Re: [ARSCLIST] Soundcard/iTunes phollies

[Rob Poretti <r.poretti@xxxxxxxxxx>]

For what it's worth.  About 4-5 years ago, I produced sample files with
multiple VBR and CBR bit rates using Fraunhoffer, LAME - and I believe mp3
PRO on my AudioCube - a system used in high-end restoration and mastering
facilities.  I used two sample files, some good sounding acoustic Jazz and a
good sounding Steely Dan track.  I named them all something generic and sent
them off to a bunch of my musician / recording engineer buddies.

Then I called them up to get comments.  I can't recall the exact results,
but I can tell you that the LAME VBR {highest) won this pretty
convincingly...

To a smaller group of people I sent 16 bit waves along with the VBR highest.
I was surprised at how few people could here the difference.  Keep in mind
that most of these guys have nice set-ups, and two of them had home
recording studios.  They were not listening through ear buds on a portable
mp3 player.

Personal experience:  My VBR "highest" mp3's *sounded way better* through my
Sony VAIO lap-top (which drives my living room stereo) than the same CD
playing through either my Pioneer CD Jukebox, my Sony CD Player, or my
Technics DVD/CD player (which I bought for 1500 US).  Not even CLOSE.

Apparently, Sony puts nice converters in their laptops and absolute *crap*
in their home stereo components.  Go figure...

Finally, I have some pretty nice 24/96 mastering converters in my studio -
and a "reasonable" high quality monitoring environment.  The only card I
have with MME drivers was the RME Digi 96/8 Pro and I ran that AES to my
D/A.  I can't tell the difference between the mp3 and the source wave file
through that system.

Cheers!

Rob

PS:  Anything lower than 192 CBR is not worth recording... IMHO!  A
reasonable compromise between VBR highest and CBR is 256.


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Association for Recorded Sound Discussion List 
> [mailto:ARSCLIST@xxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Tom Fine
> Sent: January 18, 2007 6:09 PM
> To: ARSCLIST@xxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Soundcard/iTunes phollies
> 
> 
> Hi Dave:
> 
> What do you mean by "much better results"?  I'm curious.
> 
> I've had very bad experiences with LAME on any of my PC's. 
> It's slow, deadly slow and the MP3 files 
> don't sound any better to my ears than just letting iTunes do 
> the work. Sometimes LAME produces a 
> little bit smaller file, not sure why. I used to MusicMatch 
> to do the ripping but iTunes is just as 
> fast and takes care of putting into the library and my iPod. 
> MP3 saved out of Sony Soundforge seem 
> to sound just fine but for some reason are always larger file 
> size for the same bitrate than iTunes 
> or MusicMatch. I can't understand that since all three use 
> the official German codec as far as I 
> know.
> 
> -- Tom Fine
> 
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Dave Nolan" <davenolanaudio@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> To: <ARSCLIST@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Sent: Thursday, January 18, 2007 11:34 AM
> Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Soundcard/iTunes phollies
> 
> 
> Eric -
> 
> Just wondering where you might have heard these "anecdotes" 
> about WMP vs. iTunes?
> 
> Is there any good resource/online discussion about different 
> MP3 encoding techniques / players / etc... that you've found 
> to have a good "signal-to- noise ratio"?
> 
> I've done minimal testing comparison of encoders for Mac, and 
> am currently using Peak with LameLib (much better results @ 
> 128kbps stereo on my intel Mac than iTunes)...
> 
> dave nolan
> 92nd St. Y
> NYC
> 
> >I've not tested this hypothesis to a great extent, but 
> anecdotally it 
> >seems that iTunes is much less efficient at handling VBR 
> encoded MP3s 
> >than Fixed Bit Rate MP3s, whereas WMP seems to handle VBR 
> and FBR MP3s 
> >equally well.
> >
> >Anyone else notice similar VBR/FBR difference between iTunes and WMP?
> >
> >Eric Jacobs
> >The Audio Archive
> >tel: 408.221.2128
> >fax: 408.549.9867
> >mailto:EricJ@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> >
> 
>