Gamingforce Interactive Forums
85239 35211

Go Back   Exploding Garrmondo Weiner Interactive Swiss Army Penis > Garrmondo Music and Trading > Behind the Music

Notices

Welcome to the Exploding Garrmondo Weiner Interactive Swiss Army Penis.
GFF is a community of gaming and music enthusiasts. We have a team of dedicated moderators, constant member-organized activities, and plenty of custom features, including our unique journal system. If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the FAQ or our GFWiki. You will have to register before you can post. Membership is completely free (and gets rid of the pesky advertisement unit underneath this message).


Stereo or Joint Stereo? 44100 or 48000?
Reply
 
Thread Tools
ArrowHead
Scadian Canadian


Member 2020

Level 20.25

Mar 2006


Reply With Quote
Old Jan 1, 2007, 03:55 PM #26 of 41
And most of the time, it's a waste.

If you want perfection, don't even use MP3.

If you want the best tradeoff between compression and quality, use VBR.

There's nowhere I can't reach.
Iceboy
Audiophile


Member 7319

Level 4.76

May 2006


Reply With Quote
Old Jan 1, 2007, 04:16 PM Local time: Jan 1, 2007, 10:16 PM #27 of 41
And most of the time, it's a waste.
Most? Not all?

Quote:
If you want perfection, don't even use MP3.
I didnt say I wanted perfection.

Quote:
If you want the best tradeoff between compression and quality, use VBR.
VBR takes longer to rip and encode and you get VERY SLIGHTLY better sound with 320k. Its quicker for me to rip in that. Thats the main reason I do it, actually.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.
ICEBOY
GnC Films
LiquidAcid
Chocorific


Member 6745

Level 38.97

May 2006


Reply With Quote
Old Jan 1, 2007, 04:51 PM Local time: Jan 1, 2007, 10:51 PM #28 of 41
VBR takes longer to rip
That's nonsense. Ripping has nothing to do with the encoding process.

I doubt that, any proof? Today's optimizations on the LAME codec are mostly done in the VBR area, so IF VBR encoding does take more time than CBR encoding its about a few seconds (or even ms).

and you get VERY SLIGHTLY better sound with 320k. Its quicker for me to rip in that. Thats the main reason I do it, actually.
It only does sound better if the VBR estimation algo is bad and allocates too few bits for the frame. Of course 320kbit/s CBR is the best encoding mode you have, because the peak bitrate of a frame can't exceed 320kbit/s - so that's the final limit.
BUT CBR always allocates the full bits for one frame, even if the audio data can be reconstructed using fewer bits. So VBR gets you the same quality (IF the estimation algorithm is not flawed, what we assume) but consuming fewer space.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?
Iceboy
Audiophile


Member 7319

Level 4.76

May 2006


Reply With Quote
Old Jan 1, 2007, 05:24 PM Local time: Jan 1, 2007, 11:24 PM #29 of 41
That's nonsense. Ripping has nothing to do with the encoding process.
True, my mistake. But encoding does take longer. I did my own test and it took longer.


Quote:
BUT CBR always allocates the full bits for one frame, even if the audio data can be reconstructed using fewer bits.
I know the deal. I just prefer to give every frame the maximum limit. How can ANYTHING but the most basic sound information need less than 320k? I dont care if the files are bigger.

I was speaking idiomatically.
ICEBOY
GnC Films
ArrowHead
Scadian Canadian


Member 2020

Level 20.25

Mar 2006


Reply With Quote
Old Jan 1, 2007, 06:09 PM #30 of 41
Most. Some frames need 320kbps. Some need even more but 320kbps is the most they can be given.

VBR takes longer to rip and encode and you get VERY SLIGHTLY better sound with 320k. Its quicker for me to rip in that. Thats the main reason I do it, actually.
You only have to encode once.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?
Iceboy
Audiophile


Member 7319

Level 4.76

May 2006


Reply With Quote
Old Jan 1, 2007, 06:52 PM Local time: Jan 2, 2007, 12:52 AM #31 of 41
Some frames need 320kbps. Some need even more but 320kbps is the most they can be given.
Well as Ive said before, who's to say anything needs less than 320k (unless its silence or really basic material)? So what if a few seconds takes up X-100k as opposed to being a few K of disc space? I want every frame to have the best quality available, even if the encoder programmer/code-writer/someone else says its not needed. Its subjective.

Quote:
You only have to encode once.
I rip from CD using dBpowerAmp. It rips and encodes in one single step. I dont rip to WAV and then encode to MP3. I do it all at once. But its six and two threes, the point is that encoding to APX takes me longer. Its fact, I tested it myself

FELIPE NO
ICEBOY
GnC Films
Moguta
Tentacle Extraordinaire


Member 15679

Level 12.01

Nov 2006


Reply With Quote
Old Jan 2, 2007, 12:20 AM #32 of 41
Guys, this argument really isn't necessary, and it's getting a little too fanatic. MP3 encoding is not about absolutes, its all approximation.

ArrowHead, of course encoding in VBR takes longer than CBR. The greatest power of a good VBR algorithm is that, for each frame, it tries to determine the best number of bits to represent that short segment with audible accuracy. And that determination is probably somewhat calculation-heavy, taking additional processor time. CBR simply doesn't need such a step since it already knows how many bits will be used. It's also Iceboy's choice whether he wishes to sacrifice disk space for quicker encode times, despite the fact that you only encode audio once. Maybe he has a whole lot to rip!

And Iceboy, I just want to correct what you're stating... most audio does not in fact "need" anywhere near 320Kbps to sound exactly the same as the original, to the typical human ear. That last bit is most critical: to the typical human ear. Even 320Kbps MP3s remove many frequencies from the audio, based on the idiosyncrasies of human hearing (known collectively as 'psychoacoustics') : one simple property being that a louder, lower frequency can make a simultaneously-played quieter, higher frequency completely inaudible!

The fact is that much of a waveform is completely unnecessary when your only concern is human perception, and lossy codecs take advantage of this. Over in the Hydrogen Audio forums, where many digital audio enthusiasts, audiophiles, and codec developers reside, one recurring theme highlights the over-sufficiency of 320Kbps. Whenever folks have tried to organize a community ABX-double-blind test comparing each format's best encoders at any bitrate higher than 128Kbps, they have a very hard time finding a significant number of people who can -- even under isolated listening conditions and repeated, focused listens -- verifiably rate the codecs against each other. There have been many instances of testers ranking the original audio below some of the compressed audio! 320Kbps is far from necessary to achieve audio that is no perceptibly different.

However, because the human hearing system is so complex and organic & because lossy audio encoders must use simpler algorithms that balance computing power/time vs. quality, certain so-called "killer" samples will cause evident flaws even at 320Kbps. Fortunately, such samples are usually uncommon. Their failure is usually less related to the bitrate used, and more related to the MP3 encoder not being 'tuned' to properly handle certain occurrences in audio. But it is certainly difficult to try to take into account the infinite number of ways audio can take shape, and LAME developers are continually refining the encoder against the latest "killer" samples. But yet it's still a sign that if you want to assure your music will always sound exactly the same as the original, you have to go with some totally lossless form of compression, such as FLAC (my preference) or Monkey's Audio. The disadvantage of this, however, is that while 320Kbps compresses to approximately 22.7% of the size of a CD-quality WAV, lossless codecs tend to range from 25-80%, typically more toward 60% or so.

Iceboy, it is entirely up to you whether you use 320Kbps MP3 or not; I cannot take issue with your choice. My only wish was to clarify your misperceptions, for you and and others who read this thread. I do wonder, though, if LAME's ABR mode encodes more quickly than the VBR presets, since I know encoding time was an issue for you...

Additional Post:
As for the psychological effects, sure, I guess it happens. But when I did that 320k rip of that score, I knew it sounded better without hearing the old 192k rip. Instantly, I was impressed by its quality. It wasnt until I had played a few tracks that I went back to compare a couple and the differences were apparent.
The thing is these effects are not consciously felt, they are very subtle and subconscious. You can easily "hear" the 320Kbps songs as higher quality, because in your mind you know that 320Kbps is the highest setting possible, thus it ought to sound better. And as soon as sound hits your ear and passes, all you have left is a cursory mental impression, so you can't objectively take the sound and compare the full details side-by-side in your mind. Do more exploration into the subconscious power of mental suggestion... documented studies have been done on some really freaky effects. Nothing like ESP or superstitions or anything like that but... well, I'm kind of getting off-topic, so here's one interesting read on one aspect of the matter: http://www.quackwatch.org/01Quackery...ideomotor.html

It's also possible that those 192Kbps files -were- a bit crappy. I don't know if you said you encoded those with a recommended LAME encoder and settings, but LAME recently hasn't focused on CBR quality anyway, instead implementing good ABR and VBR and emphasizing their advantages. But I'd, for fun, challenge you to double-blind test yourself between those 192Kbps and 320Kbps samples with foobar2000's built-in ABX comparator (select two tracks -> right click -> Utils -> ABX two tracks). It's proven to me how easy it is to casually "hear" an improvement that, under examination, isn't really there. It's rather interesting.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?


Good morning, post-apocalyptia!

Last edited by Moguta; Jan 2, 2007 at 01:18 AM. Reason: Squee!
Iceboy
Audiophile


Member 7319

Level 4.76

May 2006


Reply With Quote
Old Jan 2, 2007, 10:16 AM Local time: Jan 2, 2007, 04:16 PM #33 of 41
And Iceboy, I just want to correct what you're stating... most audio does not in fact "need" anywhere near 320Kbps to sound exactly the same as the original
Well unless I see conclusive proof, I cant believe this.

Quote:
The thing is these effects are not consciously felt, they are very subtle and subconscious. You can easily "hear" the 320Kbps songs as higher quality, because in your mind you know that 320Kbps is the highest setting possible, thus it ought to sound better.
Whats your problem with not believing me? It stands to reason a complex piece of 320k orchestral/electronic music will sound better than a 192k rip, because there is more data to play with! For one, the 192k cut off everything above 16Khz or so, whilst the 320k kept everything up to 20khz. The added high end was noticable to me right away!

You know, it is possible for some people to hear differences. Going from what you have said, you dont seem to believe that anything above 192k sounds better. Some people have very sensitive ears. Im one of those people.

I cant do those double blind tests, because I naturally got rid of the 192k and replaced them with the new 320k. But if I ever get the chance again I will compare some files, just for the hell of it.

Quote:
Do more exploration into the subconscious power of mental suggestion... documented studies have been done on some really freaky effects.
Well believe it or not, Ive been a practising magician for 16 years now, and I know a lot about suggestion and all that

Most amazing jew boots
ICEBOY
GnC Films
tenseiken
Syklis Green


Member 532

Level 7.77

Mar 2006


Reply With Quote
Old Jan 2, 2007, 05:34 PM #34 of 41
Well unless I see conclusive proof, I cant believe this.

...

I cant do those double blind tests, because I naturally got rid of the 192k and replaced them with the new 320k. But if I ever get the chance again I will compare some files, just for the hell of it.
So rip and encode again. The only way you're going to get your proof is with a double-blind. If you don't have the original anymore (or you're too busy or something), I can select a track from my CD collection and prepare your test files for you. Take about 5 or 10 minutes, plus transfer time.

In the meantime, please drop this. It's been explained several times now why "more data to play with" is irrelevant--it's just not getting through to you I guess. I realize that you don't understand, and I wish there was a way that we could say it differently so that you would get it, but I'd hate for you to give someone else the wrong idea about all of this just because you haven't heard the proof.

There's nowhere I can't reach.
Iceboy
Audiophile


Member 7319

Level 4.76

May 2006


Reply With Quote
Old Jan 2, 2007, 06:16 PM Local time: Jan 3, 2007, 12:16 AM #35 of 41
At the end of the day, 320k gives ever so slightly better sound at the expensive of bigger files. I can live with that.

The only thing I cannot believe unless I see (not hear) some sort of statistical data is how ANYTHING but the most basic music can need less than 320k in order to make a sound as close to the original as possible, using VBR. Thats all.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.
ICEBOY
GnC Films

Last edited by Iceboy; Jan 2, 2007 at 06:24 PM.
LiquidAcid
Chocorific


Member 6745

Level 38.97

May 2006


Reply With Quote
Old Jan 2, 2007, 06:25 PM Local time: Jan 3, 2007, 12:25 AM #36 of 41
It stands to reason a complex piece of 320k orchestral/electronic music will sound better than a 192k rip, because there is more data to play with!
Funny thing is that orchestral and electronic music does compress best in general. FLAC encodes of orchestra music show this very clearly.

The more 'noisy' music gets the harder it is to compress (because of entropy).

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?
Iceboy
Audiophile


Member 7319

Level 4.76

May 2006


Reply With Quote
Old Jan 2, 2007, 09:14 PM Local time: Jan 3, 2007, 03:14 AM #37 of 41
Funny thing is that orchestral and electronic music does compress best in general. FLAC encodes of orchestra music show this very clearly.
Not beint funny but how do you mean? Ive never used FLAC, thats all.

Quote:
The more 'noisy' music gets the harder it is to compress (because of entropy).
What do you mean?

I was speaking idiomatically.
ICEBOY
GnC Films
ArrowHead
Scadian Canadian


Member 2020

Level 20.25

Mar 2006


Reply With Quote
Old Jan 3, 2007, 04:38 AM #38 of 41
It stands to reason a complex piece of 320k orchestral/electronic music will sound better than a 192k rip, because there is more data to play with! For one, the 192k cut off everything above 16Khz or so, whilst the 320k kept everything up to 20khz. The added high end was noticable to me right away!
But that's not always the case.

You know, it is possible for some people to hear differences. Going from what you have said, you dont seem to believe that anything above 192k sounds better.
When VBR is used, 192k is great as an average. When higher bitrates like 320 are needed, they're used.

Funny thing is that orchestral and electronic music does compress best in general. FLAC encodes of orchestra music show this very clearly.
Not being funny but how do you mean? Ive never used FLAC, thats all.
When using VBR, high bitrates are used when they're needed and lower bitrates are used when they're not. So you can tell that a certain piece of music "compresses well" if the average bitrate comes out pretty low.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Last edited by ArrowHead; Jan 3, 2007 at 04:47 AM. Reason: adding another post without doubleposting
LiquidAcid
Chocorific


Member 6745

Level 38.97

May 2006


Reply With Quote
Old Jan 3, 2007, 04:50 AM Local time: Jan 3, 2007, 10:50 AM #39 of 41
Not beint funny but how do you mean? Ive never used FLAC, thats all.
FLAC is lossless compression of wave data (I hope you know that). And FLAC is therefore VBR by concept.
Method is (simplified) like that: Waveform is analyzed and approximated using some mathematical functions. The parameters can easily and efficiently be stored and even compressed further. But this approximation is not perfect, so there is some residual error which is compressed and stored in the bitstream.

This means that the more 'order' music contains ('order' in the sense that the waveform is easily approximated using mathematical functions - for details see the FLAC homepage) the better it is compressed. If you go from 'ordered' music to 'noisy' music compression gets worse. Reason is simple: You can't compress noise - that's because of entropy.



What do you mean?
By entropy? If you're not familiar with the concept of entropy (information theory) then you should read a wikipedia article or something similar.

Additional Spam:
When using VBR, high bitrates are used when they're needed and lower bitrates are used when they're not. So you can tell that a certain piece of music "compresses well" if the average bitrate comes out pretty low.
I just wanted to note that FLAC encodings are a strong indication of how good the music data actually compresses (compression = lossless compression).

FELIPE NO

Last edited by LiquidAcid; Jan 3, 2007 at 04:53 AM. Reason: This member got a little too post happy.
Iceboy
Audiophile


Member 7319

Level 4.76

May 2006


Reply With Quote
Old Jan 3, 2007, 10:23 AM Local time: Jan 3, 2007, 04:23 PM #40 of 41
Red face

Thanks for your info, that was quite interesting.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?
ICEBOY
GnC Films
Moguta
Tentacle Extraordinaire


Member 15679

Level 12.01

Nov 2006


Reply With Quote
Old Jan 20, 2007, 02:52 PM #41 of 41
What we mean by more entropy or more noise is essentially audio with less of a pattern. Compression -- whether MP3, DivX, or ZIP -- utilizes the presence of predictable patterns to, in essence, remove redundancy and save space. However, as data approaches the purely random (entropy/chaos/"noise"), it gets more difficult to compress.

As for statistical data to show that anything less than 320Kbps is necessary... well, this isn't quite that, but it's a 128Kbps listening test conducted almost 3 years ago.
Test Introduction
Test Results
The participants are probably all self-professed audiophiles, since it was conducted on the HydrogenAudio.org forum. Double-blind tests were conducted with those formats vs. the original audio, and people were asked to rate the quality subjectively from 1.0 to 5.0, 5.0 being perfectly indistinguishable. Note how close some of these codecs are rated to 5.0 at just 128Kbps! So, it's certainly not improbable to think that bitrates above that could reach the level of being audibly indistinguishable. Although, I admit it would be wrong to decisively conclude that just from the results of this test.

Jam it back in, in the dark.


Good morning, post-apocalyptia!
Reply

Thread Tools

Exploding Garrmondo Weiner Interactive Swiss Army Penis > Garrmondo Music and Trading > Behind the Music > Stereo or Joint Stereo? 44100 or 48000?

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -5. The time now is 04:18 PM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.9
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.