Topic: The better audio Format (Read 7581 times)

LonWar · « **on:** June 24, 2003, 04:15:32 am »

Hello, Can someone tell me which the better format is for ripping CD's?? and Why?

MP3 VBR (on High)
MP3 320kbps
WMA on the highest..(I'm not sure how you have wma as 320kbps, On the Win Media Player the highest is 192kbps)

These are the only formats that my DVD player and my Nomad JB3 plays....

I had to re rip my collection and want the best format before I spend all that time..........

Thanks in advance

Sergio · « **Reply #1 on:** June 24, 2003, 04:58:32 am »

MP3 320kbps is really the best MP3 can get, but it's overkill for most songs.

MP3 VBR would be more appropriate, but not any MP3 VBR, LAME alt-preset standard. It is really good.

Now if you really want good sound quality, I'd recommend Ogg Vorbis at -q7 or -q8. Much better than MP3.

Some people like the sound of MPC, I don't, that's because everyone hears things differently. To me, MPC sounds a bit stripped of the ambience, the space, but to other people it sounds better than Ogg. You should try both and decide for yourself. But MP3 is a bad choice, unless you're going for portable devices...

Oh, and WMA... Just don't use it. The sound quality still has a long way to go, and entrusting your music to a proprietary and protected format? Hmm, no thanks...

But since you mention that these are the only formats that work on your player, then you should go for MP3 at 320 kbps (if space is no problem) or MP3 with LAME alt-preset standard (if you like to save some space, and still have good sound)

Cmagic · « **Reply #2 on:** June 24, 2003, 05:30:15 am »

Nothing more to say than Sergio on WMA or MP3,

If you have some space on your HDD you might also consider APE which is a lossless encoder (exact same quality as your original CD) but with a compression rate of about 50 to 70 %.

Now if you really want good compressed quality I would recommend MPC at --standard or --xtreme. Much better than MP3. (avg bitrate 170kbps for standard and 200 kbps for xtreme)

Some people like the sound of OGG, I don't, that's because everyone hears things differently. To me, OGG sounds a bit stripped of the ambience, the space, but to other people it sounds better than MPC. You should try both and decide for yourself....

Christian

jakobluck · « **Reply #3 on:** June 24, 2003, 05:31:30 am »

MPC standard (q5) is supposedly completely transparent to the human ear except on special samples, but if i were to use MPC, i'd use q6 for that "extra overhead". however, your hardware doesn't support MPC, so your best choice would be one of the alt presets.

--alt-preset insane is really the best MP3 can get - --alt-preset extreme would in most cases be better than the standard 320kbps CBR. for most people, --alt-preset standard will be transparent, but YMMV.

if i were you, i'd do a few blind tests with a couple of your favorite songs and see if you can differentiate between --alt-preset standard and the original CD audio. if not, use that preset. if so, use --alt-preset extreme.

LonWar · « **Reply #4 on:** June 24, 2003, 05:55:52 am »

What is : --alt-preset insane

I did a look through MC9 and can not find that option.

Cmagic · « **Reply #5 on:** June 24, 2003, 06:01:59 am »

gamer,

To be able to use those presets, you must choose custom settings then enter the appropriate command line option (e.g. --alt-preset insane) in the custom parameter dialog box.

C.

LonWar · « **Reply #6 on:** June 24, 2003, 06:23:09 am »

Quote

gamer,

To be able to use those presets, you must choose custom settings then enter the appropriate command line option (e.g. --alt-preset insane) in the custom parameter dialog box.

C.

Not to sound dumb or anything, were is the custom settings options?? I went to Options and Encoding, but the only thing I see is advanced, When I choose that it asks if I want High speed or High Quality.

Sergio · « **Reply #7 on:** June 24, 2003, 06:27:13 am »

Tools -> Options -> Encoding

For "Encoder", choose "MP3 Encoder VBR". For "Quality" choose "Custom". Then click "Advanced" and write down the command setting you wish.

Oh, and Cmagic, I got a certain "dejà vu" reading your post

LonWar · « **Reply #8 on:** June 24, 2003, 06:51:43 am »

Excellent, Thanks....

Where did you guys learn about that?

Sergio · « **Reply #9 on:** June 24, 2003, 06:57:15 am »

You browse around, see some forums, hear some tests...

A good starting point is hydrogenaudio.org

Bartabedian · « **Reply #10 on:** June 24, 2003, 07:17:22 am »

Quote

Hello, Can someone tell me which the better format is for ripping CD's?? and Why?

MP3 VBR (on High)
MP3 320kbps
WMA on the highest..(I'm not sure how you have wma as 320kbps, On the Win Media Player the highest is 192kbps)

The straight up answer is MP3 on CBR 320Kbps using LAME on HQ. VBR will save you some space and will encode a bit faster, but won't sound quite as good. I mentioned this in a post not too long ago, did a test in a studio with some very respectable "ears", 3 of 5 claimed to hear the VBR working, and found it disturbing.

Why only 3 of 5?...because everybody hears things differently, absolutely everybody.

Most will agree though, stay clear of WMA.

WP

Sergio · « **Reply #11 on:** June 24, 2003, 09:05:44 am »

OK, I've been trying a few tests with MPC and OGG, the newest versions (using GT3b1 for OGG), and I think I can honestly say I can't hear the difference between Ogg GT3B1 -q7 and MPC --quality 6.

Looks like MPC's made progress

Still sticking to Ogg though, better support.

ChicoSelfs · « **Reply #12 on:** June 24, 2003, 10:53:21 am »

MPC made progress?? what version did you use to encode the files?

Sergio · « **Reply #13 on:** June 24, 2003, 11:27:24 am »

Quote

MPC made progress?? what version did you use to encode the files?

This time, 1.14 beta. The other time, hmm, I can't remember, but it was a long time ago...

zevele10 · « **Reply #14 on:** June 24, 2003, 12:08:31 pm »

I prefer OGG to mp3 ..by FAR
But MPC beats Ogg by FAR

This is what i feel playing on a good stereo system with an external soundcard.

Now ,having a DVD playing mp3 cds ,3 discman cd/cdmp3 player , using MM SuperTags , having all the family in France using MM...
So ,as i say ,now .. you can bet on the format i stick with

Cmagic · « **Reply #15 on:** June 24, 2003, 12:19:14 pm »

Ah Zev, comment vas tu ?

Same with me, I do use APE and MPC for ripping my favourite albums but I still have to encode in MP3 to feed my car stereo, my NexII handheld and my greedy friends !!

Anyway / comme on dit, "qu'importe le flacon tant qu'on a l'ivresse"

zevele10 · « **Reply #16 on:** June 24, 2003, 01:05:31 pm »

I saw somewhere that if you encode to the higger MPC encoding ,you get kind of lossless format.
When you convert to mp3 or ogg or any lossy format ,you cannot hear a difference with the direct rip cd to mp3-ogg .I have to try.

I use WMA9 lossless now ,for 2 raisons : i can tag/ get sleeves with MM SP and if a player kind of Ipod lossless compatible ,look like it would be WMA 9 ,not APE

xen-uno · « **Reply #17 on:** June 24, 2003, 01:24:49 pm »

Zev > I prefer OGG to mp3 ..by FAR
But MPC beats Ogg by FAR

Your not trolling ... ... ... are you?

Give me some objective evidence or prepare for a smokin rebuttal.

10^-27

Cmagic · « **Reply #18 on:** June 24, 2003, 01:31:10 pm »

Quote

I saw somewhere that if you encode to the higger MPC encoding ,you get kind of lossless format.

Well in fact MPC frames are not limited in bitrates like MP3 is at 320 kbps. An MPC frame can be anything from 1 to maybe more than 800 kbps (don't know if there really is a limit) by 1kpbs increment.
The thing with MPC is that as it is a pure VBR encoder, the encoder can select the best bitrate for each frame depending on the complexity of the music chunk to encode. I have some files encoded at --xtreme with average bitrate of ~200 kbps where I can see the bitrate display jumping to around 400 kbps for a few frames.

That does not mean MPC can do lossless encoding. In fact if you are ready to accept average bitrate > 500 kbps I think it's better to go APE and enjoy real lossless encoding.

C.

kiwi · « **Reply #19 on:** June 24, 2003, 01:40:22 pm »

Rip to APE and then transcode to MP3. You only have to encode at the rate appropriate for playback. See if you can hear the difference between VBR with 180kbps and 320kbps CBR on your Nomad and DVD player, if you can't encode at the lower rate and be able to listen to nearly twice as much music.

I do this for my iPod. I actually try to get the VBR down to 130-140 kbps average, I can't hear the difference in my car or through my headphones when jogging. But I have confidence that I can easily recreate the music at whatever bit rate in a night or two later, by batch converting from APE to MP3 or OGG or MPC.

Sure APEs are a bit bigger, but if you're going to encode at 320kbps, the MP3s are going to be pretty big, and you are going to lose quality. With the APEs, if you ever lose/damage your CD, you can get an exact copy made.

-kiwi

LonWar · « **Reply #20 on:** June 24, 2003, 02:30:46 pm »

hmm I can go Ape to mp3? Is there a decoder that someone can point me to? Or does MC9 do it...

You can't go wma lossless to mp3......right?

Cmagic · « **Reply #21 on:** June 24, 2003, 02:34:58 pm »

Yes, you can go APE to mp3 within MC9 using Tools/More Tools/Convert Format...
In fact you can safely go APE to any other format (ogg, wma, mpc) as APE is perfectly lossless. It is exactly like encoding from your original CD.

As for lossless WMA9 I don't know but if it really is lossless then you could probably transcode from it to any other format.

C.

kiwi · « **Reply #22 on:** June 24, 2003, 02:38:30 pm »

You can use lots of programs. I personally use MC. Right click on a file and go to Library tools, and select "convert". then you set whatever settings you'd like for the new file. Make sure you select the "don't replace old file" option... you don't want to delete your old files by mistake.

It can skip duplicates. However, the files have to be imported into a library. So I create a separate library and set up some views that allow me to view based on file type. Make sure that all the tags are correct and then convert.

kiwi

xen-uno · « **Reply #23 on:** June 24, 2003, 02:50:44 pm »

The only issue I can think of on converting WMA (any version) to any other format is whether it has been DRM'd. If you've ripped/encoded them yourself and made sure they weren't (DRM'd), then any conversion is possible.

10^-27

zevele10 · « **Reply #24 on:** June 24, 2003, 03:24:06 pm »

Your not trolling ... ... ... are you?

-=-=-
Do not know the meaning of ' trolling'

Give me some objective evidence or prepare for a smokin rebuttal
-=-=-=

smoking what ? Only tobacco...?

Me at my computer,5 meters from me 2 good speakers ,plug to a good amp ,Soundblaster Extigy external soundcard.

Volume is VERY loud.
This is not objective evidence ,i know ,but to me it is a fact.

The louder you play the music ,the less you like mp3
The louder you play music ,the more you fell ogg better than mp3
The louder you play music , the most mpc sounds good.

At small quality ,ogg4 and WMA9 VRB-Q75 sound much better than Lame CBR128. ogg4 sounds better than wma ,but not that much.
I do not have small quality mpc ,so i do not know.

Beside this ,i do think that mp3 320 is a waste of space.
In this case ogg or mpc best quality are the way to go.

Now ,do not forget that i'am an ogg head before encoding a smoking rebutal to send me .....

xen-uno · « **Reply #25 on:** June 24, 2003, 04:09:24 pm »

10-4 Zev

Is there anything more subjective than audio?...

Well...there may be...
I think my girlfriend is a dog and others think she's HOT! ?

10^-27

zevele10 · « **Reply #26 on:** June 24, 2003, 04:24:49 pm »

I think my girlfriend is a dog and others think she's HOT
-=-=-
so ,she is a ..hotdog......

Sure audio is not only subjective , but there is so many factors .
The soundcard ,the player, the speakers ,the amp ect ect.
I got from the webb 3 albums Lame 192 VRB who sound better than the LPs i have.
Because rip from a remastered cd.
I have also Yamaha 'wild plastic' computer speakers, two + bass box.
I would say of fair quality , but not of great quality .
With them ,i do not hear that much difference.

But you can play me a Xing 128 on ANY gear ,this sounds very very poor...

MachineHead · « **Reply #27 on:** June 24, 2003, 04:27:05 pm »

Quote

Well...there may be...
I think my girlfriend is a dog and others think she's HOT! ?

Oh brother Xenno. She not see forum!?

You tread on thinner ice then even me. And I tell all the boys at work that BeastMaster is a Sumo Grand Champion! Or at least should be.

Note: She's even bigger.

MachineHead · « **Reply #28 on:** June 24, 2003, 04:28:54 pm »

I'm gonna die if she ever takes a peek at this thread!

Buckaroo · « **Reply #29 on:** June 24, 2003, 05:07:59 pm »

I'm another big fan of LAME MP3 VBR. I generally use the 'High' setting, which results in great sounding files that average about 190 kb/s, and they can play just about anywhere.

Having said that...
*flame suit on*
...I think that WMA is getting a very bad rap on this thread. I spend a good bit of my time consulting on media formats, and WMA is hands down better than MP3 and offten Ogg Vorbis at a given data rate (averaged) when using VBR encoding. My company has done a number of double-blind tests with audiophiles and VBR WMA wins every time.

loraan · « **Reply #30 on:** June 24, 2003, 06:47:29 pm »

Quote

...I think that WMA is getting a very bad rap on this thread. I spend a good bit of my time consulting on media formats, and WMA is hands down better than MP3 and offten Ogg Vorbis at a given data rate (averaged) when using VBR encoding. My company has done a number of double-blind tests with audiophiles and VBR WMA wins every time.

Thank you! I was beginning to think I was the only WMA-lover here. Before ripping my library, I did some research and found numerous double-blind tests (non-Microsoft-sponsored, thank you) showing WMA to be preferable to MP3 at equivalent bit rates. My subjective experience bears this out, although it's not scientific, since it's not blind, and I'm not objective

To put this back on topic: On my home stereo system (a real stereo, not computer speakers), I cannot hear the difference between CD playback and 160 Kbps WMA. In addition, I probably could not tell the difference between 160 Kbps WMA and 128 or even 96 Kbps WMA on most tracks in a blind test, although I can find differences if I know what I'm listening to.

On the flip-side, 128 Kbps MP3 is the absolute lowest acceptable to me for listening, and I can hear the difference between it and a CD (loss of high frequencies, mostly). 96 Kbps MP3 or lower is basically unlistenable to me, due to high-frequency loss (resulting in "muddy" sound). I am 99% sure that I could pick a 96 Kbps MP3 track versus a 96 Kbps WMA track in a double-blind test. Hey--somebody prove me wrong!

At higher bit rates, I believe that the differences between WMA and MP3 become harder to detect.

BTW--WMA got a bad rap when it was first released because WMA version 7 was really bad. Version 8 and 9 are much much better, so if you read a bad review, make sure they're not referring to version 7 (probably an old article, in that case).

As for WMA being proprietary--hey, at least it's free! And besides, with Microsoft behind it, it's not going anywhere. Still, make my Zen play oggs, and I'll think about switching

loraan · « **Reply #31 on:** June 24, 2003, 09:03:48 pm »

Well, I just downloaded a piece of software called WinABX (google it if you want it) and did some blind a/b testing of my own. I was scientifically proven to be unable to tell the difference between the original CD's WAV and WMA 160. I also couldn't tell the difference between WMA 160 and WMA 128. This is through an Edirol USB sound card at 24/48, played into a set of studio headphones.

There ya go... :-)

rocketsauce · « **Reply #32 on:** June 24, 2003, 11:36:26 pm »

Quote

I think that WMA is getting a very bad rap on this thread.

I think much of the time WMAs bad rap is not (necessarily) due to issues of sound quality, but more to do with the fact that many people just don't trust Micro$oft. Also, there are possible future issues with the built in DRM features of WMA that make it unsuitable for building a longterm collection of digital music.

Quote

WMA is hands down better than MP3 and offten Ogg Vorbis at a given data rate (averaged) when using VBR encoding. My company has done a number of double-blind tests with audiophiles and VBR WMA wins every time.

The problem is that you can't just simply compare VBR WMA to VBR MP3. While there is only one WMA encoder available with a very limited set of parameters that produces files of a consistent quality, there are several different MP3 encoders and encoding parameters that will produce files spanning a wide range of quality.

Quote

As for WMA being proprietary--hey, at least it's free!

So is LAME MP3 and MPC, and Vorbis is open source.

Quote

And besides, with Microsoft behind it, it's not going anywhere.

Did you read the EULA that came along with your copy of WMP9? I guess MS being behind something is a plus for some people and a minus for others.

http://www.infoworld.com/article/02/02/08/020211opfoster_1.html

Rob

LisaRCT · « **Reply #33 on:** June 25, 2003, 08:05:29 am »

Quote

10-4 Zev

Is there anything more subjective than audio?...

Well...there may be...
I think my girlfriend is a dog and others think she's HOT! ?

10^-27

Quote

Oh brother Xenno. She not see forum!?

You tread on thinner ice then even me. And I tell all the boys at work that BeastMaster is a Sumo Grand Champion! Or at least should be.

Note: She's even bigger.

Watch it there guys, girls talk ya know

If it gets real 'cold' in your bedrooms ya know why

LOL, just kiddin'

Sergio · « **Reply #34 on:** June 25, 2003, 08:13:41 am »

Hmm, about WMA, I don't think the sound quality is that good either. I haven't tried 9, but up to 8 I clearly noticed that it was trying to "fool" me with some ambience and reverb or something. At least that's what it felt like, kind of a "blur" applied to music instead of images. Ogg sounds a lot sharper to me (and MPC too, now that I've tried a recent version).

Buckaroo · « **Reply #35 on:** June 25, 2003, 08:15:47 am »

A few thoughts on key anti-WMA arguments made on this thread:

1) Proprietary vs. Open Source:
Rocketsauce: As you suggest, Ogg Vorbis is open source. However, many believe that MP3 is as well, which simply isn't true. Although created by a standards body, MP3 is proprietary, with many of its key encoding and decoding components owned by a company called Fraunhauffer. How may of you are abiding by their licensing agreement? Do you have any ideas what the terms of those agreements are? I think the issue of code ownership is an interesting one, but for me personally not the key issue.

2) EULAs:
Is the WM9 EULA ridiculous? Absolutely. Is it worse than 99% of the EULAs out there? No. Read the old WordPerfect EULA, or any of SUN's, or even the Fraunhauffer MP3 encoding EULA. Better yet, don't- as long as you're not pirating software, the likelihood of a EULA having a real impact on your life is only slightly greater than the likelihood of a planet killing meteorite impacting on your life.

3) The key issues: QUALITY, FILE SIZE, and PORTABILITY
For me, what really matters are the above 3 issues. WMA takes all current comers on quality and file size. It falls behind MP3 on portability (at last count only about 40% of digital audio players played WMA), but obviously beats all of the other formats.

This is not to say that the anti Microsoft arguments don't have validity- they do. I just think that they're not nearly as black and white as all of us Windows users (also a very ugly EULA) act. And hey, someone needs to take a stand for the big guys.

zevele10 · « **Reply #36 on:** June 25, 2003, 01:37:50 pm »

that it was trying to "fool" me with some ambience and reverb or something. At least that's what it felt like, kind of a "blur" applied to music instead of images
-=-=-=-=-=

GREAT . Really you get the point.
9 is better , no 'blurt' anymore. Well as long as listening to few tracks can tell.

Now you feel the speakers are in the living room .. not in the bathroom like with 7 - never used 8-

INTERACT FORUM

Author Topic: The better audio Format (Read 7581 times)

zevele10

zevele10

zevele10

zevele10

MachineHead

MachineHead

LisaRCT

zevele10