greenmachine

Do you play in a band?

And for those who think it needs extremely high quality equipment to hear a difference, just compared it through my crappy built-in laptop speakers, it was still very easy: WinABX v0.42 test report 06/08/2005 16:39:57 A file: C:\temp\La Grange 64+.wav B file: C:\temp\La Grange mp3 128.wav Start position 00:00.0, end position 00:24.2 16:40:38 1/1 p=50.0% 16:40:41 2/2 p=25.0% 16:40:44 3/3 p=12.5% 16:40:46 4/4 p=6.2% 16:40:49 5/5 p=3.1% 16:40:51 6/6 p=1.6% 16:40:57 7/7 p=0.8% 16:41:00 8/8 p=0.4% 16:41:02 9/9 p=0.2% 16:41:04 10/10 p< 0.1% [/code]

...which would open the doors to uninhibited hedonism. I wonder why nobody voted for c<a=b, are you all biased by my first post, eh?

Thanks Volta, i think you're great in explaining correlations. Did you read 'Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung' by the way? Here's something to think about: Suppose past is infinite and future is infinite and let us think on eternal past and eternal future. If time go on proceeding towards future and finally reached to eternal future, however long it may be, the distance of time between the present and the eternal future becomes a finite specified value, doesn't it ? And a finite specified value is contrary to infinite, isn't it ? This means that time can never reach to eternal future eternally. In the same manner, when time go back to past, time can never reach to eternal past eternally. Then, if time has come from infinite past, how can it be possible that it has reached to the present ?

Added the uncompressed file for comparison.

some facts about sony's tests: -in one test they propably used the same cooledit/audition fraunhofer mp3 encoder that i've used, in the other they used musicmatch jukebox v7.5 for encoding (no idea which encoder is used there) -they don't describe which settings they used for the mp3 encoders -mp3 performance at very low bitrates (64 kbit/s and below) is indeed very disappointing, even if properly set, there are other codecs which perform better, including Atrac3+ -Sony itself chose the majority of the test samples

How about that? But seriously, there are some nice ideas at taperssection: http://taperssection.com/index.php?topic=40095.0 http://taperssection.com/index.php?topic=40188.0 http://taperssection.com/index.php?topic=22088.0 http://homepage.mac.com/eringraham/Kevin/PhotoAlbum54.html You will get a lot of movement noise if you place it under your shirt, the head seems to be better suited.

Question: If you took random noise and shaped it identical to your graph, would it sound identical to the music sample, or just like shaped noise? There's no need to post additional samples, just pick up the given and put it into some abx machine for blind comparison: http://www.pcabx.com/ http://www.kikeg.arrakis.es/winabx/winabx.zip http://www.kikeg.arrakis.es/winabx/readme.txt

The second one between Atrac3 @ 132 kbit/s and mp3 was significantly harder, but there's still at least a slight difference: WinABX v0.42 test report 06/08/2005 01:30:47 A file: C:\temp\La Grange 132.wav B file: C:\temp\La Grange mp3 128.wav Start position 00:00.0, end position 00:24.2 01:31:54 1/1 p=50.0% 01:32:21 2/2 p=25.0% 01:33:13 3/3 p=12.5% 01:34:01 4/4 p=6.2% 01:34:25 5/5 p=3.1% 01:34:55 6/6 p=1.6% 01:35:34 7/7 p=0.8% [/code]

Did a blind test, the comparison between Atrac3+ @ 64 kbit/s and mp3 was very easy: WinABX v0.42 test report 06/08/2005 01:03:16 A file: C:\temp\La Grange 64+.wav B file: C:\temp\La Grange mp3 128.wav 01:03:38 1/1 p=50.0% 01:03:41 2/2 p=25.0% 01:03:43 3/3 p=12.5% 01:03:45 4/4 p=6.2% 01:03:48 5/5 p=3.1% 01:03:50 6/6 p=1.6% 01:03:52 7/7 p=0.8% 01:03:54 8/8 p=0.4% 01:03:56 9/9 p=0.2% 01:03:58 10/10 p< 0.1% 01:04:03 11/11 p< 0.1% 01:04:06 12/12 p< 0.1% 01:04:08 13/13 p< 0.1% 01:04:10 14/14 p< 0.1% 01:04:12 15/15 p< 0.1% 01:04:14 16/16 p< 0.1% 01:04:17 17/17 p< 0.1% 01:04:20 18/18 p< 0.1% 01:04:22 19/19 p< 0.1% 01:04:24 20/20 p< 0.1% 01:04:28 21/21 p< 0.1% 01:04:31 22/22 p< 0.1% 01:04:33 23/23 p< 0.1% 01:04:35 24/24 p< 0.1% 01:04:37 25/25 p< 0.1% 01:04:40 26/26 p< 0.1% 01:04:42 27/27 p< 0.1% 01:04:43 28/28 p< 0.1% 01:04:46 29/29 p< 0.1% 01:04:48 30/30 p< 0.1% 01:04:50 31/31 p< 0.1% 01:04:56 32/32 p< 0.1% 01:05:00 33/33 p< 0.1% 01:05:03 34/34 p< 0.1% 01:05:05 35/35 p< 0.1% 01:05:07 36/36 p< 0.1% 01:05:09 37/37 p< 0.1% 01:05:11 38/38 p< 0.1% 01:05:14 39/39 p< 0.1% 01:05:17 40/40 p< 0.1% [/code]

That's indeed very nice to view, but doesn't say anything about perceived sound quality. You can't judge sound quality by looking at some graphs, sorry. I'll do a blind test if it satisfies you.

http://www.sony.net/Products/ATRAC3/tech/lab/index.html

I've decided not to make it a blind test because the difference seems to be too obvious (at least with good equipment). I've used the Audition 1.5's Fraunhofer mp3 encoder with a lowpass at 15.8 kHz, m/s joint stereo enabled, intensity joint stereo disabled, cbr. It gave slightly better results than LAME 3.96 --alt preset cbr 128 in my opinion. LAME seems to be slightly worse for low bitrates, but excellent for higher bitrate vbr (--alt preset standard/extreme). I'd really like to see a medium bitrate Atrac 3+ (about 128 kbit/s) since they claim it to work more efficiently than Atrac3. Atrac3 at this bitrate is often close to acceptable quality.

oops, wrong forum, please move

I've been wondering about Sony's claims 64 kbit/s Atrac3+ Hi-LP being comparable quality to 128 kbit/s mp3, so i compared it directly. Since it seems to be nowhere close to the mp3, i've compared the mp3 with 132 kbit/s Atrac3 LP, which seems to be still (slightly?) worse. Am i nuts? a.) La Grange mp3 128 kbit/s b.) La Grange Atrac3 132 kbit/s c.) La Grange Atrac3+ 64kbit/s La Grange Original

They call 64 kbit/s Atrac3+ Hi-LP extremely high quality sound? LOL It's nowhere close to an 128 kbit/s mp3, even 132 kbit/s Atrac3 LP seemed to be (slightly?) worse as i compared it directly. edit: I've set up a comparison, see this thread: http://forums.minidisc.org/index.php?showtopic=10541

-headed. Thank you very much.

I'd really like to join your praises, but i think this manufacturers' microphones are still way too expensive and pro-orientated to be widely accepted by average users. There needs to be an european competition in the low to mid price range as well. Maybe we should build our own company.

Just stumbled on some interesting OKM samples in the archive: http://www.archive.org/audio/etree-details-db.php?id=19394 http://www.archive.org/audio/audio-details...dRecordings2003 I'm not sure about your mic-cap idea though, i think placing the microphones up front would change the sound noticeably, whether it be in a positive or negative way, anyway it wouldn't be 'binaural' anymore.

You've been recording monoaural as yet? You'll be impressed how a second channel can change the whole image, especially with such an advanced technique as binaural recording. Welcome to the real world.

Your recorder has no 'mic in' jack, you need either a different recorder with a built-in microphone preamplifier or an external microphone preamplifier plugged to 'line in' of your recorder.

correct

I have no idea if they've changed it meanwhile (i don't see a reason to do so), but with my pre-NetMD/HiMD MZ-R909 AGC does work with line-in. You propably won't recognize it with the weak signal of a mic plugged directly to line-in since it pretty much always works below AGC's threshold, but if you connect an external player with a standard 1v output to it, which signal is above its threshold, you'll most propably hear it working.

To obtain the best possible S/N ratio (less hiss), set the playback device to full volume and adjust levels with the recorder.

Although it looks like that on the picture, it's hard to say for sure, since it lacks a detailed description. But if you clip any microphone directly to your body, you prevent soundwaves from the back to hit it directly. This gives some kind of additional directivity. If you put it in a neutral environment (on a stand), does it still seem to pick up mostly what's in front of it?