - Esencia (salsa)
  
• Giuseppe Verdi - Messa da Requiem (Berliner Philharmoniker feat. conductor Claudio Abbado) (classical, romantic)
  
• Howard Shore - The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (soundtrack, orchestral)
  
• Iron Maiden - Brave New World (metal)
  
• John Coltrane - Live at the half note, vol. 1 (jazz)
  
• Joss Stone - Mind, Body & Soul (soul)
  
• J.S. Bach - Magnificat (orchestral, baroque)
  
• Koninklijke Militaire Kapel - [no name] (military brass, vinyl rip)
  
• Kraftwerk - Autobahn (electronic)
  
• Lana del Rey - Born to Die (pop)
  
• Lil Wayne - Tha Carter III (hip hop)
  
• Martin O'Donnell & Michael Salvatori - Halo: Reach O.S.T. (ambient-ish, soundtrack)
  
• Michael Bublé; - meets madison square garden (pop, live)
  
• Mike Oldfield - Tubular Bells (not classifiable)
  
• Rosenberg Trio - Djangologists (jazz)
  
• Rush - Grace under Pressure (1997 remaster) (rock)
  
• System of a Down - Mezmerize (metal)
  
• Szakcsi - Virágom, virágom (world music)
  
• Tiësto - In Search of Sunrise 7: Asia (dance)
  
• Various - Jeff Waynes Musical Version of The War of the Worlds (radio drama-ish, rock, orchestral)
  
• Various - Latin Village, CD 1: Salsa (compilation of salsa)
  
• Xzibit - At the Speed of Life (hip hop)
  
• Yann Tiersen - Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain (minimalism, soundtrack)

For more information on why I chose these CDs, what strange things happened with the pure speech data (Dan Browns audiobook) and tests on 96kHz/24-bit or surround sound audio, check the full report.

Its labeled revision 1 because I intend to keep it updated. Any comment (on my grammar too, as I'm not a native speaker) is welcome.

[IgorC]

ktf,

Thank You for sharing interesting comparison.

What decoder and/or application have You used for TAK? Last time TAK native app decodes as fast as FLAC. TAK foobar plugin was somewhat slower.

I was curious to try Monkey's Audio c3000 ('High') on Galaxy II phone with Rockbox app for Android . Got 17 hours of a battery life. And it uses the lowest frequency step so I suspect APE 'Extra High' would last comparable time. Given that an energy efficiency of proccesors grows fast it's not crazy to think about Monkey's Audio on mobile devices. Anyway I don't use lossless on portable and use FLAC lossless storage for a fast transcoding to lossy formats.

[ktf]

What decoder and/or application have You used for TAK? Last time TAK native app decodes as fast as FLAC.

I've used the Takc.exe command line encoder which I downloaded straight from TAK's homepage. This was run over Wine, but that shouldn't make much of a difference, as Wine only emulates system calls.

The reason that TAK decodes as fast as FLAC with you is probably because not your CPU but your harddisk is the bottleneck. In this test, CPU-time was measured and the test were done with a ramdisk to bypass the harddisk, so this might be the difference. After all, those codecs decode so fast on desktop CPU's that harddisks can't keep up.

Regarding Monkey's Audio, I've seen some devices advertising supporting it recently, so your observation is correct.

This post has been edited by ktf: Jan 6 2013, 19:17