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Topic: AAC vs. MP3: quality at the same bitrate, transparency (Read 54433 times) previous topic - next topic
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AAC vs. MP3: quality at the same bitrate, transparency

Reply #25 –
I don't see how your well qualified statement, rpp3po, bears any resemblance to the blanket one which sparked the controversy.
Which means, if I'm reading this correctly, your conclusion
Quote
If one does not accept an answer if it hasn't been proven for all music by direct comparison one cannot accept any answer
is misguided at best because there are plenty of answers which are acceptable - just not unsubstantiated blanket ones.
Creature of habit.

AAC vs. MP3: quality at the same bitrate, transparency

Reply #26 –
A more interesting listening test for me would be to take a selection of non-killer samples, encode them at several bitrates for each encoder, then have listeners decide at what bitrate each encoder becomes transparent for each sample.

That's a lot of listening, but at least you are not trying to compare quality between different encoders that may have very different artifacts on the same sample. At any time you are only comparing one encoder against itself or against the original. Also, only one or two samples might require very careful listening since the lower bitrate ones might be eliminated very quickly, and once you find one that is transparent you don't need to listen to anything higher.

This also gets around the eternal problem of what bitrate to target. If you set the bar too high then not enough people can hear problems. If you set it too low then the results are not directly applicable for people who want transparency.

AAC vs. MP3: quality at the same bitrate, transparency

Reply #27 –
Soap, I reread my first sentence and you are right. It's too bold. It's just both hard to prove and to disprove wether AAC is better at high bitrates than MP3. After years of experimenting with my own collection I do firmly believe, that AAC (QT & Nero) is better. But I cannot prove it.

My day to day music listening is artifact free since completely switching to AAC. Before with MP3 it regularly happened to me that a mushy cymbal or chorus artifact would catch my attention once in a while. And for both formats I never went below a 170-192kbit/s average. But that's only personal anecdote. A more recent encoder at the time of the switch or your usual layers of unconscious self-deception outside explicit procedure apply.
 

AAC vs. MP3: quality at the same bitrate, transparency

Reply #28 –
Quote from: chengbin on
I can attest to that as well. LAME V5 was transparent, NeroAAC had to go to q 0.6 to reach transparency.


For some reason Nero at -q 0.40 is sometimes worse then LAME -V5, while -q 0.50 is almost fully transparent to me with a few expections.
"I never thought I'd see this much candy in one mission!"