On most songs I can't even ABX Vorbis above 80 kbps, but the chorus in Enya's Amarantine is completely jacked by Vorbis (with aoTuVb5 and also with Blacksword's version) even at 200 kbps. It sounds as though Vorbis has tried to encode the volume too high and the sound clips in a major way that even a kindergartener could hear without training (seriously, it just sounds like static).
I'm at work so I can't post samples at the moment, but I wanted to check if anyone had encountered this problem with Vorbis before. I am new to Vorbis, and although I like the quality, the fact that it fell down so badly on this song makes me very weary of using it to encode my music collection. Neither MP3 nor AAC exhibit this issue on the same sample.
Plz upload a sample
jerbaker, you noticed a difference between the original and the encoded version. These perceived differences, if real, are called artifacts. A sample that causes glaring artifacts is called a "killer sample."
While there are some killer samples that all codecs find difficult, it's also possible that a killer sample for Vorbis might be an artifact-free one for MP3.
Conversely, you might find a killer sample that causes all sorts of problems for MP3 but be artifact-free for Vorbis.
I'd say the problem is normal, and there's no reason to be worried. You can feel safe sticking to Vorbis, except in special cases when artifacts get annoying.
Please upload the original (FLAC, WAV, RAR, etc) sample. Don't forget to make it 29 seconds or less in order to comply with this site's policy.
I'm interested to see what's in that sample that makes it a "killer" one.