This is the thread to discuss about samples for the upcoming 48kbps AAC test:
Test discussion
Test home page

Currently selected samples (subject to change):

Debussy, Une Forêt - Classical - low volume instruments and vocal
Kraftwerk, The Robots - Electronic - impulse transients
Suzanne Vega, Tom's dinner - vocals and instruments (where to find this sample?)
french_ad - male voice
Twist And Shout, Beatles - yelling Beatle with fake stereo

I sent a package of samples to Sebastian Mares; I don't know if I still have the said package, but some of these would be quite useful to test stereo seperation, at least.

Regarding stereo separation, I was thinking of a Beatles song from Red or Blue.
I remember that when you listened to those using a single side of headphones, you had either voice or some instruments, but you were always missing one part.
Does anyone have a significative sample of this effect?

Laisse-moi fouiller mes insectes (let me search through my beetles )

Oops, I didn't notice Shade(ST)'s reply.

I already uploaded a sample: http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....showtopic=41248

It is an excerpt from Twist And Shout (1963) from the remastered Please Please Me album (Fabulous Sound Lab FS-1001).

Beatles published the mono and stereo versions of this album. Personally I like the mono version more. I find these extra wide stereo songs quite annoying.

Um-apple never published any such thing-it is a pirate compilation. Stereo versions of Please Please Me, With The Beatles, A Hard Days Night, and Beatles for Sale exist only on old LP's.

I have tom's diner, by suzanne vega (feat. DNA)

How many samples it's planed to include?
It will be reasonable to include something like 50% hard to encode samples ( like different instruments on chanels and/or high frequences samples) and 50% normal samples. Or something like 33%-hard, 34%-normal,33% -light samples for real life encoding.



It sounds painfully at 48 kbit/s

PS: I didn't remeber where I saw before this sample with some stereo effects. http://www.mytempdir.com/437714 .

Yes, I know that the standard 80's or 90's CD releases are mono (the first four albums or so). I have believed that FSL is a real and official remastering project. I bought the CD from eBay. Interesting, if it is not official. It looks and sounds fine. Even the HDCD light comes up. I have to search for more information.

Actually, it may not be such a good idea to include a sample of a track that has extreme stereo separation throughout the complete track. That kind of tracks are minority in today's recorded music. Tracks that have occasionally distinct, but not extreme channel separation would better represent a real life situation.

Edit: grammar

I would also include at least one track transcoded from a lossy source, say, MP3 @192 or @256 - just to completely reflect "real world" use of very low bitrate codecs.

In some cases, users would transcode high bit rate encodings to very low bit rate, to make more space on their DAP.

About 15 samples.

Regarding samples difficulty, I think that it would be more interesting to test mainly hard samples than average ones. When listening what is usually remembered is the artifacts, not the good parts.

Agree.

I know this is an AAC test, but why not adding also Vorbis (since there aren't any other competitors at 48 kb/s) doing a multiformat test?

Because this is an AAC-only test.

note: a multiformat test should follow soon.

Multiformat test is scheduled after the the AAC test - and it will include Vorbis, WMA and probably other codecs as well (e.g. mp3Pro) - and, of course, winner of the AAC 48 kbps test.

I replaced the Beatles sample with a better one, IMHO.

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....ndpost&p=362721

I've uploaded an instrumental sample here http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....ndpost&p=362944

I've uploaded a sample here: http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....st=0&p=363420&#

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....showtopic=40108

I uploaded my first sample here: http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....st=0&p=363343&#

What do you guys think. It is too easy, or suficiently dificult?

Shade[ST]: can you upload a sample from S.Vega?

edit: I noticed that Tom's Dinner was used in the 32kbps test by Roberto. Does anyone have this specific sample?

I can have up it on Thursday; Would you like me to email it to you ? if so, pm. (it'll be better than taking up site bandwidth)

Tom's Diner is available at Rarewares:

http://www.rarewares.org/test_samples/TomsDiner.wv

Ok, Tom's Diner from Rarewares

Another randomly choosed interesting sample http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....ndpost&p=364098
15 samples for test won't be enough to compare SBR and PS. However it's impossible to include more samples for real public test.