With --alt preset extreme, I could tell the difference from the WAV in ABX 12/16 times. With --alt preset standard, I could tell the difference from the WAV 14/16 times.

I was quite surprised, because looking at the ABX site, they were saying what type of headphones and sound card to use, and here I am, with integrated laptop sound(enough said there), and $20 sony behind the ear headphones.

I've always been a perfectionist, and since I now have my hearing back(I had some fluid in my ears, started taking amtex), I was eager to try to see what all the fuss was about(if it wasn't XING, and it was 128k or above, it was cd to me before). So I tried the FLAC file here http://sjeng.org/ftp/vorbis/c44.flac , converted it to a WAV so it'd be easier to work with with dbpowerAMP and the latest FLAC codec on their site, and played around with easyLAME, using the MSVC compile of LAME 3.90.2.

Anyway, am I just guessing completely? I tried the ABX program a few more times, and I came out with either better or the same results. I was very surprised, since it's a laptop and cheap headphones. Yet since I got my hearing back, I'm back to having very sensative hearing.

In the beginning of that clip, the first half a second to a second, it gave it away for me.

Anyway, is this normal, or am I completely off the wall? I want to make sure, and I did a few times, that most of the time, I could tell a difference in the MP3 and the WAV.

I'm not very experienced with what is transparent at what bitrate, and wanted to see what anybody else thought on this. Any replies appreciated [B][I]

Try REAL music. Not problem samples. It is often easy to abx problem samples.

Well "transparency" of course depends on the audio sample, and with c44, it's not uncommon for people to ABX the Lame --alt-presets. Highly transient samples eat Lame for breakfast, even with Dibrom's tweaks (although the --alt-presets sound better than any other set of switches).

With many kinds of artifacts, and pre-echo in particular, the quality of the playback equipment makes almost no difference. Your experience ABXing c44.flac is not a freak incident. Welcome to the next level of psychoacoustic audiophilism: dissatisfaction with MP3. B)

Oh, I see, thanks .

Now, the reason I thought of it as a freak accident, due to my integrated sound card, and crappy headphones.

I know Ogg Vorbis has this too, I tried yesterday, I forgot the results though

Does MPC have any of this crap in it? I'm sick of hearing "q6 is cd quality, q5 if you're easily satisfied" For Ogg Vorbis, or "128k is cd quality" for MP3, when it simply, is not. I hear raves and rants on MPC, is it good?

Mpc is extremely good. If you find that mpc doesn't encode well enough for you there is always Wavpack. You can use the hybrid mode for lossy files and then later restore to the original file using the restore info.

Or just skip the hybrid mode altogether and use FLAC. Its awesome, lossless, streams and has hardware support.

If it's lossless, why does dbpowerAMP have 3 settings for flac, low, medium, and high? If it were "lossless", it would sound the same as the original, so why 3 different settings? If it's "lossless" at all three, why not use the one to make the smallest file? If the quality increased with the three settings, it'd be lossy Just clarifying


What companies?

I'm not one of the experts but I believe that the various "Low" "Medium" "High" settings in lossless formats refer to compression levels (filesizes) and also have to do with the amount of processing required to encode and decode the file. You might have 2% or something smaller file size going from Medium to High, but it would take more time to compress the file and then you would need more CPU time during playback. At least that's what I've gathered from previous discussions on this topic.

The settings aren't for quality, they're for compression ratio, like Zip or RAR. If you (that is, dbpowerAMP) spend more time processing the file, you might shave a few % off the file size. The quality will be the same; all the FLAC's will decompress bit-identically. Keep in mind that high-level compression can also slow the decoding process.

EDIT: Man, PlaStiK must've beaten me by seconds!

Ok, last question, I promise.

Is it REALLY lossless? I've heard too much BS about "cd quality" to believe anything I see on their sites anymore.

And thanks for all the help

Of course it's lossless. If you don't believe it, why don't you use FC to check?

Yep completely lossless. You can have better than cd quality if your source is higher quality.

The three settings are for compression ratio. It takes longer to compress though.

The one I have seen is something called a music keg. Its a car audio component that allows you to load mp3, wma, or flac.