After 4 Years, HydrogenAudio Opens New 128kbps Listening Test 267
kwanbis writes "After more than four years, a new MP3@128kbps listening test is finally open at HydrogenAudio.org! The featured encoders are: LAME 3.97, LAME 3.98.2, iTunes 8.0.1.11, Fraunhofer IIS mp3surround CL v1.5, and Helix v5.1 2005.08.09. The low anchor is l3enc 0.99a. The purpose of this test is to find out which popular MP3 VBR encoder outputs the best quality on bitrates around 128 kbps. All encoders experienced major or minor updates that should improve audio quality or encoding speed, and we have a totally new encoder on board. Note that you do not have to test all samples — it is a great help even if you test one or two. The test is scheduled to end on November 22nd, 2008."
Re:What kind of music is involved (Score:5, Funny)
I'm not too worried about the quality of my music. Since I mostly listen to noize, industrial and EBM, the occasional scratching, pop, siren, explosion, grinding metal and screaming only accentuate the already apparent awesomeness of what I'm burning holes in my ear drums with.
Re:ugh (Score:5, Funny)
Wow, what a mess. Download this package. Now download fourteen more packages (DownThemAll is the only reason I didn't give up right then). Y'know, I'm kinda interested in this subject, as I have no trouble hearing artifacts in most 128kbps CBR MP3s, but this is just a huge pain in the ass. Wouldn't a simple Flash app have made things so much easier?
I gave up at step 3751 "Buy Monster cables". ;-)
Re:Outdated? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:use the cans, luke (Score:5, Funny)
And I'd be even more surprised to see a moron who paid $200,000 for fuckin' speakers to admit otherwise.
Re:What's the point? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:mono encoding (Score:2, Funny)
Re:use the cans, luke (Score:5, Funny)
Then imagine how good $200,000 headphones would be. They'd include an extra large driver to place on your torso for deep bass.
Re:What's the point? (Score:1, Funny)
Some of us (most of us) have more music than you have. 500MB (0.5 Gig) as you so eloquently put it is only a few minutes of music. I have about 500G (~21 days) of MP3-compressed music
Ha, you point out his mistake and you make your own. Unless you have those mp3s stored at 2311 kbps.
Re:ugh (Score:3, Funny)
All this work for some LAME encoding...