I know a lot of MP3 release groups use MP3 @ 192 CBR. Personally I think this sounds flawless ! I'm no expert at this, and it would be interesting to hear your opinion on this.
I was wondering how you think Vorbis -q 4.99 compares to this "standard" ?

This is silly - there's too big a bitrate difference. Change the Vorbis option to -q 5, and I'd vote for 'the same'.

Is this --alt-preset cbr 192? cbr in full stereo or joint stereo? I wouldn't be surprised if they're pretty close... ogg -q 4.99 will probably do a touch better on pre-echo (though I'm not sure), but at 4.99 it'll still have a bit of that artificial brightness added.
--alt-preset cbr 192 will probably sound a bit better than vorbis -q 4.99. I'd expect vorbis -q 5 to outdo cbr 192 mp3's, though.

Well, I think it is js. Isn't that the defacto at 192 ?

I think the best test would be to do an ABX between the two. Unfortunately I can't tell -q1 from a waw , so I surely is not able to tell them apart.

Right now there is no cbr Vorbis encoder, so ogg encodes will be in vbr.
In this case, why comparing against a strict cbr mp3 and not at least an abr mp3?

Btw I think that a lot of "professionnal release groups" don't understand what is audio compression, and have really no idea about real behaviour and meaning of the options they use.

And why do you think that ? Probably because they can't hear any difference at all. The people on this forum must be some of the most sensitive ears in the world and hears issues with the encoding that 95% of the population would not detect. I have tested my friends i.e on if they can distinguish mp3@128 from wav, and the results are: They can't. Now you may argue that they don't know what to listen for etc... and you are correct. I do understand the ones that claim 128 bit mp3 to be CD-audio... Simply because thay can't hear the difference.

Am I the only one on this forum that thinks 128 bit MP3 sounds nice ? I know a lot of people hate it, but those who don't: Drop the psycological illution of that "since it is mp3@128 low it has to be bad, since so many people here say it is so"

When this is said, I always encode at aps with lame.... Just to be sure

I wonder if ff123 or Dibrom would be interested in setting up a listening test of:

1) LAME CBR192 Stereo (what the release groups use)
2) LAME APS
3) Vorbis -q5 (or -q6? I'm not sure...-q5.5 ?)
4) MPC -standard

This would give some insight in the relative quality levels, notably if
-q5 is comparable to LAME APS or not, which I think is an interesting
question, and one that has been asked many times.

Edit: Also, check the poll. I think it would be really good to determine this.

--
GCP

It's good enough that I consider it listenable for background music,
as long as there are no heavy guitars involved. (My 128kbps MP3's
are nearly all Xing's) If there are, I always want to cry.

I guess they might be bearable if the MP3's were made with LAME.

I woulnd't really listen to them. (as in: lend back in armchair, lights out, and enjoy)

--
GCP

A quick check at various "Release group" shows that it actually varies. 192 kbit is the "defacto", but Stereo modes are not. Some use Full Stereo other JS...
When it comes to encoders, lame >3.87 seems more and more popular. But Fraunhofer is still in use too.

I would pick the most used setting/encoder, but I have no idea what it is.

--
GCP

I said this because some release groups:

*forbib use of abr
*forbid use of joint stereo
*usually rank the quality of a codec according to frequency response.


I understant that you find 128 suitable for yourself. I think that it's not enough to really enjoy and feel the music, but for a background listening it's fine. (I really don't like anymore the sound of l3enc and 112kbps, something that I used a lot a few years ago)

Right now I'm listening to 56kbps streaming (cinemascape on live365.com) while working, and usually it's enough. There are some warbling and underwater effects on big orchestral parts, but it's acceptable as I'm not really listening to the music.

One little story:

A few times ago my uncle asked me to copy him an audio cd. (A jazz piece not sold anymore)

So I decided to make a little test and made two cds. One was a standard copy, and the other was from mp3 files.
The mp3 where encoded with Audiocatalyst vbr at highest settings, because at that time I was convinced it was the best encoder, and the sound quality was undistinguishable from cd to me (on my computer)

My uncle is musician and audiophile, and have some high-end home-made speakers in a room under his house (they are really big and awfull-looking).

I gave him the from-mp3 cd, without telling anything more, like if it was the standard copy. At this point he never heard any mp3 file.
His immediate reaction on listening was: "what's this shit? Are burned CD really that bad?"

So I gave him the standard burned cd, and this time he liked the result.

It was very interesting, because at this point I understood that:

a) some people could immedialty (really immediately) distinguish mp3 from cd
b) I understood that results were dependant of listening devices. On his speakers I was able to notice differences, but I was not on my computer.

Very interesting story!!! I'll tell one of my own:

I told a friend of mine that I would conduct an experiment. I encoded 3 different track at 4 different rates (MP3/Lame), 112 128 160 192 + the wav. I asked him to rate the tracks. He had regular Technics HIFI equipment
The result was that he had no idea. The results he gave me were contrary and random.
Maybe he didn't listen that close, but in this case he couldn't separate them. (Even I could separate the 112 from the wav )

After browsing some .nfo files it seems as "True/Full Stereo" ,as they call it, is most in use.
Typical .nfo:
Û° Rip Date....: [ 01/21/2002 ] Tracks: [ 11 ]
²Û° Rel Date....: [ 02/26/2001 ] Time..: [ 00h 50m 24s ]
°Û° Music Type..: [ Alternative ] Size..: [ 69MB ]
Û° K/bits......: [ 192k ] Source: [ Compact Disc ]
°Û° Encoder.....: [ LAME ENC 3.91 ]
Û° Mode........: [ Full Stereo HQ Mode ]

If someone have some of those files, if encoded with lame 3.91 they should have an INFO header.

I'd like to know what is reported by this header.

It is my experience that most 192 rips are encoded in full stereo.

I checked the demonstration files that Johanfo provided.

It's very interesting: the .nfo indicates Lame 3.91 192kbps stereo

The files are 192kbps stereo made by Lame, but with and old 3.87 version.

So of course there is no INFO tag, as it appears since 3.90

I know you may hate me for that, but i would never ever listen to compressed music on my home stereo if nobody forces me to do so .... . My only ( but very vital ) interest in audio compression is for encoding the sound of my movies ....

This time a track really done with lame 3.91.

According to the INFO tag, parameters used by this "release group" are:

lame -b 192 -h -m s

Well, at least they could use "lame --alt-preset 192" or "lame --alt-preset cbr 192"....

I was afraid that perhaps they could be using some stupid commands like "--lowpass 20 -k --ath-lower -20 -q9 --noshort --athonly --athshort --cwlimit 2"

ROFL

And in defense of the commandline:

Scarry........

The poll is quite interesting. It seems to be a split!

If there is any interest I could create a wav sample from:

Ogg -q 4.99
Lame CBR 192 Full Stereo
The original wav

Then put it on my website so that people can blind test the codecs. I just want to hear if anybody is interested in this before doing so.
The results should then be gathered.

I guess it would help us decide.
I would prefer a test that yielded very similar file sizes though,size isnt of great importance for me,just quality.

No, true stereo is strongly prefered by the release groups. Joint stereo is viewed the same way they see VBR - as a silly feature that makes the audio sound worse.

I gave samples to some Vorbis naysayers in my group, q5, q6, and q7. They heard some artifacts in the q5 (comparable to 192kbps mp3, apparently), but were very impressed with q6 and up.

I wish they would encode it into AAC or MP4.

I'm re-ripping all Audio CDs I got into MPEG4 AAC LTP at 152kbit. (Yeah no typo, 152kbit).

Any special reason to choose LTP and 152kbps?