MP3 Bitrate quality test! (for djdawn and others)

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-- MP3 Bitrate quality test! (for djdawn and others)
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Posted by Gluegun on Nov-12-2001 20:51:

Let's just take what Headphone.com has to say on the two headphones:

Beyerdynamic DT250-80
The easily driven Beyerdynamic 250s provide isolation and a fine sound that is ideal for DJs or studio use. Overall, they deliver a pleasant musical representation that places emphasis on the bass. They are durable, non-fatiguing and very comfortable. These headphones are efficient--we recommend use with an amp, but they can be driven effectively by a portable player. We really appreciate the detailed highs and controlled lows these headphones deliver.
The 250s have soft, velvet ear cups that fit snuggly around the ears and a padded headband-- this combination adds immensely to their comfort level. They are made with a sturdy, yet flexible plastic that is durable, and offer 12db of isolation from the surrounding environment, while still keeping their accurate musical presentation. Their coiled cord connects conveniently to one earpiece eliminating any double cord tangling. They come terminated to a mini and have a 1/4 inch adapter

Beyerdynamic DT831
Our favorite closed headphone, the Beyerdynamic 831s, offer great sound and comfort, plus they keep your tunes in your ears. They produce a bright, detailed musical illustration. The 831s are not "boomy" sounding, a common downfall of sealed headphones, and are extremely comfortable. These headphones are happiest at home or hooked up with an amp.
The 831s combine tight bass and clear, accurate highs, resulting in an all-around high-end sealed headphone. The 831s offer comfortable listening with their cushy, velvet ear cups that embrace your ears. A soft, inner strap holds the phones on your head-- the strap is connected to the plastic outer band-- for a nonrestricting fit. Their headband is made with a sturdy, flexible plastic and they have partial rotating joints. The 831s have a 10ft coiled cord that connects to both of the earpieces. They are terminated to a mini and come with a 1/4 inch adapter

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Anyways, I was gonna get the 250-80, but I saw how I could get the 831's used for $130 (it was on sale, it's usually $160), and I was like, "DUDE! That's half price! And they're better than the 250's!" So, I bought them, and THEN I decided...to actually make them better than the cheaper ones, I needed a warm amp, so I spent another $130 on a portable, battery driven, warm sounding amp, the Headroom Total Airhead.

Yea, I listen to trance in the 831's, and they totally ROCK for it...IF you drive them right, and neither a sound card nor a portable nor a minisystem nor a multimedea speaker jack will drive em right (I know from personal experience...they will get loud, but they will be slightly harsh and slightly bright, just kind of annoying to listen to). An HEADPHONE amp or a strong headphone jack on a good Reciever will work. Anyways, if you are interested in the 831's, add the cost of an amp into the picture--but there are ways to pay under $160 USD for a good amp from Headroom (www.headphone.com). For example, there is a hobbyist/forumer with the nickname "JMT" at www.head-fi.org who makes great portable amp out of altoid bins--for CHEAPER than the Total Airhead! And, of course, there is the Porta-Corda amp, from Jan Meier (www.meier-audio.com)...and, of course, you could follow one of the many online projects for making your own headphone amp on the web, and those would probably be cheapest of all.

By the way, if you have seen my threads about the Sony MDR-V6, BOTH of these headphones are better studio monitors than that one; the 250-80's if your equipment doesnt have a strong headphone jack, the 831's if it does, and, chances are, professional mixing boards probably will. Anyways, read this post, it talks about a REALLY awesome experience I had with the DT831's....and it talks about some other stuff, too.

http://www.head-fi.org/forums/showt...=&threadid=3695

Also, if you have an uber-stretchable budget, the Sony MDR-CD3000's are the best Trance headphones on the planet.

Posted by Gluegun on Nov-13-2001 02:21:

Don't tell me I wrote and copied that WHOLE big thing, and no one is gonna reply?!?

I guess I'll have to use my system to tell teh difference between these files!

LOL!

Let's see if I can do it with my crappy SBLive, so I won't have to install the TBSC lying over there.... might be broke, for all I know...

*goes off, humming happily to himself*

Posted by Gluegun on Nov-13-2001 02:41:

*twitch*

ARGH! Electronic music compresses sooooo easily, because the music has sooooo little data in it! None of the resonances of real instruments in real rooms, none of the uber-detailed harmonics they have! ARGH! Like I said, you use Trance to test DIFFERENT ENCODERS, to test for pops and clicks and distortions such against a normal *.wav. It works so great with that because there are "unnatural" abrupt endings to the song, and periods where, ideally, you have NO sound, then a BUNCH of sound, then NO sound; there isn't the background a real room gives you. Also, you can tell distortion with it easily, because of the volume extremes. However, for testing how much MP3 makes it worse than the original, you need something with WAY more data in the music... maybe a recording of sampled trance on an LP in an actual club...but, with what you gave us, it has so LITTLE data to lose that it can get encoded easily with little loss of quality.

Gimme a live, high quality recording unamped of Jazz converted from, ideally, LP to mp3 [there's sound cards that do that], at every different bitrate level. THOSE will have lost all of the subtle details of resonances and stuff that MP3 screws over because it stetches out the data in the "time" axis, and I will be *easily* able to tell the difference between 'em.

*goes to get his Audiophile sound card out, and grumbles*

End Rant!

Posted by djdawn on Nov-13-2001 07:03:

gluegun, what you said is true and the reason why I asked for "complex" samples in the original thread. But we are only talking about encoding TRANCE here and what bitrate is necessary for that.
A good way to find a good trance sample to use for this (which is possible) is to have LAME encode the material with --r3mix setting and only use it when it comes out at an average bitrate of 190 or higher. The samples I posted in the original thread were easy to identify, but I deleted them from my site.
I will check out Paul's samples later today

Posted by Fundamental on Nov-13-2001 08:42:

I am going to take this test using really crappy little earphones, coz if I can notice a difference with those then there really IS a big difference...

Posted by RavingLunatic on Nov-14-2001 01:49:

I took a listen to the samples, they all sound the same to me.

but, I Notice they are all the same length and filesize..

if they were encoded at different bitrates, wouldn't they be different filesizes?

or were they converted to their respective bitrates, THEN converted to 192 to mask what they were maybe?

in anycase, they sound the same to me.

Posted by j_spot on Nov-14-2001 04:09:

Im downloading as we speak(and shit is it slow)

lets see how good my ears are!

GOt it..AND OH DEAR LORD is there ever a difference...now to see if I got it right!

Posted by Gluegun on Nov-14-2001 04:22:

They are all VERY different.

I messaged him.

*feels soooooo proud of his $260 USD professional studio monitoring headphones.*

by teh way, a friend of mine who knows mp3's more than I do found it out with a $20 set of headphones. he has slightly better ears than I do when it comes to MP3-quality; I just know they suck, he knows HOW and WHY.... I mean, you can't *help* but know when you both listen to 20 gigs of mp3's, *and* an audiophile quality turntable (I had a religious experience listening to Hotel California on that turntable with those $20 headphones...)

(You can find those headphones at Best Buy. They are the Koss KSC-50. They are probably the highest-fidelity object in the entire store. $20 USD. And, yes, I own those headphones too...in fact, it was with those that I found the difference between the two "good" ones [the sucky one is sooooo easy to tell!!!], after discussing it with him.)

Posted by j_spot on Nov-15-2001 00:30:

hmmm...$20 for nice headphones, who would have thunk it.

so other than me n gluegun..whose taken 'the test'?

Posted by AndiH on Nov-17-2001 13:25:

i bought the DT250-80 today...they are great! thanks for your help gluegun

btw i took the test too

Posted by Gluegun on Nov-17-2001 23:10:

Ah, so ya didn't wanna drop the $40+ that someone would need to make you an amp and get the DT831's?

Awwww.....

Anyways, what you have are one of the better monitoring headphones out there...see if you can figure out a situation during which you can use them to monitor something, and do so... LOL!

Posted by Qtip_00 on Nov-18-2001 04:31:

woops i didnt read what he wrote and posted my answers here. Anyway I could hear the difference with my soundblaster and klipsch promedia 4.1's

Posted by Gluegun on Nov-18-2001 05:14:

Between the bad one and the two good ones, or all three? LOL!

Anyways, yea, a good knowledge of what to listen for in mp3's helps. As does bright treble...that'll excentuate the diff's...

Posted by JM on Nov-18-2001 08:36:

ok, listening right now, and i can tell right from the start of the song there is a difference....shit, i cant tell...they are different though i promise you on that one....the bass, melody....different pitch or whatever the hell it's called...now gonna pm Paul with my results

*edit* i just ripped Three Drives - Greece 2000 (olav b dub) into 96, 128, and 192kbit....all i can tell you that after listening to all three of my tunes, 96kbit was the worst, and i could spot a smaller difference between teh 128 and 192kbit samples....definitely the 96kbit was obviously the worst quality rip...

>JM<

Posted by Dmatrox on Nov-20-2001 03:39:

Wilson i sent you a PM a few days ago... well am i right, or not right?

Posted by Gluegun on Nov-21-2001 02:36:

Hey, check this out!!

http://66.96.216.160/cgi-bin/YaBB.p...8191057&start=0

That's the www.r3mix.net test on encoders and stuff....

And here's a discussion on a headphoen forum that started out on one topic, but ended up with a discussion on trance and compression, and it has a lot of good info and stuff...

http://www.head-fi.org/forums/showt...25&pagenumber=1

Posted by Gluegun on Nov-23-2001 23:20:

*coughs some*

Well, what do people think of my links?

And how did the test go?

Did anyone read about that similar test at www.r3mix.net ???

What about what the recording engineer said about trance and compression and such at the other webpage I linked to?

Posted by Paul Wilson on Nov-24-2001 17:07:

Ok, sorry for not replying. I've just been a little too lazy to reply to all the PM's. In total I have had 19 messages. A lot of people had trouble teling the 192 kps one apart from the 128 kps. 4 people couldn't tell the 96 kps one apart.

Here's the answers:

Sample 1 is 192 kps
Sample 2 is 96 kps
Sample 3 is 128 kps

Posted by Gluegun on Nov-24-2001 19:55:

So, what do you think the reason is that they can't tell? Their system? Their ears? The samples themselves? Anyone?

Posted by j_spot on Nov-24-2001 21:29:

well for me, the 96 stood out. The other 2 were quite even thru my system. I have a have a factory sound card, and Monsoon flat panel speakers.
So, so why couldnt I tell the difference? I dont know. Probly partly my ears, and partly the equipment. But then again, I didnt claim that 96 would do in place of 192 or 160(my prefered level) or 128. soo..while I cant hear the difference, that only means that im making the right choice for me. doesnt it?

Posted by Gluegun on Nov-24-2001 23:31:

Do you have the monsoon 502's or the 505's? Those area some of the best monsoon systems out there, better than their higher end stuff, like the 700's...

if you have either of those (set up and placed properly), and, say, a Turtle Beach Santa Cruz, you could probably tell teh difference...

However, like I said earlier, these particular samples suck for differentiating between mp3 quality. He should have included an uncompressed .wav of this as well...

Posted by Dmatrox on Nov-24-2001 23:35:

woo hoo i got the answer right

Posted by Hyperdimension on Dec-07-2001 01:09:

As djdawn said a while ago, select a sample by first encoding using "Lame --r3mix", play it in Winamp to see how the bit rate changes, and note the sections of the track that has bit rates > 192. These are the sections that Lame has decided it needs a higher bit rate to retain an acceptable level of quality.

Even if you can't hear the difference at the moment between diffeent bit rate mp3s, you may regret it later when one day you may have better equipment on which you WILL be able to tell the difference. It also depends on your attitudes later. You might become more passionate about music, and want the highest level of quality as you can possibly afford, and wish that you hadn't compressed your favourite tracks to such a low quality mp3. One day we will all be using very high-speed Internet connections and have hard disk drives that are so much larger than today, and having 96kbps mp3s would just be a laugh... I think it's already a laugh. Just get a faster internet connection, larger hard disk drive, and a CD writer.

Posted by Gluegun on Dec-07-2001 01:26:

Or, like me, you may get to the point where you don't want to listen to ANY mp3's, or even a .wav, because your system's too good for your computer...

Posted by Hyperdimension on Dec-07-2001 03:42:

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