[LAU] What is the best MP3 encoder?

[Ralf Mardorf]

On Tue, 2013-04-02 at 12:59 +0200, Peder Hedlund wrote:
> You should read Monty's (of Ogg/Vorbis and Opus/CELT fame) 24/192 post  
> : http://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html
> When recording you should obviously go as high as feasible but 16/44.1  
> is more than adequate for listening.

I didn't read this post, because I already disagree. There already is an
audible difference between 44.1KHz and 48KHz. Unlikely that my
previously golden ears are still golden, since I'm living for > 15 years
in a loud place.

If there are no technical issues, e.g. a sound card that does perform
better at a sample rate > 48 KHz, then to record with more than 48 KHz
is useless. Why should a sample rate > 48 KHz improve something?

And again, no, 44.1 KHz even isn't adequate, you can hear loss of
quality.

The most important thing is the way people listen to audio signals. Make
your ABX tests with non-musicians and play two different versions of the
same song, that only include some differences, e.g. the Bass sound is
different or even a loud snare always played at 2 and 4 is a different
sound. Many people won't notice that the acoustic bass became an e.
bass, that the snare did get more reverb etc., but this doesn't mean
that there isn't an audible difference, it only does mean that _most_
people never learn how to listen to this kind of audio material. They
use the same ability only for filtering background voices, when talking
to somebody etc., so they have an educated listening too, but not
trained to listen to music.

> No psychoacoustic encoder is 100% foolproof which means there will  
> always be certain things it'll have problem coding properly

And those "certain things" always could be part of the music and usually
are part of the music, people usually are simply not trained to notice
this, they wouldn't notice, if Jimi Hendrix plays a Flying V or a
Stratocaster, the way Hendrix played guitar I suspect every guitarist
will hear the difference between a Flying V and Stratocaster.

So I'm not talking about esoteric, about an acoustic savant syndrome or
something strange, I'm just talking about the way people listen to
music.

Regards,
Ralf