Has anyone tried to ABX Nero's AAC transparent and extreme settings? If so, was a difference noted? I have been using transparent and am quite pleased with the sound but am wondering if I could be enjoying even better quality?

Have you tested for yourself?

Nobody (at least here) will take that unpleasant responsibility from you.

If settings are transparent or not is pretty subjective. 128 kbps is enough for some people, while others still hear artifacts at 320 kbps.

Try to encode some samples of music you listen to often using extreme and transparent and do an ABX test.

Yes, but not on an iPod (do not have one yet), only on my PC set up where it is much harder to hear differences. For me, no difference.



Did not ask them to do it for me - just seeking other's input who have done it on their own already and have better equipment to do this.

I did tests from Transparent to Extreme to Audiophile, and I could certainly tell the difference in Transparent vs. the .wav. Extreme vs. the .wav was a lot lot lot harder to pin down. On many songs I couldn't tell, but on some electronic and classical-type stuff I could still get done listening to a part and then quick listen to the .wav and notice one just wasn't as... full or vibrant or whatever adjective you want to use. Since the difference was so small and the songs sounded great if you didn't compare them to the .wav, I went one step higher and settled for audiophile for good measure.

I would dare to imagine that if you had done a real abx test, you would not be using such a bloated bit rate.

perhaps an even more interesting test would be nero "extreme" vs lame aps, seeing how they produce comparable file sizes (transparent is ~20% smaller). Right now I'm considering going transparent, simply because the ipod is a portable, and if I'm at home and want sound quality, I could always play the physical cd...

Actually with the new 2.6.1.9 version of the Nero AAC encoder, the transparent setting seems to be producing files similar in size to lame aps. Based on some of my encodes, the presets in 2.6.1.9 seem to be using about 10-25 more kbps per song than in 2.6.1.1 within the same profile.

I have found the same. Was not the promise of AAC a 30% improvement in quality over MP3 with the same file size? Of course I do not know if Nero's transparent setting is comparable to LAME's APS. I do know the file sizes are approximatley the same now however. Is the sound quality 30% better???? i'll leave that to the experts.

It really doesn't matter to me if the filesize is 15% more, or 15% less. I just want to trust that it is transparent, at whatever bitrate that might be, and that the bitrate remain fairly consistent with the different encoder versions moving forward.

Have you seen these various abx tests ?
Some are with nero "extreme" & "transparent" presets.

What kind of tests? ABX?

A few of the phrases in your post violate Terms of Service no. 8, btw.

I hadn't seen that, thanks.

The only conclusion I can draw is that every lossy encoder was ABXable, with the possible exception of "MPC - mppenc 1.15r --quality 7". No surprise there. For me, when I look for something to be transparent, I really mean transparent on the majority of music, understanding that there will always be problem samples with lossy encoders.

Just curious, is that test with the 2.6.1.9 version of Nero?

Of course. aacenc32.dll v2.6.1.9.