MP3 vs. WAV

**Computer duffer warning**

My DVD player will play back MP3's, when i tried it a few months ago the MP3 discs definately sounded pretty dire,( i mean really , really dire, almost unlistenable) however there is a chance that i got my settings all completely wrong whilst setting up and burning them. i'd like to give it another go and see just what the differences are. Whats the best compromise setting the record the MP3 s at for decent compressability but still retaining a decent level of sound quality.

 

Having just read-up on this myself, as I'm planning to compress my lossless audio to MP3 for use on my laptop + desktop pcs... Currently I have some of my music as lossless on my work pc, as well as all my music lossless on my high-end pc for my hi-fi. I'm only listening from an Audigy soundcard (24-bit 48KHz ) and some cambridge soundworks 4.1 speakers when working, I think good MP3's will be fine and allow me to have about 4.5x the albums in the same diskspace.

http://www.rarewares.org/files/mp3/lame-3.90.3.zip
Currently the arguably best quality MP3 decoder available. This release LAME 3.90.3 is well tuned and very well tested for not having any audiable bugs or issues, later versions are not, at this time.

LAME 3.90.3 --alt-preset standard
(variable bitrate ~190 kbit/s, typical 180 ... 220)
This is arguably the best setting that 99% of people on 99% of music will find transparent. Often referred to as -aps
Apparently very few people can tell the higher settings apart in a proper test, where they don't know which ones they are listening to. Reported to sound better than 256 constant bitrate (CBR) as some material can momentarily require 320Kbps which this allows.

I have yet to find a blind ABX test where someone demonstrably heard the difference between those encodes and the original. There may be, but I've not read them yet.

If any MP3 encodes were done with a lower-quality MP3 encoder or broken lame encoder release then they would potentially sound wrong at any bitrate. I also don't know if the hydrogenaudio guys use playback systems as revealing as are common to zerogain members.

Ref: http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?showforum=15&

Although, if re-ripping all my music, and wanting the ultimate quality, I'd still buy a large hard disk for about £120+VAT and use lossless (Monkeys Audio APE or FLAC).

regards,
Rob.

 

Paul why do you blame the mac for the compression issues? Applemac and Protool for instance have been the industry stadard for music reproduction since the elctronice medium really took off.

Perhaps its the relative in-expense of your system which dosn't allow you to hear obvious change in quality.

 

Where did I blame the Mac for compression issues? It simply appears to me that you are not ripping properly, if you really can hear a difference between a WAV file and a CD... Nothing to do with compression there

 

just out of curiosity, i just downloaded monkey audio software + foobar player, encrypted a wav file to monkey "normal" and to mp3 128 via cdex, and listened to them both with foobar.
cdex is encoding using lame v1.3 3.92 mmx.
pc is using videologic soundcard via profigold i/c into cyrus 3.
[added sentence missing - thanks lee] after listening to the 128 mp3 and the monkey lossless, i couldn't tell the difference audibly. so i'm sticking with 128 mp3's. no contest with wavs of course, but they take up a lot less space, and i dont have to trip upstairs to grab a cd from the "hifi room", as i'm gradually filling up an 80 gig hd on my pc.[/end]

 

Robert

Isn't there a sentence missing in between you installing foobar and then uninstalling foobar

 

Hi guys,

Back to the question wav vs wav

Why ?

Do anyone try used different software or program to extract the track from the CD and burn this two tracks back with CD-R and compare the sound quality of those tracks and the original CD.

May you will find the three track are sound differ from each other.


Han

 

I have to dissagree with most of you..
WAV (or FLAC) is better in my opinion!

I'm no audiophile, and I don't claim to have exceptional ears. But the difference was very clear to me. At the moment I'm reencoding about 200 CD's to FLAC (was MP3).

The test CD was "Eva Cassidy - Songbird". I listened mostly to track 9.
Ripping was done with EAC
Encoding with:
1. Lame --alt-preset standard (about 192 VBR)
2. Lame --alt-preset insane (320)
3. FLAC (lossless compression to about 50% of WAV size)

1. The standard MP3 file (about 5MB) was clearly less dynamic and lacked the "after-sounds". I don't know what these after-sounds/echos are called. Byt without them the sound is flat. The lack of dynamics was easily felt in my body. My body simply didn't "swing" to the music.

2. The insane MP3 (about 11MB) had much better "after-sounds" and didn't sound as flat as the lower bit rate MP3. But the "swing" wasn't there either.

3. The FLAC file (about 25MB) had it all. There was a very small difference from the CD. But this difference could very well be in the DAC.

The equipment used for listening was:
- Squeezebox for playing MP3s and FLACs using digital output (www.slimdevices.com)
- Arcam AVR200 (reciever)
- Arcam CD82 (CD)
- Tannoy Eyris 2

My new problem is that the reciever I'm planning to buy doesn't have digital input (Myryad MI120). The analogue output on the Squeezebox gives a much flatter sound compared to the CD. And I know that the Squeezebox can almost match a decent CD player when digital output is used. So I'm now looking for a separate DAC.

/Michael Sageryd

 

By after-sounds I guess you mean transients. I would agree with you there, 192kbps VBR mp3 does lose dynamics and transients, to my ears at least. I haven't tried any detailed testing because listen to my music on CD at home and MD everywhere else, so I don't have the need.

 

I think it's worth putting some of the quoted specs in perspective.

They say that 99% of people cannot hear the difference on 99% of music (admitting that they can occasionally)

I say that 99% of people don't have, and don't care about, hifi full stop.

It follows that the 1% of the population interested in hifi will be able to tell an MP3 from a WAV. I certainly can

 

Merlin

I challenge you then. Bottle of Champagne on it.

Name a piece of music and I will encode it to to 320 mp3, re-encode it back to wav and burn the track to cd together with a burn of the original track. We'll then do an ABX type comparison.

Could be an excuse to pop 'round.

 

Merlin, I thought the same as you, until A/B testing with Lee's ipod through an extremely good system proved to me the differences were marginal at best, and on some recordings it was impossible to tell the difference. Provided the file's encoded properly, an ipod seems like a pretty decent front end.

Source last and all that, as far as digital goes.

-- Ian

 

Damn

Trust me to open my mouth! Still, I'll give it a go, although 320k is quite a bit higher than the data rates being discussed. Can we try a range of compression ratios?

Lee PM me for a date, and I think Chicane "Far From The Mad...." will do for starters.

 

Merlin, I'll check with the my social secretary when I get home tonight.

Yeah, we can try whatever bitrate you want. 192 I'm pretty sure is as low as you want, with 256 VBR being pretty good. Could be fun to try AAC as well.

Trust you to pick a modern pop combo I don't have. Do you have a burner?

 

the squeezebox can transcode freom flac to wav or mp3 on the fly.... i can just about tell the difference between mp3 at 320 and wav if i know which one it is. if it was blind i doubt i could tell. the only difference i can make out is that with mp3 there is a slight emphasis to the treble and the bass looses a bit of impact but we are talking minutiae here. even at 192 i wouldn't stake too much that's expensive on it.
cheers


julian

 

Didn't know that. May have a look at one of these as I have a nice collection of flac's and not sure I can be bothered to re-code them.

 

yeah, the sbox can only play mp3 or wav's natively so the server has to transcode to one or the other format if you want to play aac, flac, ogg, monkey, etc..
cheers


julian

 

Julian,
have you tried the analogue output on the Squeezebox?
How would you rate it? I'm not happy at all with the analogue output.

As you know, I'm looking for a DAC. And I'll also borrow the new version of Music Fidelity's X10d (don't know the exact name).

I'm borrowing the following home tomorrow to try with my Squeezebox:
- Rega Mira 3
- Myryad MI120
- Arcam AVR200 (has digital input)
- The x10d-thing

About FLAC/MP3... I'm sure there is lots of music that sound alike in the two formats. But I'm also pretty sure that I would be able to name the formats in a blind test with Eva Cassidy.

Anyway - it feels good to have FLAC. Now I can do whatever I want with it.

/Michael

 

michael,
no i wouldn't rate the sbox's analogue outs as the best. they have a fair amount of detail but wilt significantly when asked to do anything complex in the mid or bass. i did live with them for a couple of weeks though and didn't find them totally objectionable.
you may want to have a look on audiogon, there are a number of theta dacs on there for under 300 dollars which you may want to think about.
cheers


julian

 

I did offer to connect up my iPod at Omiga that time Ian and nobody was interested except Timpy

The only problem with the thing is at the higher level encoding the less time between charges.

Lee, welcome to the growing iPod club