@marvin_martian wrote:
The newest version of the LAME “mp3” codec is transparent (indistinguishable from lossless) at its highest quality setting for the vast majority of people. The older mp3 encoders, as you stated, did not sound so hot. I will agree with you that the newer WMA VBR on Windows Media Player 11 can produce good quality sound. And yeah, I understand there is some music you can’t find anywhere else but iTunes…I’d like that to change, but there’s nothing I can do about it…I’m just one poor music fan.
Not transparent to me though. I find it quite amusing when people talk about codecs reaching CD quality. For one thing, most CD’s to me sound pretty awful - there are very few really good recordings. Secondly none of the codecs sound as good as CD’s to me - the term “transparent” in this context says more about the limitations of the people used in the tests than the quality of the sound.
I have yet to hear any lossy codec, no matter how high the bitrate, that I cannot easily tell from the lossless version, even on relatively poor (by hi-fi standards) MP3 players with cheap headphones. MP3 does something to the sound that I can detect at any bitrate. I have on one occasion put an mp3 encoded MicroSD into my player by accident, rather than the AAC encoded card I had intended, while shopping. Even though my attention was not on the music as I wandered around the shopping centre, I began to notice that I was not enjoying the music very much. It was when I got home I discovered the error. This was not an A-B comparison situation, comparing the sound with the original. There were no placebo effects in operation in this case. I could tell the music was somehow “strangulated” and unsatisfying even when not giving it my full attention.
If i play AAC or WMA files, I enjoy the music, whearas using MP3 the music fails to hold my attention, and my mind immediately wanders from the music onto other things. Something about MP3 comes accross to me as unfocussed - like looking at a picture through dirty glasses.
Similarly I enjoy the music more with WMA than AAC - the music has more bite, more detail and more articulation, which I believe is because WMA handles transients better than other codecs.
IF I were to list the codecs I have listended to in order of sound quality, the list would be WMA, (MP2, Musepack, roughly even), (AAC, Vorbis, roughly even), then finally way way at the botttom, MP3.
But I appreciate that this is all unusual. People will probably label me as someone with “golden ears” - actually its all down to experience. As someone who has from his teens listened to expensive hi-fi systems, I have become accustomed to high quality sound reproduction. This is why I bought the Fuze and my Cowon D2 - because they had good reputations for sound quality, and why I did not buy the View, which does not, even though it supports AAC.
Message Edited by tempusfuzit on 08-01-2009 06:51 PM
Message Edited by tempusfuzit on 08-01-2009 06:53 PM
