rauer Posted May 24, 2004 Report Share Posted May 24, 2004 Sorry if this is old news to you or the forum is wrong. I did a search but did not find anything regarding this test. As you all know (better than me), the MP3 and ATRAC codecs have been living in different worlds without many accurate test comparing the quality of them. A few days ago Hydrogenaudio www.hydrogenaudio.org had a large supposedly accurate double blind test of lossy audio codecs around 128kbps level. The codecs were: iTunes AAC, Ogg Vorbis, Lame MP3, Musepack, WMA Std. and Atrac3. The results were just released and surprisingly the Atrac3 was the worst of the bunch! In case you want to take a closer look, Roberto Amorim's test page: http://www.rjamorim.com/test/multiformat12...esentation.html Hydrogenaudio's thread: http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?sho...pic=21581&st=0& And the final results: http://www.rjamorim.com/test/multiformat12...28/results.html Any comments? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rauer Posted May 24, 2004 Author Report Share Posted May 24, 2004 Wow, this test has really left us 'minidiscers' speachless. 200 views and not a single comment. :ohmy: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Damage Posted May 25, 2004 Report Share Posted May 25, 2004 Not surprised. I think this is more indictment on Sony than anything else. It says couple of things, that Sony's software development has stopped working on ATRAC in favor of ATRAC3plus, or have moved on to PS2 coding (imagine that!). It should be noted that with the exception of couple of samples (mostly electronica, some pop here and there), most Codecs endup being tied (outside of Ogg Vorbis) or close to one another, more or less. And it should be noted that MPC and OGG does run away with the crown (and somewhat obviously) since they have higher bitrate allocation in most of the files, depsite the final average bitrate calculated. It's not quite 128kbps vs. 128kbps, more like 135-150kbps vs 128kbps. But overall results are an indictment against the software ATRAC codec (which one though? One off of the new SonicStage? The one from MD.org?) And I'll take back what I said... I have to listen more carefully now I guess. This makes me believe more and more that the software and hardware ATRAC codec maybe different altogether. Get your Tin foil Hats folks! /Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sxc Posted May 25, 2004 Report Share Posted May 25, 2004 I don't see many notes on the methodology of the testing. I don't think that this test can be taken as being too reliable. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daijoubu Posted May 25, 2004 Report Share Posted May 25, 2004 Read the presentation page Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sebastian Mares Posted May 25, 2004 Report Share Posted May 25, 2004 1. The testing has been done using the ABC/HR method and is therefore very accurate. 2. Please notice that ATRAC used 132 kbps and not exactly 128 kbps. This test should also demonstrate that VBR encoders are better than CBR ones. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Christopher Posted May 26, 2004 Report Share Posted May 26, 2004 Welcome Sebastian, I look forward to reading further posts from you. :happy: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alieninhead Posted May 27, 2004 Report Share Posted May 27, 2004 I agree and assume it is a bash at Sony. I'm sure at some point, the tests were accurate but over all...? Beyond that, LAME MP3 isn't MP3. Well, yes it is in some sense: it's an MP3 encoder. But it's experimental and not an encoder found in most (or any?) MP3 encoders out there. I tried using it on my Linux distro to rip but it took a heck of a lot longer than Music Match..so I scrapped that idea. I found that an ATRAC3 file encoded at 105KPS is much nicer than an MP3 encoded at 128 KPS. But that's just me. I also can tweak the settings of the ATRAC3 file on my MD player unlike I can readily do/ever tried with any MP3 player I have. ~a.i.h. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sebastian Mares Posted May 27, 2004 Report Share Posted May 27, 2004 The recommended compile is still 3.90.3, although 3.96 is heavily tested by the Hydrogenaudio community (like 3.90.3 was). Recommended settings are --alt-preset standard, --alt-preset extreme and --alt-preset insane. You can get several builds from RareWares (http://www.rarewares.org/mp3.html). In another listening test done my Roberto, you can see that LAME is superior to FhG (what CoolEdit and MusicMatch use): . Please bear in mind that LAME isn't an experimental encoder; it's a full featured, stable MP3 encoder. Please also take in consideration that LAME is getting better and better, while the development of the actual FhG MP3 encoder is frozen. Oh, and if you are looking for programs using lame_enc.dll for example, have a look at CDex, Exact Audio Copy, Winamp 5 (Pro)... Edit: MusicMatch doesn't offer you the possibility to tweak the encoder that much, but with LAME you can set up almost everything. Of course, if you are not an experienced user, you can screw up the quality a lot. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest NRen2k5 Posted May 28, 2004 Report Share Posted May 28, 2004 LAME MP3 isn't MP3.Yes, it most definitely is MP3. So ASRAC isn't ATRAC?But it's experimental and not an encoder found in most (or any?) MP3 encoders out there.So then $10 earbuds are the only real headphones on the market, since they're the most common?I tried using it on my Linux distro to rip but it took a heck of a lot longer than Music Match..so I scrapped that idea.You ought to know that speed is usually a tradeoff for quality. Besides, you only have to encode an album once and you'll be listening to it many times. Anyway, how ancient is this linux bux that you have to worry about speed for such a quick task as MP3 encoding?I found that an ATRAC3 file encoded at 105KPS is much nicer than an MP3 encoded at 128 KPS. But that's just me.Yes, just you, who is using MusicMatch rather than Lame to encode, and probably with poor-quality settings at that.I also can tweak the settings of the ATRAC3 file on my MD player unlike I can readily do/ever tried with any MP3 player I have.Huh? ATRAC3 doesn't have settings! You choose the bitrate and that's about it! Maybe you mean making EQ adjustments? What MP3 player do you have that's so ancient and low-end that it doesn't have an EQ?! Ironic that you should start your post accusing someone else of format bashing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
highlandsun Posted May 28, 2004 Report Share Posted May 28, 2004 It would be useful to have more info on how the ATRAC3 samples were produced. I can't download any of the Sample packages, they seem to have already been removed. I'd guess the best way to obtain the ATRAC3 samples would be to feed the audio via optical to a NetMD deck, and capture it again using optical from the deck. I would certainly NOT use the ATRAC3 codec that I provided for MiniDisc.org; that was ripped out of a pre-release version of the Sony tools and it's known to fail in a number of common conditions. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sebastian Mares Posted May 28, 2004 Report Share Posted May 28, 2004 He captured the output of the ATRAC3 files with Total Recorder. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daijoubu Posted June 2, 2004 Report Share Posted June 2, 2004 From SS2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
highlandsun Posted June 4, 2004 Report Share Posted June 4, 2004 Oh well. I unfortunately don't have a NetMD deck otherwise I'd try this again. My deck is a JB920, it only handles original ATRAC. By the way, it's possible to artificially construct WAV files that will compress and decompress losslessly with ATRAC(3), if you make sure that (a) there's not much complexity to begin with and ( the frequencies present in the file all fall directly in the center of the codec's subbands, and their amplitudes are geometrically related (to allow the floating quantizer to work). I suppose the same should be possible for MP3 as well. It would be interesting to see how portable such a data stream would be, between revision levels of a codec, etc... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Syrius Posted June 21, 2004 Report Share Posted June 21, 2004 Yeah, sure.. compare Ogg to Atrac3 (which is designed to give you small files to cram lots of music into a single MD). I want to see how Ogg and Lame compare when put to the test against regular Atrac. (SP-mode) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skyther Posted June 21, 2004 Report Share Posted June 21, 2004 *nod* ATRAC SP is the best! It's been the best for the last 15 years, and everyone who believes otherwise is naive (can I say extremely stupid?). How can ~128kbps VBR OGG ever compare with 292kbps ATRAC? What fools! Someone ought to tell them that ATRAC SP > PCM, CDDA, SACD and DVD-A! [normal] The comparison was done fair and square. 128kbps OGG/QT AAC/LAME MP3 owned 132kbps ATRAC3/LP2. Obviously 292kbps would be different, but 320kbps OGG/AAC/MP3 would pwn ATRAC-SP likewise. Sheesh.[/normal] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mat Posted July 17, 2004 Report Share Posted July 17, 2004 How can ~128kbps VBR OGG ever compare with 292kbps ATRAC? What fools! Someone ought to tell them that ATRAC SP > PCM, CDDA, SACD and DVD-A! If im not mistaken, ATRAC SP is still a lossy so it cannot be compared to PCM. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
highlandsun Posted July 18, 2004 Report Share Posted July 18, 2004 ATRAC and ATRAC3 aren't so terrible, they're just designed with a different philosophy than those other codecs. ATRAC is constant bitrate, those other codecs are variable. That difference alone puts them in two completely different worlds. It's really easy to sync MD recordings to video and other audio sources and interleave them into new multimedia streams. It's notoriously difficult to do this with any VBR format. Nobody seems to complain that their DVD movies sound like shit, and Dolby AC3 is a constant rate 384kbps carrying 5.1 channels of audio. Sony licensed the basics of ATRAC from Dolby. I think they chose wisely. (Gee, 6 channels at 64kbps each = 384kbps. So who says that 64kbps ATRAC has to sound bad?) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skyther Posted July 18, 2004 Report Share Posted July 18, 2004 ^ "Two completely different worlds"? Nonsense. VBR allows for quality and size optimization, where it adds and takes bits as it sees fit. Lossy is lossy, they belong as one category. They achieve the same thing, only each does it with varying results depending on the psychoacoustic techniques it applies to selecting the chunks of data it throws away. As a personal observation: MP3's (LAME) artifacts are metallic sounding and generally unplesant, ATRAC is not as bad. On the other hand, ATRAC has a higher artifact 'rate', suggesting that it's not as efficient. AAC has the advantages of both. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Solid Snake Posted July 18, 2004 Report Share Posted July 18, 2004 Alright, let me explain one thing here: I'm a member at H-Audio too, and from what I have seen, it's just a bunch of golden ears who seem to think everything has to sound exactly like the original or it isn't worth their time (in a way, they're worse than Head-Fi users). Now, I don't want to start a huge war here, but the problem comes with the fact that ATRAC was never made to be "exactly the same" as CD. It was made to be a good approximation of it, but you also have to remember that the main point of it was to make editing songs easier and the like. No solidstate MP3 player has the same flexibility as an MD player when it comes to recording, swapping tracks, naming tracks, and the like. With those type of devices, it's all done through the computer. With the MD, you can do it all through the player, which puts it outside of everything. Now, I'm not trying to say ATRAC sounds horrible, because it doesn't. I quite enjoy the sound of it, although I am not going to go and compare it to CD quality, because obviously it would lose. I'm just saying that sound quality wasn't the main focus here. To me, it's like comparing apples to oranges. Explain to me if I misunderstand something, as I am not the type of person who likes to spew bullsh** off as fact, this is just the way I have been informed, and I figure it's at least an interesting read. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skyther Posted July 18, 2004 Report Share Posted July 18, 2004 True enough. But we're not questioning ATRAC against CD, but against other lossy formats. No solidstate MP3 player has the same flexibility as an MD player when it comes to recording, swapping tracks, naming tracks, and the like. With those type of devices, it's all done through the computer. With the MD, you can do it all through the player, which puts it outside of everything.Not true. I have a deck with a remote that has independant alpha keys for titling. Yet I'd rather use my PC to title, swap and divide tracks. I'm using PC Link, not NetMD, btw. Either way, it's been proven that MD has not much of a future without PC support. NetMD IS the core behind Hi-MD, whether you like it or not. Despite all that "MD can record from any source" arguement, no one will want to record 7h 55m of music per disc from a CDP. All that uploading hype was also the main fact that Hi-MD was unable (though the situation is still currently unsure) to upload recorded audio to PCs digitally. The keyword here is PC. >90% of Hi-MD users will be using PCs to manage their music. iTunes + iPod is the simplest way of carrying your music around. Dock, wait for a minute, pull out. An exact mirror of your PC audio library is made. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Solid Snake Posted July 18, 2004 Report Share Posted July 18, 2004 True enough. But we're not questioning ATRAC against CD, but against other lossy formats. Not true. I have a deck with a remote that has independant alpha keys for titling. Yet I'd rather use my PC to title, swap and divide tracks. I'm using PC Link, not NetMD, btw. Either way, it's been proven that MD has not much of a future without PC support. NetMD IS the core behind Hi-MD, whether you like it or not. Despite all that "MD can record from any source" arguement, no one will want to record 7h 55m of music per disc from a CDP. All that uploading hype was also the main fact that Hi-MD was unable (though the situation is still currently unsure) to upload recorded audio to PCs digitally. The keyword here is PC. >90% of Hi-MD users will be using PCs to manage their music. iTunes + iPod is the simplest way of carrying your music around. Dock, wait for a minute, pull out. An exact mirror of your PC audio library is made.I see what you are saying, I just honestly am quite against the foundation of NetMD, because of all the DRM bullsh** behind it. I have an iPod, and until I can get a "pick up and play" MD deck that DOESN'T cover your files with DRM (or at least lets you EDIT THEM ON THE DISC, AND NOT GIVE YOU THE "TRPROTECT" crap) my S1, which I am never using with OMG again, will be my activity machine (I only use the iPod when I'm walking around, in a car, or at home. When I'm running around or biking, or the like, I'm a little paranoid about damaging the HD) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mAjEsTiC Posted July 22, 2004 Report Share Posted July 22, 2004 only gripe i have with the iPod is battery life and HDD protection...i'v never been fond of anything with a HDD inside them coz i'm paranoid that if i drop them they'd fail...and as with all HDD's they all have a "used by" date on them...they all will fail in the end...which concerns me...at least the 4th Generation iPod looks to try to improve the battery life being rated at lasting up to 25hrs... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dex Otaku Posted July 22, 2004 Report Share Posted July 22, 2004 Nobody seems to complain that their DVD movies sound like shit, and Dolby AC3 is a constant rate 384kbps carrying 5.1 channels of audio. Sony licensed the basics of ATRAC from Dolby. I think they chose wisely. (Gee, 6 channels at 64kbps each = 384kbps. So who says that 64kbps ATRAC has to sound bad?)I know this post is oldish but the standard rate for AC3 on DVD is 448kbps, not 384kbps. AC3 also does a lot of shifty bit-allocation things that make it basically as comparable to ATRAC or ATRAC3 as either is to AAC. They were designed for different purposes. Furthermore, Sony made ATRAC completely independently of Dolby's research. They found out that Dolby had already patented certain things that ATRAC could have been considered to be copying, and negotiated a liscence with Dolby rather than deal with the probability of a lawsuit. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dex Otaku Posted July 22, 2004 Report Share Posted July 22, 2004 *nod* ATRAC SP is the best! It's been the best for the last 15 years, and everyone who believes otherwise is naive (can I say extremely stupid?). How can ~128kbps VBR OGG ever compare with 292kbps ATRAC? What fools! Someone ought to tell them that ATRAC SP > PCM, CDDA, SACD and DVD-A! .. The comparison was done fair and square. 128kbps OGG/QT AAC/LAME MP3 owned 132kbps ATRAC3/LP2. Obviously 292kbps would be different, but 320kbps OGG/AAC/MP3 would pwn ATRAC-SP likewise. Sheesh.[/normal]Really, now. ATRAC is over 13 years old. The standard for MP3 itself is older than ATRAC. And AAC and OGG are both newer. It would stand to reason that as time goes by, things improve. ATRAC is not known among anyone I know in the audio community up here as the highest quality thing around. Most people I know who care for quality are sticking with AAC and OGG, and lastly lame MP3 for compatibility with cheap hardware players. All of which generally sound better than ATRAC for close listening. On the other hand, for first-generation compression of field recordings [what *all* of the people I know who use MD use it for, without exception] ATRAC is an acceptable compromise simply because MD is such a handy format. Not because it sounds best. And don't compare ATRAC with DVD-A. DVD-A can support up to 24-bit quantisation and 96kHz sampling rates depending on the number of channels used - no compression format can compete with -real- high resolution recordings. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skyther Posted July 22, 2004 Report Share Posted July 22, 2004 ^ I was being sarcastic. :happy: AC3 on DVD is 448kbps, not 384kbps.448kbps is the maximum. Most DVDs use 384kbps. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dex Otaku Posted July 22, 2004 Report Share Posted July 22, 2004 ^ I was being sarcastic. :happy: 448kbps is the maximum. Most DVDs use 384kbps.Every DVD I have [with the exception of one of the Harry Potter films, which uses 384kbps because it has 4 soundtracks on it] uses 448kbps. Not that this is definitive, but my rendering software [Vegas 4.0, which I used last year to engineer, master and render a 5.1 soundtrack for DVD] claims that 448kbps is the standard rate. And lastly, The maximum bitrate of AC3 is 640kbps. If you don't believe that, I can send you some material made at that bitrate. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dex Otaku Posted July 22, 2004 Report Share Posted July 22, 2004 ^ I was being sarcastic. :happy: 448kbps is the maximum. Most DVDs use 384kbps.Oh, and sorry if I'm seeming hostile. I'm not meaning to be .. maybe I'm just being a grumpy pooh today. Ah oh! Sarcasm! I must indeed be a grumpy pooh if I'm taking things so literally. Phbbbbbbt. Truce? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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