[LAU] What is the best MP3 encoder?

Jostein Chr. Andersen jostein at vait.se
Tue Apr 2 11:55:58 UTC 2013


On 04/02/2013 01:38 PM, Paul Davis wrote:
>     Are you basically saying that it's no need for lossless formats?  ;-)
>
>     All respect for HydrogenAudio, but I can't think about other's rules
>     when I just have to make a MP3 file without esses or tones that's
>     missing, then I just have to do the mix better and somehow
>     compensate a little bit. MP3 artifacts and some quality loss are
>     well known issues and should not create to much debate.
>
>
> sorry, this isn't true.
>
> double blind testing of 320 MP3 generally suggests that less than 10% of
> the population can hear the difference. at 256 it goes up a bit, but it
> is still the case that a majority of the population can't hear any
> difference.
>
> so, it is not the case that this claim is not subject to debate. i'm
> sure you'll want to argue that the artifacts and losses are real, for
> example.

I will have to come back to this with some real life examples, but will 
have to do this later this spring or summer (unless it's legal to 
provide a clip that last some seconds). I'll have to check.

When you say that less than 10% of the population can hear the 
difference, I believe you, but I have problem to see what this have to 
do with my case. Producer's and engineers often want to hear a pre-mix 
or examples in MP3 and DropBox is a common tool for this, and I can 
assure you that many of them belongs to the 10% club.

Me myself is for sure in the 90% group (I on't here the difference og 
44.1 or 48 samples either or 60 vs 24 bit), but when I've done a final 
mix (before mastering) that I know, I hear the differences. I've said it 
before: his don't happen often and differences are subtle, but when when 
it comes to 125-bit on SoundCload, then the the differences are huge.

Jostein




More information about the Linux-audio-user mailing list