[LAU] ABX test (was Re: What is the best MP3 encoder?)

[Peder Hedlund]

Quoting Ralf Mardorf <ralf.mardorf at alice-dsl.net>:

> I guess I _never_ failed a blind test, but that's not important.

If that's true you really should offer your ears to the codec  
creators. They want people with golden ears who can hear if their  
tweeks are for the better or worse.

And feel free to post your ABX score of the files in  
http://www.musikhuset.org/~peder/AxelF.zip .
AxelF.wav is the CD original, AxelFMP3-165.wav is made with  
lame-3.99.4 -V4, resulting in an 165.2 kbps file, and AxelFMP3-124.wav  
is made with -V6, resulting in an 124 kbps file
Compare the original with the 124 and see if you can tell which is  
which. Assuming you can, do the same with the original and the 165.

Or you can send me a 10s snippet of your favorite music and I'll make  
MP3s of that for ABX:ing.

> Most
> people are comfortable with MP3s, but if I talk to them and point them
> to the lossy parts, they're able to notice the loss too, they are
> usually not annoyed by the loss.

That's very likely "the power of suggestion". Do try and point out the  
"lossy" part while they're listening to the original. It wouldn't  
surprise me if they started noticing the "loss" in that all of a sudden.

> Back to audio ;), if you aren't accustomed to MP3s, but accustomed to
> listen to productions in good audio studios, than you can't stand MP3s.

Which might very well be because you know that it's an MP3 and you  
"know" MP3s sound bad.
Please do show that you can't stand MP3s by providing an ABX score.

- Peder