Hi, everyone.

I'm brand new here. I'm interested in encoding my CD collection to high-bitrate Ogg Vorbis. I want a high enough quality so that I can't hear the difference between CD and encoded music with my Logitech Z-560 speakers. I was reading about the HF boost reduction in the GT3b2 encoder in this thread. The GT3b1 encoder doesn't have this problem right? I want a high-quality encoder without having to worry about audible distortions.
Where can I actually download the GT3b1 encoder? I've tried Rarewares.org, and searching this forum for a link.

Thanks.

You might want to wait a few days....

There has recently been a lot of work on various tuned versions of Vorbis and a quick listening test was just finished.

Quick Vorbis Test

The results should be announced soon, with the winner going to the upcomming 'multi-format' listening test (which will be completed by the end of the month.)

If space is not a concern, then realistically almost any format will be good enough. Once you reach "near cd transparency", it's going to be that quality regardless of the format you use. It just may take a higher bit rate for some formats than for others.

In other words, high bit rate mp3, high(ish) bit rate AAC, MPC, etc. are all going to be "near cd transparent" at whatever setting is needed. You don't have to chose Vorbis to get high quality.

If space isn't an issue, then it doesn't matter too much whether it's 192k or 320k or whatever.

In which case, LAME with -APE (preset extreme) will be good, but just take more bits than other formats. You get portability with nearly every audio program and player in existance.

MPC is good at high rates, but you wont find any support in players. Development is starting again, but don't hold your breath for new versions to come out.

AAC/MP4 is good, but it hasn't been as highly tuned at the higher bit rates as mp3 has. (Meaning Apple's iTunes is more concerned about quality at 128k.) Still, you get good results.

And, going back to Vorbis....

There is a lot to like about it, but until recently there wasn't much activity in improving it.

I'd suggest waiting until the tuned vorbis listening test results are announced, and then actually trying the top one or two versions on the kinds of music you prefer.

The original GT3b1 encoder is still available at Garf's site. I wouldn't recommend getting binaries from 3rd parties like Rarewares.

Cey, please don't get too OT in your posts. Especially if a question is as easily answered as this one.

The HF boost reduction in GT3b2 is a feature, not a bug! It is ment to prevent Vorbis from artificially boosting high frequencies (which is a problem on some samples with the official xiph.org encoder).

I would wait until the Vorbis listening test finishes, as Cey suggests.

Oh! I thought you were talking about the original GT3b2... nevermind then:

Short history of 'recent'/relevant GT versions:
GT3b1 - based on 1.0 code
(GT3b2 - based on pre-1.0 code, don't use!)
GT3b2 - Merge of GT3 and 1.0.1 codebase by QK and John33 (available at Rarewares.org)
GT3b2HFR - Merge of GT3b2 and QK's HFR fixes from his QKTune fork (3.2)

I would still recommend GT3b1 for archiving, but GT3b2 should also be save to use, but those are rather conservative choices. Read the appropriate threads for more information.

I've got another question: How do you "implement" the -APE option. Just adding it to the command line switches box on my CD ripper results in an "unrecognized option" error.

ape = alt preset extreme. for best results, o n l y use preset commandlines without modifications.
you might want to search the forum a bit

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=203&

By his own admission he is a newbie and is just wanting "a high-quality encoder without having to worry about audible distortions" and "I want a high enough quality so that I can't hear the difference between CD and encoded music with my Logitech Z-560 speakers."

I was afraid that he was simply blindly following somebody's advice about "Use Vorbis... It ROCKS!! mp3 SUX!!!" or such. There are disadvantages of Vorbis, such as limited player support and until recently, there was little development.

There are a lot of discussions about which codec is 'best' but nearly everybody forgets that once you reach a point where it's nearly transparent, it no longer really matters what format it is.

At that point, the only points are: 1) space, and 2) does your player support it.

I mentioned the other formats because:

a) mpc because I figured somebody would because it is one of thew winners in the audio tests. I'm not a fan of it myself, though.

b) aa/mp4 because everybody has heard of iTunes

c) mp3 because if he has a portable player, that might be important.


And I didn't have a link to the version he wanted. I would have suggested rarewares but he obviously had already checked.

And I definetly thought it was worth pointing out that if he really did want to use Vorbis, he would probably be better off waiting to hear the results of the recent vorbis test, rather than 'randomly' choosing one.


It's just kind of unusal for a newbie to come in here and start requesting a specific encoder and I thought it was worth commenting further.

That'll depend on your ripper.

If you want "preset - standard', rarewares has a DLL that is hard coded for that particular setting, that way it can work with anything that uses the DLL. I don't think there is one for APE though.

Also, you can download LameDrop from rarewares and set it for aps or ape and just drag & drop the wav's onto it.

LameDrop isn't very good at writing the tags, though. OggDropxp is *MUCH* better at tags. Hopefully they'll improve lamedrop, but I'm not going to hold my breath.

Still, as I said in the first message, if you want vorbis, you might want to wait a few days and see what the results of the listening test are. Might save you from having to rerip your cd collection.

For GT3b1/GT3b2, the HF boost problem should start becoming less of a problem for q 6 and higher. If you have no problem encoding at these high quality levels, then go for the standard GT3b1/b2's at q 7 (for safe measure) rather than the HF reduced ones. The reason I say this is that I still am not fully confident that my HF reduction code is "safe" to use for archival purposes (which explains all the warning messages that I put in all my encoders ). Also, my HF reduction code turns off at q 6 and higher anyway.

It is, in my mind, still experimental code and potential artifacts are still to be found. Usually most listeners become familiar with the typical artifacts of Vorbis and when someone makes changes to Vorbis, listeners continue to search for the typical artifacts and after judging that they are reduced, they immediately judge the new Vorbis as better. But my feeling is that it will take a lot of time for the other new and unheard-of artifacts resulting from the changes, to be detected and familiarised by expert listeners.