[Posted in OT because of non-English language in the linked article]
The German popular magazine Chip did a low bitrate audio codec test. Very amusing indeed, if it had been published here on HA, flamethrowers would come over them from everywhere.
Read it here

(Their winner was AAC-Plus [Nero6 HEaac] BTW)
Translation: 'The current audio codecs clearly rule over the outdated mp3 format'
No single mp3 codec was even tested as a reference

I read the article this evening.

Interesting way to rate the quality of the tested codecs.

Double-blind test or ABXing wasn't used.

Well IMHO, that test was quite useless.

Yes, it's a shame. And they don't use proper terminology either, it's a pain to read. They focus on the wrong things (lowpass frequencies at 48 kbps, anyone?). And the best part: "Erst bei 64 KBit/s erhält die Spitze des Feldes mit aacPlus und OggVorbis das Siegel „CD-Qualität“." :x

Does anyone who knows "Chip" expect something else?

Not really, but this was worse than I expected.

It's aimed at regular computer users, what do you expect? This article "helps" readers to easily choose the best compression format / codec. It's easier to get that warm 'n' fuzzy feeling this way

As I see it they simply did what most people would do, if they tested the codecs themselves: Listen to the decoded song through their stereo equipment. I think there's nothing fundamentally wrong with this because I assume that majority of people wants to know about percieved general performance of this codecs. Not too many people will have fun while ABX'ing their whole music archive with different codecs and compression options.

And no, I do not say that just listening to the decoded material were a proper, scientific testing method.

EDIT: It isn't really clear if they did perform DB and/or ABX tests, they only state that each encoding were tested against the original. They did it using a Harmann-Kardon amp and JBL speakers, it seems there wasn't a computer involved past the decoding stage.


Regards, David

lol, funny though:

"Überhaupt hat OggVorbis bei der Komprimierung die Nase vorn: Bei gleicher Bitrate benötigt der Codec etwas weniger Platz als alle anderen im Testfeld."

which means: advising the codecs to work towards a specific (CBR) target bitrate (although - as we all know - Vorbis does not support generic CBR) results in smaller Vorbis files than the competitors' ... great compression, dude!

Even more funnay:


Translation: They promise "close to CD"-quality at 64kbps and up, so that a user who switches to one of the new encoders could save twice as much space

Think about it..