Apple and EMI: no more DRM

[archie]

Archie, for some-one who is constantly wrong, I would not presume on other people's knowledge. Let me repeat - you are wrong. Again. As usual.

In blind listening tests 192 kb/sec WMA scores higher than 128 kb/sec AAC from itunes. Get over to it.
http://www.soundexpert.info/coders192.jsp
http://www.soundexpert.info/coders128.jsp

Surur

This is a typical surur tactic: find something that is obviously heavily biased and slanted against what "archie" says in an effort to prove him wrong.

People, please don't believe what susrur says. If you want to rely on these links, PLEASE read them and understand them, don't take his word as he presents it.

There are so many things wrong with this, I do not know where to start. I guess the first thing I would mention is that at the top of these pages that susur links to is one explanation as to why Apple's AAC encoder did so poorly: It is because they used the encoder in iTunes 6.0 which has a bug that is revealed when they use their selected content - that content being a glockenspiel. This particular sound serves to reveal a technique used in AAC that utilizes Temporal Noise Shaping in addition to Prediction. These very techniques will introduce a clicking/popping sound that is heard in unnatural highpitched sounds such as those of a glockenspiel. Who listens to a glockenspiel? Nobody! They sound awful. That is why this technique was chosen and the fact that they used this in their test speaks greatly.

Ridiculous!

So to continue with this issue, I would also like to mention that the iTunes encoder found in 7.1 has been upgraded.

In addition, I do not believe that this encoder is the one used for iTunes encoding on the desktop. I will check.

I would also like to mention that content encoded for Apple's iTunes Store does away with wow and flutter as well as jitter because it is professionally done utilizing digital sources (no transfers or by-way-of's that presumably would keep the signal digital but possibly via an exchange of format, thereby introducing wow and flutter or of course jitter); whereas content from every other digital store has varied encoding techniques. There is no slanting or biasing in this fact, it just simply brings an uneasy (feeling) and unreliable aspect to other's encoding methods.


I really don't want to continue this discussion; BUT I will and will return with more evidence.

 

[surur]

Archie, why not just accept that higher bitrate is better, and loss-less better still?

Surur

 

[archie]

By and large, yes, the higher the bit rate the better, UNLESS you factor in AAC's use of bitrate storage and take into account the low-pass filter at 256kbps and below. Then there are other issues like WMA's characteristic low frequency drop-off, which cannot be made up for regardless of what kind of bitrate you use.

 

[surur]

Then there are other issues like WMA's characteristic low frequency drop-off, which cannot be made up for regardless of what kind of bitrate you use.

Archie - lossless means lossless compression. It means no drop-off or artifacts. It means a bit-perfect reproduction of the CD source. I hope you understand that.

Surur

 

[backbeat]

Your not listening through an iPod then... or a Bryston BP26 fully discrete Class A operational preamplifier with a Bryston DAC, modified Carver CS1 Amplifier, NAD CD Transport, and an Adcom AC Enhancer in front of a pair of Boston Acoustics T1200s.

Or, Atma-Sphere MA-1 single-wired monoblocks, via Convergent Audio Technology Ultimate II Pre, producing sound via Eggleston Andra II's.

 

[vinman]

Or, Atma-Sphere MA-1 single-wired monoblocks, via Convergent Audio Technology Ultimate II Pre, producing sound via Eggleston Andra II's.

It's silly to connect any sort of mp3 player to that sort of set up, anyway. Why not connect a really nice old 8-track. Oooh, how about setting up a Radio Shack turn table and do a comparison with a VPI or a Goldmund? Seriously, listening to digital at all on that stuff is questionable in it's fidelity. Maybe listening to a Krell, Proceed, Pass, or Meridian - but that sort of set up cries out for a really well set up analog source.

 

[backbeat]

^ Your assumption that I use an mp3 player as a source for my gear is hardly close to correct and quite a stretch of the imagination.

BTW, there is such a thing as too much analog or an imbalance of analog/digital. The former EAD suits me just fine as my digital source.

 

[archie]

It's silly to connect any sort of mp3 player to that sort of set up, anyway. Why not connect a really nice old 8-track. Oooh, how about setting up a Radio Shack turn table and do a comparison with a VPI or a Goldmund? Seriously, listening to digital at all on that stuff is questionable in it's fidelity. Maybe listening to a Krell, Proceed, Pass, or Meridian - but that sort of set up cries out for a really well set up analog source.

I disagree. You can hook an iPod up and have it play something like .AIFF and the source will be superior because there is no jitter. Or if the source is at 48 kHz rather than the average run of the mill CD player sampling or RIPped source at 44.1 kHz, again the sound will be better.

And if a person is after that fluid analog feeling, you can get that with the introduction of tubes or the right equipment. Five or six years ago, I would have agreed with you, analog would have been a better source in some respects but now, digital has it beat all the way around.

 

[Pearl_Diva]

Archie, dont make me laugh (again). Do you actually know what "no loss of data" means?

And you do know WMA at 192 (which is what Yahoo, Napster and Rhapsody uses) has better audio quality than 128 kb AAC, dont you?

Surur

To tell you the truth, I don't really like WMA. MP3 VBR, despite now being old, still rules IMO! I do think AAC is also a better format than WMA. I use a higher bit rate than 128 if I rip to AAC.

 

[surur]

To tell you the truth, I don't really like WMA. MP3 VBR, despite now being old, still rules IMO! I do think AAC is also a better format than WMA. I use a higher bit rate than 128 if I rip to AAC.

As this boffin said:

Based on the listening tests that I have seen here over the years I have come to the following conclusions:

1) At equal bit rates there are often quality differences between different codecs, though usually the differences are small to modest.

2) At unequal bit rates the file with the higher bit rate is almost always the one with the higher quality.

Also, the only guarantee against obsolescence of your chosen codec, is to go lossless.

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=50548

Worth reading the whole thread. The above basically summarizes my views. For near universal compatibility I prefer mp3 over anything else.

Surur

 

[archie]

This is a sample spectograph sweep — original source material:

Below is a spectograph sweep of Microsoft's NEWEST and best level of WMA at its best possible settings for 192kbps:

Compare that to a spectograph of the worst level of older AAC compression (AAC-LC) at 128kbps (plus it is done with the poorest "fast" setting):

So what this is showing is the exact opposite of what you said earlier, that 128 WMA is better than 192 AAC.

You see, in reality, AAC at 128kbps is actually better than WMA at 192kbps.

Do you want to see how much better AAC is compared to WMA when using the same sampling rate?

 

[surur]

Archie,

a) why should I accept material sourced from you? How do I know your setup is accurate and not biased?

b) Spectrograph's are poor at telling us what subjective sound quality is, as with lossly compression some information gets discarded intentionally.

c) I never said 128 kb/sec WMA is better than 192 kb/sec AAC, thats just your poor reading as usual.

d) You DID say 128 AAC is better than 192 WMA (a pretty stupid thing to say)

e) My links, from an independent website that measures many many codecs, prove you wrong.

http://www.soundexpert.info/coders192.jsp
http://www.soundexpert.info/coders128.jsp

Archie, wrong wrong wrong again.....

Surur

 

[archie]

a)This is why I didn't want to get into this with you. I knew there would be things you would not understand and then any readers that might be left at this point (along with myself) would have to deal with your typical irrational statements.

b)Well you are correct in saying that "spectographs are poor at telling us what subjective sound quality is". 'Course this should be obvious.
What they ARE good at are measuring the objective facts.

c) Yes you did. It's the first thing at the top of this page. I quoted you.

d) Yes I did say that 128 kbps AAC is better than 192 kbps WMA and I even crippled AAC as much as I could and picked out THE VERY best performance of WMA revisions with the best possible settings. There is no bias here other than me trying to make WMA shine as much as possible. THIS should be noted.

e)In looking at my first post on this page you will notice a few reasons for accounting in this poor performance of AAC. They even admit to it in your links so I don't know why you insist on using these to back up your insistance that I am wrong, wrong, wrong. Oh, and why are you comparing 198 kbps WMA to 134 kbps AAC? ...oh, maybe I'm just reading it poorly as usual.

For comparison sake, here's AAC at 192 kbps:

here's what Apple will be using in the future, AAC at 256 kbps:

Now you can get your last word in because I'm done discussing this with you.

 

[surur]

c) I never said 128 kb/sec WMA is better than 192 kb/sec AAC, thats just your poor reading as usual.

c) Yes you did. It's the first thing at the top of this page. I quoted you.

In blind listening tests 192 kb/sec WMA scores higher than 128 kb/sec AAC from itunes. Get over to it.

.

Archie, do you suffer from dyslexia? You can tell me, really you can. If you do, I wont be so hard on you for not being able to read what's on the screen...

Surur

 

[Kupe#WP]

c) Yes you did. It's the first thing at the top of this page. I quoted you.

Finally, I understand what's going on here. It's pretty hard to have a reasoned debate with someone that either can't read or reverses facts regardless of clear evidence. Who knows where the spectrograph pictures came from (Photoshop comes to mind) - or even if they are correctly labeled.

 

[Pearl_Diva]

So to continue with this issue, I would also like to mention that the iTunes encoder found in 7.1 has been upgraded.

Is there proof of this, because that interests me? If the new AAC encoder sounds better, I may be re-ripping some of my classic CDs(the ones before they started remastering everything). Although I don't really have too much of a problem with the old one, I'm always up for better sound!

 

[surur]

Is there proof of this, because that interests me? If the new AAC encoder sounds better, I may be re-ripping some of my classic CDs(the ones before they started remastering everything). Although I don't really have too much of a problem with the old one, I'm always up for better sound!

Just to let you know, I tested thunder.wav again with itunes 7 and I didn't notice any change. Stereo positioning still borked as usual..

I hope Quicktime 7.1.3 isn't the "fixed" version skuo was talking about.

But even if the fix finally comes with Leopard (due to somewhen in early 2007): one year to fix a (IMHO serious) bug in probably the most used AAC encoder is way too long. Especially considering that all iTunes-Store songs are encoded with a buggy encoder (with no way for the end-user to reencode) -- another reason not to buy lossy music.

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=41278&hl=wma comparison&st=25

Maybe Archie read that wrong somewhere ...

Surur

 

[marcol]

Is there proof of this, because that interests me? If the new AAC encoder sounds better, I may be re-ripping some of my classic CDs(the ones before they started remastering everything). Although I don't really have too much of a problem with the old one, I'm always up for better sound!

Why not try it and see? One of the things I find annoying is that it's so difficult to try digital audio players and headphones before you buy, but that doesn't apply to encoding software, different codecs or bit rates. You could of course ask Surur to Google you some others' experiences or get Archie to produce some spectra, but I'd say trust your ears

 

[surur]

Why not try it and see? One of the things I find annoying is that it's so difficult to try digital audio players and headphones before you buy, but that doesn't apply to encoding software, different codecs or bit rates. You could of course ask Surur to Google you some others' experiences or get Archie to produce some spectra, but I'd say trust your ears

Its great fun rubbing Archie's nose in it, but the truth is that for the vast majority of people today's codecs are already perfectly fine, especially at 192 and above, and there is probably virtually nothing to gain from repeating all that work.

Surur

 

[marcol]

... but the truth is that for the vast majority of people today's codecs are already perfectly fine, especially at 192 and above, and there is probably virtually nothing to gain from repeating all that work.

I disagree that you shouldn't try it for yourself but have found that 192 kbps is pretty much the cut-off for me. In blind tests I did a while ago I simply couldn't tell the difference between MP3 and AAC at that bit rate. It wasn't just that I was unable to make a judgement as to which was best, I couldn't tell which was which. Those tests were with lower-end headphones than I have now though and I also just got the Apple audio dock (and the line-out is supposed to be better than headphone jack) so it might be worth revisiting the tests. Even if I can, say, tell the difference between 256 and 192 though, I very much doubt that it would actually mean I'd be enjoying the music more.

On headphones (despite getting the dock this still mostly how I listen to the iPod), it's as clear as day to me that these make a *much* bigger difference than the codec or even the bit rate (unless you're encoding at some stupidly low rate I suppose). I base this on buying a pair of V-Moda Vibes and comparing to a variety of cheaper headphones I already had. The Vibes were ?70 shipped and I'm seriously wondering whether there might not still be quite a bit to be gained by spending even more.