ATRAC sound quality... again?

[navsimpson]

Hi All,

I'm a little new to this forum (which, btw, is a great resource) and had a question about the relative sound quality of the ATRAC format. I only hope that this hasn't been discussed ad-nauseum - I did do a search and could only find discussions of certain bitrates in the different releases of Sonicstage.

I've recently been reading the forums at hydrogenaudio.org - where ATRAC seems to be *very* unpopular - and am a little curious as to what others think about the comparative sound quality of ATRAC, particularly ATRAC3plus since this is what I use for my NWHD3. At hydrogenaudio, it seems most people swear by AAC and LAME MP3s as the best-sounding codecs by far and claim that ATRAC has no benefits over these formats.

Being curious about it - and, okay, a little defensive - I did a little informal test of my own (I know, I'm a giant nerd). I ripped the first track from Mark Knopfler's "Sailing to Philidelphia" CD, whose albums are always pristinely recorded - and used the following formats and bitrates:

ATRAC Advanced Lossless (with the 352kbs setting)

ATRAC3plus 352kbs

ATRAC3plus 128kbs

AAC 320kbs

AAC 128kbs

WMA 192kbs

MP3 320kbs (using CDex to get a LAME ripper, rest ripped using Sonicstage 4.0)

To 'test', I used my only set-up: a Creative Audigy 2 Notebook and a pair of Grado SR-60s. Unsurprisingly, the lossless file sounded the most lifelike to me, which I suppose is a little tautological. But when it came to the other formates, to my ears the ATRAC3plus 352kbs file simply sounded the cleanest and most vibrant. The AAC file at 320kbs was very very good, just ever so slightly flat in my opinion (perhaps because of the lower bitrate). The LAME MP3 also sounded good, but not as good as the aforementioned two while the MP3 ripped using Sonicstage and the WMA file sounded about the same. But, to be completely honest, the differences we're talking about here are minute, and definitely not the sort I'd notice on the subway, unless I had some super-expensive Etymotic headphones or something. All in all, I'd say using some pretty mid-level equipment (or high-end or low-end depending on your thresholds), there was a difference, but it was slight. I am, however, glad I'm spending all this time re-ripping my collection into ATRAC!

The one area where ATRAC wasn't as good (in my opinion) was that I felt the AAC 128kbs file sounded better than the ATRAC3plus file at the same bitrate. I always thought that ATRAC's strong suit was its lower bitrates, but maybe I was wrong or perhaps it was just a song that favoured AAC.

Anyway, what I was curious about was what others thought about, on the one hand, Sony's (and I suppose also my) claim that ATRAC is aurally superior and, on the other, the claims of others that ATRAC offers no benefits at all (particularly since we all know it comes with a lot of downsides). I know that many - including myself - often have a bit of a bias when it comes to Sony, but what do others think about ATRAC's sound quality, particularly at the higher- and middle- levels of the bitrate spectrum - say 128kbs and up?

P.S. Sorry about the length,

Nav

[DSP]

I think atrac3(+) is a very good codec.

I use it as my primary codec for everything.

I think atrac has a warm and natural sound... it sounds very full and vibrant. I feel comfy with it's sound.

Where I think MP3 and AAC fail is the warmth of a song... they sound sharp and clean (if you used a good source and encoder) but not natural or warm. they can sound cheap sometimes.

I would like to mind you of the fact that soundquality is very personal.

I think atrac3+ greatest strength (for me) is the 64 Kbps bitrate. files are soo small and sound very good.

also at higher bitrates it's a very, very good codec. I like the 192 Kbps codec too! it's not too big an yet outstanding soundquality.

it has for every need a bitrate. 64 Kbps, standard 128 Kbps, higher 352 Kbps and advance lossless. and som other bitrates in between. So for every need there's a solution.

so for me it's atrac3(+) all the way!

that's not just some sort of fanboy behavior, but I tested it several times and compared it to AAC, AAC+, WMA, OGG, MP3, MP3pro and some other codecs.

greetz.

Edited September 11, 2006 by DSP

[pata2001]

Unless I want gapless, I'll stick with MP3. Lame MP3 keeps improving, while Sony's development of Atrac is questionable.

For the sake of codec discussion, try 48kbps of HE-AAC. You'll be surprised of the sound quality. Atrac3+ 48kbps is crap, but HE-AAC 48kbps is surprisingly still listenable. I just wish there are more support for the format outside cell-phones.

[JustAnUnCoolCat]

Whilst i'm not particularly familiar with the album mentioned as being tested, i am familiar with Mark Knopfler's solo stuff.. and agreed, it's a good testbed for encoding due to the inherently clean and beautiful blend in the mix of instruments and the pristine mastering.

Since i haven't heard the particular album, can't qualify or support the ATRACPlus 352K sounding best bit (but that's highly personal, so the odds are i'd not hear it that way anyhow) - but what is pretty solid and set in stone with me is :-

1) If it's very acoustic, and not a real mish mash 'load of noise' mastering - whilst there is a definate gain to go with higher rates, you dont lose a huge amount with medium rates either (just a bit of definition usually, or soundstage prescence).

2) I'd stake, based on my restorations of lots of olde world recordings (aka anything that predates CD and digital audio), that whilst the audio definately dictates (for sheer quality purposes) the limits of what is a clean encoding bit-rate and sample-rate wise, there is often room for halving the bitrate vs what would seem to be optimal.

3) The cleaner and more pronounced the audio, aka the more of a sense of hearing every lil sound in the recording.. coughs and all and the more pristine the mastering, you will find that it's higher rates when quality counts.

4) However, apart from the 'the music dicates the limits' bit (which is pretty much set in stone for purrfectionists), all the above is totally disregardable if you simply encode to suit practical purposes.

The original HQ LP modes (ATRAC3 105/132) still make really good nominal choices even with really detailed and rich demanding audio.. as long as the mastering and blend in the source is decent to start with.

My reference is pristine clean sourced 78's and 45's usually, restored using my own highly demanding (and very time consuming forensic grade process), but when i do encode live session CD's such Joe Brown's 'A Showbusiness Lifetime' album and many others like it, i would have to join NavSimpson in terms of what works best for sheer quality, but when it comes to practical encode to suit all post-SP ATRAC kit, i'd go with 132/105 rates.

But i also will agree with a sentiment also mentioned from somoene else, that ATRAC itself now does possess a pretty solid rate of rates and variants... that pretty much provides filesize and quality orientated output to suit most purposes.

And given AAC (ok, only later ATRAC kit supports that) adds in additional options to fill in the gaps re ATRAC rates/combos, whilst i find AAC is definately not all it's cracked up to be, it's precense in support is useful.. and sometimes, will give someone the size/quality ratio outcome they need for a given track that is otherwise too compromised or too bulkly in another supported format.

'Tom Kat'