MS used to claim 64 kbps is CD quality for WMA WMA sounds very metallic at that bitrate while Ogg Vorbis may have problems with the pre-echo....so which do you think sounds better at 64 kbps average?

Ogg.

I tried to think of something else to say, but that's really it. Ogg sounds better, wma sounds worse.

Cheers, Paul

Take a look at the 64 kbps listening test results

"Mp3pro wins overall ranking points, but it's not significantly better than oggq0 or ogg64. On the other hand, wma8 and aac are definitely ranked at the bottom."

or take a look at PhatAudio
"with OGG coming in at the head of the pack with especially noticeable differences at lower bit rates such as 64kbps."

...


I've got the brains, you've got the looks
Let's make lots of ..

The three classical samples (Bach, Liszt, and... Cradle of filth : harpsichord), isolated, are interesting :



On quiet music & low bitrate, vorbis VBR is the worst codec I ever heard. And according to this blind-test, it seems that I'm not alone to have this feeling. So, you must consider your favorite musical genre before any choice (codec AND setting). Mp3pro is even better (12.5/15) here...

But on loud music, Vorbis is amazing, WMA really awful, and mp3pro near vorbis...

On such low bitrates I can recommend only MP3PRO providing you would listen to it only on PC. Thomson encoder is free for this bitrate. And hardware players which could replay MP3PRO count among rarities...

Maybe waiting for AAC+SBR would be recompensed with more quality...

Why weren't LAME and Musepack tested? I'm aware at this birate they wouldn't have a chance against vorbis or mp3pro, but I think it would be interesting to compare them. Probably LAME would be the worst of them, wouldn't it? And maybe musepack could compete with AAC, with such poor results at these birates...

In my own 64k tests (you can find results via search) OGG Vorbis beats WMA8, but WMA9pro sounds better.

If you're recording for a portable, ogg probably isn't supported.

If you're recording for a PC, 64kbps is a poor idea.

I also think that Ogg Vorbis is much better here. At least for my ears. And it also has a plus for it being open format.

I think that Ogg Vorbis is much better too.

Ogg Vorbis would be my favorite here.

QUOTE: Why weren't LAME and Musepack tested? Probably LAME would be the worst of them, wouldn't it?

musepack opts for distortion rather than bandwidth at low bitrates so it would've sounded worse than lame.

Apparently there is some bug in the VBR that keeps the bitrate too low on quiet pieces.
You can manually set a minimum bitrate to keep it from falling through the basement even
on VBR/quiet.

edit:
I tried it on my most dynamic track ("monochrome" on Best of Kodo) . It starts with a long, ~5minute, drum crescendo. The 1st 30 seconds averages -75 dB, and on ogg q0 codes at 10 kb/s with very obvious
artifacts. I recoded it with "oggenc -m 50 -b 64" (min rate 50 kb, average 64). For some reason
that first bit was coded at ~40 kb/s, but it still sounds a lot better than just plain q0.

I'll pick OGG.

I wonder how MP3Pro would sound if lame (with an alt-preset on) were the base codec instead of FhG

Try PlusV project.
(Yes, that is slightly worse than SBR, but gives a picture)

EDIT: No changes since 2 years (except the forum)... dead, but the code is there.

There's already 6 codecs tested, any more will just dilute significances. And obviously LAME and MPC would have low priorities for this test.

there's no such thing as WMA9Pro @ 64kbps... it starts at 128 .. and sounds "decent" enough to do extremely low bitrate music vids, at least... (like 14-18 meg 4 min mvids) still sounds a bit "mushy" tho. (was playing around with this nightwish vid recently)

I believe Gabriel posted a way of doing that a while back actually...

Exact. But WMA9PRO has a VBR mode (6 steps : q10/25/50/75/90/98), and with the lowest mode, you can reach 50-90 kbps. Quality is better as standard WMA.

Where can WMAPro be found?

Microsoft site : WMPlayer9 & WMEncoder9 (this last one doesn't work on 98SE system).
You can also try with DbPowerAmp : it works great.

Is WMAPro aimed at low bitrates, kinda like mp3pro?



WMEncoder always crashes on my Win XP machine. It refuses to encode anything.

Try the Q10 and Q25 VBR modes then.


Actually it was aimed at high quality and 5.1 music. Their CBR modes start at 128kbit, but the VBR modes allow way lower bitrates. But the format is not backwards compatible to WMA9Std.

I don't think so. With CBR and ABR (i.e. CBR 2-pass) settings, lowest target bitrate is 128 kbps, and highest 440 kbps on stereo, and 768 with 5.1 recordings !

This codec is interesting (wma9 standard isn't). I obtained wonderful results at low bitrate (80-120) with some stuff, but poor one with others.

Trouble with MP3 pro is I cant seem to be able to make high bit rate rips, just 64 KBs.

You can, with commercial encoders, like MusicMatch Jukebox, Nero and CoolEdit.