MP3 vs. OGG

[Alex]

i use mostly mp3 with 192 cbr... (mainly cause my favourite winamp skin overloads cpu usage to 40-50% when playing vbr songs)... i have audigy OEM and logitech z640s and can blare them and it sounds AWESOME to me... i dont think anything over 192 is really worth it unless u have a super expensive speaker/soundcard set up.

i don't know what cave i've been hiding in but OGG is pretty new to me...

 

[Gurck]

Originally posted by: kylef
I meant no disrespect to the AV710

You called it awful, what's that supposed to mean? Most who've experienced both will say it's virtually indistinguishable from the MAudio Revolution for 2 channel sound once properly set up, so if that's the non-sub-$100 card you've got in mind as a comparison to call the 710 'awful', I'll reiterate that you should read up before knocking it.

However, like other sub-$100 cards, its fidelity cannot match that of any decent audio codec, including Lame.

Throw figures at me till you're blue in the face, what I've heard firsthand takes precedence.

In general, your knee-jerk reaction to Sony audio products may be deserved. But not so with the MDR-V6. The MDR-V6 has been a studio monitor favorite in many recording studios since it was introduced in 1985. It was one of the first sets of mass-produced headphones engineered with neodymium-iron-boron magnets, which subsequently revolutionized headphone design in the late 1980s. The MDR-V6 is a winner: I don't have to defend it.

It's Sony; even on the rare occasion they put out a product good in one respect (sound quality in this case), it's made to break (3 cheers for planned obsolescence!) and overpriced in the first place. This is company policy; none of their products are spared. Even their services are subject to their unethical business practices and rampant greed, as anyone who has played their online division's subscription-based games can attest.

I'd guess listening preference likely plays a part as well. There isn't a genre I don't enjoy aside from country and teen-pop, so perhaps the differences are more apparent to me, having made ccomparisons between the two codecs using a broad range of music.

 

[kylef]

Originally posted by: Gurck
You called it awful, what's that supposed to mean?

No. Re-read my post. I said it had an "awful excuse for a DAC." You do understand the difference, yes?

Most who've experienced both will say it's virtually indistinguishable from the MAudio Revolution for 2 channel sound once properly set up, so if that's the non-sub-$100 card you've got in mind as a comparison to call the 710 'awful', I'll reiterate that you should read up before knocking it.

Today professionals use digital audio interfaces to the PC (usb audio, firewire, spdif, ATRAC, Gibson's ethernet audio, etc), connected to audio-class components with higher quality power supplies, channel separation, and analog<->digital converters.

The "better" cards I was referring to are few in number, but have generally gone to "breakout" boxes which solve many of the interference issues that PCI cards face. Removing the analog signal paths outside of the computer case and utlizing only a digital interface to the PCI card is a significant improvement. Generally, the breakout boxes also include higher quality ADCs and DACs too, but this isn't always the case. But typically they are still subject to power issues because they rarely utilize external power supplies, so they're far from perfect.

Connecting your sound card to a digital receiver using a digital audio interface remains the simplest way to get component-quality audio from your PC. The analog paths (which are the most difficult circuits to design correctly in any multimedia system) are much cleaner when done this way.

It's Sony; even on the rare occasion they put out a product good in one respect (sound quality in this case), it's made to break (3 cheers for planned obsolescence!) and overpriced in the first place. This is company policy; none of their products are spared. Even their services are subject to their unethical business practices and rampant greed, as anyone who has played their online division's subscription-based games can attest.

:disgust: I'm shaking my head in disbelief at this statement. I really hope you don't give this kind of advice to lots of other people, because it is a disservice.

Sony has some of the best audio and video engineers on the planet. If you judge the entire Sony company based on what Best Buy sells, that's just an indicator of your ignorance of their products, and not an indicator of Sony's design competence.

Go visit any professional recording studio or video production studio and take a look around. Sony's high-end equipment is very well-designed and very robust.

Have you ever used a CD Player? Oh, then you probably knew that was invented by Sony and Philips. The Super Audio CD? Another Sony standard.

And this is just audio. Many television stations still to this day use Betamax tape recorders/players from the 1980s because of their reliability and superior picture quality.

The strangest part of your argument is that you are defending your use of a low-end sound card manufactured by Chaintech (largely just a Via reference design) and attacking a well-established set of studio monitoring headphones engineered by Sony, in use by thousands of studios worldwide. Your appreciation of good product engineering leaves something to be desired, I think...

 

[BenSkywalker]

The MDR-V6 is a winner: I don't have to defend it.

They are certainly much better then the V600s that replaced them, but they are still only fairly decent budget cans- nothing more. In typical Sony fashion, they are shrill on the high end and a little weak on the bottom. Not horrible for their price range, they do well against most Wal-Mart level offerings but don't for a second fool yourself into thinking you are coming close to high end with them.

Go visit any professional recording studio or video production studio and take a look around. Sony's high-end equipment is very well-designed and very robust.

Maybe back in the 80s, today they are outclassed by everyone that makes anything in their price class.

 

[Gurck]

Originally posted by: kylef
No. Re-read my post. I said it had an "awful excuse for a DAC." You do understand the difference, yes?

Its DAC is its best feature...

Today professionals use digital audio interfaces to the PC (usb audio, firewire, spdif, ATRAC, Gibson's ethernet audio, etc), connected to audio-class components with higher quality power supplies, channel separation, and analog<->digital converters.

The "better" cards I was referring to are few in number, but have generally gone to "breakout" boxes which solve many of the interference issues that PCI cards face. Removing the analog signal paths outside of the computer case and utlizing only a digital interface to the PCI card is a significant improvement. Generally, the breakout boxes also include higher quality ADCs and DACs too, but this isn't always the case. But typically they are still subject to power issues because they rarely utilize external power supplies, so they're far from perfect.

Connecting your sound card to a digital receiver using a digital audio interface remains the simplest way to get component-quality audio from your PC. The analog paths (which are the most difficult circuits to design correctly in any multimedia system) are much cleaner when done this way.

The solutions you're referring to here generally run many hundreds or even thousands of dollars. Earlier, however, you gave $100 as the cutoff point. Which is it?

It's Sony; even on the rare occasion they put out a product good in one respect (sound quality in this case), it's made to break (3 cheers for planned obsolescence!) and overpriced in the first place. This is company policy; none of their products are spared. Even their services are subject to their unethical business practices and rampant greed, as anyone who has played their online division's subscription-based games can attest.

:disgust: I'm shaking my head in disbelief at this statement. I really hope you don't give this kind of advice to lots of other people, because it is a disservice.

Sony has some of the best audio and video engineers on the planet. If you judge the entire Sony company based on what Best Buy sells, that's just an indicator of your ignorance of their products, and not an indicator of Sony's design competence.

Go visit any professional recording studio or video production studio and take a look around. Sony's high-end equipment is very well-designed and very robust.

Have you ever used a CD Player? Oh, then you probably knew that was invented by Sony and Philips. The Super Audio CD? Another Sony standard.

And this is just audio. Many television stations still to this day use Betamax tape recorders/players from the 1980s because of their reliability and superior picture quality.

The strangest part of your argument is that you are defending your use of a low-end sound card manufactured by Chaintech (largely just a Via reference design) and attacking a well-established set of studio monitoring headphones engineered by Sony, in use by thousands of studios worldwide. Your appreciation of good product engineering leaves something to be desired, I think...

So about 2% of their product line, aimed at professionals only, is high quality - and you judge the whole company based on this? A company which uses this reputation to sell the vast majority of their products & services to the ignorant despite inferior quality, planned obsolecence and higher prices? That is ignorance, and snobbery to boot. Btw, VHS won, that rock sure must be comfortable.

The av710 is an awesome value at $25. It's comparable in quality to cards costing four times its price or more and which are well respected even at that price. If Sony made a competing card it would use all VIA DACs (if even that; they might scrape lower in the barrel to save a few more cents), cost $50-$75, use caps designed to start leaking within 2 years and rely on ignorance and brand image to sell. You have a Vaio or something? :laugh: Sony is even worse than Bose and Apple.

 

[kylef]

Originally posted by: BenSkywalker
They are certainly much better then the V600s that replaced them, but they are still only fairly decent budget cans- nothing more. In typical Sony fashion, they are shrill on the high end and a little weak on the bottom. Not horrible for their price range, they do well against most Wal-Mart level offerings but don't for a second fool yourself into thinking you are coming close to high end with them.

Oh, I realize they're not high end, but they will hold their own with any sub-$150 cans, including the over-hyped Grado SR-80s. And they are more detailed than just about any sub-$1000 speaker system, making them ideal for 2-channel listening tests such as this codec comparison I'm advocating.

Maybe back in the 80s, today they are outclassed by everyone that makes anything in their price class.

Nope, you're off target here, sorry. Just look at their CineAlta HD movie cameras. George Lucas and ILM chose them after a rigorous analysis of what was available. No one else came close to an end-to-end 24fps HD recording system in 2002.

In general, their CCD engineering is outstanding. They manufacture their own CCDs, which can't be said for many other companies. They hold more CMOS patents than you can count. This keeps them on the leading edge of digital still camera design as well.

In the audio world, they finally had the guts to ditch PCM encoding (and all of the problems that the traditional sampling-filtering-decimation systems have) with the new SACD standard. Their signal processing expertise shines through here yet again. They came out the the world's first all-digital preamplifier in 1989 (TA-E1000ESD). They had the world's first standalone D/A converter in 1985. Their line of ES receivers is always very respectable, including the DA9000ES, which is a damn impressive receiver. Rarely have I ever seen that much technology intregrated into one box.

Look, I completely agree that most of their consumer-class mid-to-low end hardware (specifically on the audio side) does not compare favorably with the competition. But you guys are really, really over-exaggerating your case against Sony, probably because of lack of experience with their high-end components, which are out of most people's price range. Unless you work in a studio or have a high-end home theater setup, you aren't likely to encounter the really impressive Sony product lines.

Edit: I just want to apologize to everyone for going way offtopic. I still think Lame's VBR encoder is outstanding and compares very favorably with the competition if you don't mind paying a 15-20% size penalty for the convenience of MP3.

 

[BenSkywalker]

Oh, I realize they're not high end, but they will hold their own with any sub-$150 cans, including the over-hyped Grado SR-80s.

I don't know about that. While I'm not terribly fond of the SR-80s(too uncomfortable although they are very cheap), the Sennheiser HD495s have always sounded better to me then the V6s and the Senn HD515s, 555s and 280Pros(if you want sealed) are all sub $100 cans that I would give the nod to over the V6s without a second thought.

Nope, you're off target here, sorry. Just look at their CineAlta HD movie cameras. George Lucas and ILM chose them after a rigorous analysis of what was available. No one else came close to an end-to-end 24fps HD recording system in 2002.

Including Sony. The model you are talking about was the HDW-F900 and it had to modified by Panavision before it reached acceptable levels.

This keeps them on the leading edge of digital still camera design as well.

Haven't seen anything of theirs that's close to the Canon EOS-1Ds SLR MarkII- do they even make anything over 10MP(the EOS-1Ds MarkII is 17.6MP)? The rest of the technologies you talk about are legacy issues from the 80s- I was also a Sony supporter back then.

But you guys are really, really over-exaggerating your case against Sony, probably because of lack of experience with their high-end components, which are out of most people's price range. Unless you work in a studio or have a high-end home theater setup, you aren't likely to encounter the really impressive Sony product lines.

I'll stick with Matsushita, Mitsubishi, Canon, Sennheiser and Onkyo thanks.

I just want to apologize to everyone for going way offtopic. I still think Lame's VBR encoder is outstanding and compares very favorably with the competition if you don't mind paying a 15-20% size penalty for the convenience of MP3.

This brings us back full circle. Personally it is very, very easy to tell the difference between 192 and 320 in any format on the proper setup- it is fairly easy to tell the difference between 320 and lossless even for non audiophiles on a high end setup(double blind- and I've tried it repeatedly with non enthusiasts). A lot of the decission for which Codec to use should depend on the gear you are running. With Sony products something that is weak on the high end and brings up the bottom too much is a good thing as it counters the native weaknesses in Sony's products. If you were listening through a set of Grados(non RSs) then I would pay attention to how the mid ranges are handled in particular, you will loose the most impact if you are weak in the mids, while the extreme ends of the spectrum aren't as important. On Sennheiser high end setups or Grado RSs you are going to notice anything that's weak.

 

[kylef]

Originally posted by: BenSkywalker
Including Sony. The model you are talking about was the HDW-F900 and it had to modified by Panavision before it reached acceptable levels.

Only to modify the lens, from what I understood... Not so drastic imho, considering it was really the first time such equipment was ever used on a major motion picture.

Personally it is very, very easy to tell the difference between 192 and 320 in any format on the proper setup.

It depends HEAVILY on the source, and the frame. For complicated frames, I would absolutely agree with you here, even in mainstream sources.

it is fairly easy to tell the difference between 320 and lossless even for non audiophiles on a high end setup(double blind- and I've tried it repeatedly with non enthusiasts).

Here's where I start to disagree for 99% of music sources. Can you show me any evidence to support this?

I've seen lots of public and proprietary tests on the subject (I used to work in the Windows Media division, although not on WMP or the codec team), and I haven't seen any evidence supporting your claim. The only way I've seen people able to demonstrate significantly audible artifacts in modern codecs at 320kbps is to utilize artificially constructed or otherwise pathological sources. My contention is that it isn't worth worrying about those fringe situations.

A lot of the decission for which Codec to use should depend on the gear you are running.

Certainly a valid point, but the problem is I doubt most people have any idea what equipment they will later purchase at the time they're encoding their CDs. I know I didn't back in 1999 when I was encoding my CDs as an impoverished EE grad student...