Ogg Vorbis OR MP3?

Crono

Well, there are various reasons why mp3 and ogg are both very good. There are also many reasons why they can be very bad.

First of all, i'm an "old-style" audiophile, and i like stereo sources for music [sure x.1 is good for movies however ], so i'm not going into dvd audio, dts, ecc... [i know nothing about them]. I'll only talk about CDs you buy to hear music on your hifi.

There are many things to take into consideration:
SURE any way to store music in a digital [discrete] way causes loss of quality. But... how much? As a standard, i'll think of an original CD as the best quality you can achieve at home. Yes probably you can have more quality on a dvd audio cause you have 123213 channels or 96khz 24bit, but you can also have DATs or listen to live music , the fact is that CDs are the standards, and when a new album of your preferite band comes out, it comes out on CD. Maybe in 2010 we'll talk about dvds, now talk about cds!

CD... so, are there ways to have a PERFECT copy of the cd? Yes, sure, you use a professional audio ripper like EAC in secure mode and you get a perfect rip of the audio track. You can compare bit-per-bit and you'll find 0 errors. Maybe using audiocatalyst you'll find some errors, and more probably 0 errors even with it if the CD is in a perfect state. You continue to have the best quality.

But every track is 50mb... you wan't to compress it. You can use an huffman like compression, and you may get 45mb track, and you still have the best quality.

I think that there are no point of discussion about these things.

Then mp3 and ogg come!
They'll bring loss of quality. Indeed. They're LOSSY compressor, so you'll get less quality than original.
But... how much? Not all ears are equal. Not all hifi equipments are equal. Not all persons are equal. With a good audio equipment, almost everyone can say if an mp3 is compressed at 128 o 160. Those who can't, probably don't listen to the music with attention, or have poor speakers/ears. Some others can distinguish from 160 and 192 mp3. Some from 192 to 256... and is common to consider 320kbps as "cd quality" [using good encoders, and with good encoders i'm talking only about Lame 3.92], cause NO ONE in the earth got more than 50% in double/blind checks [which means he answered randomly]. Well, if you can, tell me!
I can say, in some circumstances and with some particular songs i listen many times, differences between 192 and 256, but absolutely not from 256-320. So i make mp3 ins 256kbps. Digitally a 256kbps mp3 is NOT equal to original, but, for me, it is a PERFECT AUDIO EQUIVALENT. You may burn it on cd and i'll get the same quality, or the sensation of the same quality. Sure i'm not going to rerip and recompress it, cause looping lossy compressions/decompressions causes degradation [the next 256kbps rip will probably be not equal to the original].

About ogg... i think that the quality, at some bitrates, is better than mp3. But... when do you reach a "perfect audio equivalent"? 192? 256? 320? I don't know. Probably a bit less than the 256/320 of mp3... Maybe 220-240. But... what's the point? I already have my 4543534 mp3 [hey, what are you saying? CONVERT them? you DON'T HAVE TO, you'll lose quality, maybe you have to RERIP and compress the originals], and i'm going to keep them. I'm also going to continue to rip in 256kbps mp3, cause for me they're already perfect, and i have megabytes in my hard disk and in blank cds.

So i say:
For high-end audiophiles, then continue to use your preferite format. Having mp3 at 256/300 or ogg at 220/260 doesn't make a difference. Oh.... yes, for me there is a difference: you can hear mp3 with car audio, portable players, ecc.. If you make OGGs, you'll have to convert them if you want to hear them in such equipments, and you'll LOSE QUALITY in the process. Maybe next months a protable ogg and car audio reader will come out, but NOW MP3 is better. Cmon, 20-60kbps more and much more versatility.

**** PS ****
This was for QUALITY and VERSATILITY, not COMPRESSION! The things changes when you need COMPRESSION and not QUALITY! If you have to rip a film then you'll probably use ac3 or ogg, cause they grant a better compression at medium/low bitrates such as 96/128/160. So don't say "OGG IS BETTER CAUSE MY DIVX NOW ARE BETTER, NOW I'M GOING TO CONVERT ALL MY MP3 TO OGG!" guaeguhage

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Failed.it

Necrosis

First off no one is sitting here saying their going to convert all their MP3's to Ogg. What purpose does that serve other than wasting time, and losing quality? However, it really depends on what "quality" is to someone. My "opinion" of quality is 320kbps Lame Encoded MP3's, nothing less will do. Why go for near perfect, when you can have perfect? Now if you can encode at a bit rate that is higher than 320kbps, wouldn't you do it? The Ogg files I have encoded recently have a variable rate; I've seen them reach well over 800kbps. If I encode everything from here on out at the highest possible quality. How can I lose quality if what I'm "transcoding" them from is at a higher bit rate than what I'm transcoding them to? I would lose quality alright; just by making them into MP3's.

1. DVD Audio CD's are already selling. There is also another format but I can't remember it at this moment.

2. MP3's are not better, just more convenient.

reno

WMA...

Sorry guys, Ogg Vorbis and MP3 don't sound nearly as good as WMA. I've converted CD-Audio to WMA at 128kbps and it sounds BETTER than the CD.

Bitrate don't matta jack, 768kbps of DTS sounds inferior to 448kbps of Dolby Digital EX, it's all a matter of how fast data needs to be handled out of compression.

WMA is small, only slightly more CPU heavy than MP3, and it's quality is better than MP3.

(anything under 190kbps sounds like shit in MP3, whereas 96kbps of WMA sounds BETTER than 192kbps MP3)

Zardon

well its interesting to hear other viewpoints, but I cant say I agree with anything you say, especially saying a 96kps WMA sounds better than a 192kps MP3. as for WMA sounding better than the original CD. well not much I can say to that one.

Necrosis

Vampyromaniac

I'll have to agree with Zardon and Necrosis here . . . I haven't had much luck with WMA.


I believe the other new disc technology you're thinking of is Super-Audio CD's (SACD) more here

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e-Seeker

Yup, and there's also a build up of player coming out with support for the SACD's...
.....
Wou, there's a lot of replies in this thread, can't really keep track of it at this time of 'day', but I'm really fascinated with Ogg and am def. sticking with it! It's really noticable when listening to classical music... (as it often is )...

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Sourcer_2002

yeah have u seen the Sony DVP-s9000es in Crutchfield? It looks so tight but the downfall is that i own no SACD"S and im not all about the 1200 $ us.

e-Seeker

Well, patience is a virtue which saves us from high prices... So, wait 'til prices drop...hard...

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Sourcer_2002

ya lolso u think that the sacd will actully catch on a be somthin as of noe i havent heard much of it.

e-Seeker

Well yeah, the DVD didn't 'really' take that 'long' to catch on, imagine just what can happen with clean audio! I know I'm frustrated with not being able to listen to my music encoded into 6 discreet channels...

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Necrosis

Thanks!

WyreTheWolf

no comment on that one.

Shaith

I don't know about where you live, Reno, but where I live, smoking crack is illegal.

It's audiophonically(my word) impossible to have a COMPRESSED audio file that sounds better than the ORIGINAL recording. Unless your ears have suffered severe damage from sitting too close to the speakers at too many Judas Priest concerts years ago, it just isn't happening.

WMA has an annoying habit of making things sound crystalline, tinny, and generally crappy. MP3 has the same habit at lower bit rates.

MP3 *CAN* sound just fine at bitrates lower than 192 - it depends on the material and the source. A comedy album, for instance, is pointless at 192. A full symphony sounds awful at 192 because of the lack of dynamic range.

No, 96k WMA files don't sound better than 192k MP3's - not if encoded from identical sources on the same machine and played back through a set of speakers that cost more than $8 at CompuScrew. Try it on reference monitors sometime - you'll run out of the room holding your bleeding ears.

Crono

entropy finally defeated! huageugeauegauegu

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Failed.it

reno

CD Audio has no error correction, ripping to a .wav file does. My point is, with my songs ripped from CD then converted into .wma at 128kbps (which sounds almost as good as 768kbps .wav), I get better audio quality than a CD played through the digital CD connection (don't use analog anymore, too noisy) on my pioneer 106s DVD drive. It's all because the scratches, nicks, and such don't screw with the reading laser.

Yes, the .wav file sounds better than the .cda track itself, but that's just because digital error correction fixes almost all the flaws in my discs when ripped to a file. A pristine CD fresh off the gold press may sound just as good as it's ripped .wav file, but I have very few brand new cds. As it is with any analog format (CDs) they are susceptible to wear, warping, and general degredation of audio. Harddrives have redundant write sectors and always error correct.

Use a decent quality WMA encoder, the windows media player one is a lite version and degrades sound and performance. The best combination I've found is Playcenter 3 on an Audigy. Yes, 96kbps of WMA SHOULD sound better than 192kbps MP3, that's why the format was created. To give 3/4 the size of an MP3 with twice the audio quality at half the bitrate. For comparison, a 192kbps WMA sounds EXACTLY like 768kbps of .wav, and I've tested this on my Logitech z560's and passed thru the SPDIF output to my pioneer 5.1 setup.

You guys just don't like it because it's microsoft's format. Go ahead, stick by your MP3s and your OGGs, I know good audio when I hear it (and no, judas priest and queen are not good audio) and I know WMA is better than both OGG and MP3 for both size and quality.

bye.

Zardon

QUEEN ROCK, your post says it all ! WMA is great for dance music and rap for sure. LOL.

Crono

Well, try using 20$ headphones next time, i think that they're sufficient to hear differences between a 192kbps wma and everything else. Or, at least, try to not listen stereo signals in 5.1 speakers!

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Failed.it

Joneser

Reno wrote:

Joneser says:

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DallasStar

Reno, I think what you're trying to say is that WMA sounds better to YOU, but it isn't necessarily MORE ACCURATE than the other encoders.

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"A picture of my existence... would show a useless wooden stake covered in snow... stuck loosely at a slant in the ground in a ploughed field on the edge of a vast open plain on a dark winter night." --- Franz Kafka

reno

Argh! I have a more than $20 pair of Bose Triports for my job, WMA at 128kbps sounds better than MP3 at 256kbps and CD-Audio. It's clearer, doesn't have the "wsh wsh" sound for cymbals, can output 40hz bass with crystalline quality.

Get music that actually taxes your system. Queen, any rap group, Pink Floyd, Metallica, Lincoln park...their production SUCKS compared to Tool's latest and Nine Inch Nails. Trent Reznor alone has more money and talent invested in audio equipment, production and engineering than Lucasfilm's entire audio department.

There is no way you can experience fidelity with your $12 Beethoven CD or your Queens greatest hits album. Buy "Lateralus" from Tool and "The Fragile" from Nine Inch Nails and you'll cream yourself.

DallasStar

please remove this message from the forum, and from all archives.

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"A picture of my existence... would show a useless wooden stake covered in snow... stuck loosely at a slant in the ground in a ploughed field on the edge of a vast open plain on a dark winter night." --- Franz Kafka

Crono

Pink Floyd productions sux? ...

...

I can't see the point on this. I CAN hear differences between these $12 cdaudio and 128kbps wma/mp3/ogg. Apart from that, FIDELITY is perfect *reproduction*, not perfect sound. If i have a poor quality cd, i expect to get a perfect reproduction of it, which is the best i can get out of a poor quality cd. If i notice differences even on these poor quality cds, then the compression i'm using is at least horrible. Simple. If wma makes a song sound "better" [which is: better to YOU] than ripped cdaudio... THEN WMA IS MODIFYING THE SONG, WHICH IS ABSOLUTELY NOT *FIDELITY*. Maybe wma is applying some sort of "dynamic limiter/enhancer" [like the electric bass/guitar effect pedals...], which yes it makes the song sound better [again, to YOU]... but it's only a trick. That's not fidelity.


As already mentioned above, i don't need to buy these cd, cause i can already see differences on 3$ cds.

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Failed.it

Necrosis

Here is a link to a nice little "free" encoder.

http://www.cd-rw.org/software/audio_...op_encoder.cfm

I've tried it out:

Ripped Machine Head's "Desire to Fire" WAV PCM 48K

Encoded w/ Oggdrop @ 499.9K (High as it can go).

Results = Outstanding!!

Vampyromaniac

Dude, isn't 500k a bit high?

But if you have a ton of space, you could just use zipped wavs . . . .

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Necrosis

Nah..can't play zipped wavs.

reno

You won't get perfect reproduction from a CD. The inheritant qualities of a CD and any other mechanical media don't allow for "fidelity" defined as you would have it. Our digital media system at the radio stations I work at store all data electronically, not in pits of a CD.

Anyway, I tire of this argument, stick with your MP3s and your OGGs whatever.

Totally unrelated below::

The actual range for sound reproducible on the Logitech z560's using an SB Audigy in Soundforge 4.5 are as follows...

24hz Sine wave at 0dB
18,900hz Sine wave at 0dB

0.01hz Absolute sine wave at -58dB
8,700hz Absolute sine wave -25.3dB

Well, at least that's the range I can hear stuff on em. Not bad range for non-electrostatic speakers.

Crono

reno: you are introducing 3000 off topic arguments. First wma, then your superb equipment, now the fact that you work on some radio stations.That's not necessary. You only need a brain. We are all saying that wma is not cd audio quality at 128kbps.

We don't want to know if the cd is good or bad, if logitech or philips make good equipment or not, if you work in a radio station or you frequent 2° elementary school.

We are saying this:
1) We have our .wav on hard disk. It came from cd, musicassette, vynil, microphone, mixer, guitar, bass, synth, midi, dat. Maybe Trent Reznor recorded it for us. Whatever you want. It has noise or not. It has good production or not. The fact is: we have this .wav. A friend gave it to us and he granted that is the better version you could ever find of it. He didn't say where he got it. Maybe it sounds horrible, or it sounds perfect, it's not important. That's the best you can find. There is no better version of it in the world.
2) We compress it with wma 128kbits.

Now, if you listen them both. There are 2 cases:

a) You can't hear differences. Then you have hear problems. Honestly. You are a blind trying to explain how colors are to others. But we understand you. Please, go see a doctor. You'll thank us later.
b) You hear differences. Maybe one is better, or maybe they are both good, simply they have little differences which aren't "good" or "bad", they're differences and stop. In this case, good or bad, only one thing is sure: wma sounds different from the original wav.

You are A or B? I (and i think all of us ) only want to know if you are A or B

I hope you are B.

THEN comes this thread. We are saying that a 128 mp3 sounds better than 128 wma, you that is better wma. Sure they sound different, so we are only making opinions. But we are 10 and you are one, so if you want credibility with your opinion don't introduce confusion with radio stations, equipments, error correction, and things like "nin production is better than pink floyd". They are off topics. We only want to know, starting from the same .wav, which compression gives the better impression that it is EQUAL to the .wav, and at which bitrate. I said mp3 lame 256kbps, and ogg at a slight lower bitrate, but it's less versatile than mp3 so i still prefer mp3. Are you sure that you want to remain with your idea of wma 128kbps now?

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Failed.it

reno

I'm sorry, I judge quality by tonal quality. Listen to your 128kbps mp3. Play any song with cymbals in it, hear that "wsh wsh" sound accompanying the taps of the cymbal? Don't? Get better speakers. How about that 40hz bass...? Find the song, in mp3, "Hydroelelectric" by MDFMK, listen to the pounding low range bass mixed with high frequency cymbals and midrange guitar thrashing, then find a wma at the same encoding rate and compare.

MP3...it's past it's time. Even I admit I'd rather use Ogg than mp3. Like the processor "clockspeed isn't important" in different media formats bitrate can't be compared by equivalence. MP3's just plain need to be encoded higher than 160kbps to offer near CD quality, WMA can do it at 96kbps.

Again I ask, why would Microsoft introduce a media format inferior to a 5+ year old one?

I can tell this is going nowhere, and I respect your decision to stick with MP3. So who cares? I guess. I still have mp3s on my computer, and I have the stray ogg or two, but my music format of choice is wma for it's small size, and excellent quality. I do admit, it takes a second to buffer whereas mp3 doesn't, but I can give up that second for smaller, clearer files at equal bitrates.

Let's just be done with this okay? If it makes you feel happier, then mp3 forever, alright?

Necrosis

You decide!

I have ripped a song from a standard CD: 16 bit stereo PCM Wav. 48KHz

Here is the link to the control file. (You'll need Winrar)

Control Wav

The following links are for the encoded versions of this same file. All files are at 128 kbps.

Encoders/Codecs used.

[item]Windows Media Player[/item]

[item]Ogg Vorbis 1.0[/item]

[item]Lame 3.92[/item]

Control MP3

Control OGG

Control WMA