Listening tests

Eyeballs · 01 April 2010, 08:17 am

As Im new to Musepak I was wonering after reading that it has been mainly optimised for muse at 170kb if anyone on here has done any comparison tests with other bit rates?
I downloaded a few other types of formats and tried them out on my Iaudio X5 with a pair of klipsch x5 headphones and used the bit rate 128k.And for the life of me I couldnt tell any difference between mpc at 128k and other formats with much higher rate.I was very suprised and delighted to be honest .Unless Im going deaf in my old age.
Has musepak been optimised for 128k or is it just that good anyway?

One last question please ,how does it compare with battery useage with other formats?
Thank you.
Last night at work I encoded 15 gb worth of music .Busy night at work .LOL

Buschel · 01 April 2010, 09:42 am

Musepack was not optimized for target bitrates, but it was tuned for reaching stable quality. Different quality settings will result in different bitrates. Typical bitrates for transparency for trained ears (=no difference to original audible) might by in the range from 170-220 kbps.

In general musepack is one of the fastest decoding lossy formats, and therefore one of the most efficient regarding CPU/battery usage. Nevertheless in real life this depends on your target, firmware and the codec implementation.

Antonski · 01 April 2010, 09:23 pm

Yes, if you need a constant quality, just use the same --quality (or preset) which produce transparent files for you. I feel pretty comfortable with --quality 5.5. Recently I was a bit surprised when I recoded In Rock (Deep Purple) with SV8 and I got bitrates between 136 and 179 kbps. No problems with quality, though. However, some newer albums (dynamically compressed) are typically encoded at about 200 - 220 kbps. And the latest albums of Dream Theater goes to 230 - 270 kbps with the same encoding settings!
So, it depends a lot of music content. But anyway,even if there are some artifacts at lower bitrates (no lower that 128 kbps anyway), they wouldn't be as annoying as mp3 artifacts.
Enjoy the music

Eyeballs · 02 April 2010, 04:45 am

What software are you using to encode your music?
At the moment Im using Foobar are there any better ?
Thanks

B7k · 02 April 2010, 06:10 am

Foobar 2000 @Q5 works for all my rips you could try exact audo copy (EAC) or dbpoweramp but foobar2000 is the best option in my own opinion.

VoivoD · 08 April 2010, 11:21 pm

Foobar doesnt have error correction. Im archiving cds with eac, and if I need an additional copy in other format i use then foobar2000 + 64bit(if possible) encoders ^^.

Antonski · 09 April 2010, 10:58 am

Quote:

Originally Posted by Eyeballs

What software are you using to encode your music?
At the moment Im using Foobar are there any better ?
Thanks

Encoding is usually done by command line tools (backend), mpcenc.exe in this case. So, the quality of encoded music would be the same if the same parameters were used. So, for encoding you can use the GUI frontend, which is more comfortable for you, why not Foobar?

There is a (kind of) consensus that Foobar2000 is the most reliable (as audio quality) audio player. It is fast and it will do almost everything you can think of. Moreover, it was the first player with native Musepack support. I use it as a reference player.
It is not easy for configuration though, and the default user interface is not what everybody would like.

There is a (kind of) consensus that EAC is the best secure CD ripper, especially if there is no AccurateRip match for the ripped CD. However, it is a killer for your drive (in secure mode). So, if not necessary, secure mode is not recommended, if you want to use your drive longer. That's why it is better to try first burst or fast mode with AccurateRip verification and if the rip is OK, there is no need to go to secure mode. I use it as a reference ripper.

However, if you need a powerful, yet fast and feature rich audio player (and library organizer), I would suggest trying MusicBee. It has a nice user interface (some say iTunes like, I don't know), but still as fast as FB (no matter how big the library is), with almost the same features, it has a secure rip mode with AccurateRip verification, and it has a rapid development! The latest (beta) release can be downloaded from here, it is weekly updated and always full with nice surprises.

Just my 2 ct.

01 April 2010, 08:17 am	#1
Eyeballs Member Join Date: Mar 2010 Posts: 5	Listening tests As Im new to Musepak I was wonering after reading that it has been mainly optimised for muse at 170kb if anyone on here has done any comparison tests with other bit rates? I downloaded a few other types of formats and tried them out on my Iaudio X5 with a pair of klipsch x5 headphones and used the bit rate 128k.And for the life of me I couldnt tell any difference between mpc at 128k and other formats with much higher rate.I was very suprised and delighted to be honest .Unless Im going deaf in my old age. Has musepak been optimised for 128k or is it just that good anyway? One last question please ,how does it compare with battery useage with other formats? Thank you. Last night at work I encoded 15 gb worth of music .Busy night at work .LOL

Thread Tools	Search this Thread
Show Printable Version Email this Page	Search this Thread: Advanced Search
Display Modes
Linear Mode Switch to Hybrid Mode Switch to Threaded Mode

01 April 2010, 09:42 am	#2
Buschel The Man Join Date: Mar 2008 Posts: 9	Musepack was not optimized for target bitrates, but it was tuned for reaching stable quality. Different quality settings will result in different bitrates. Typical bitrates for transparency for trained ears (=no difference to original audible) might by in the range from 170-220 kbps. In general musepack is one of the fastest decoding lossy formats, and therefore one of the most efficient regarding CPU/battery usage. Nevertheless in real life this depends on your target, firmware and the codec implementation.

01 April 2010, 09:23 pm	#3
Antonski Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: Bulgaria Posts: 102	Yes, if you need a constant quality, just use the same --quality (or preset) which produce transparent files for you. I feel pretty comfortable with --quality 5.5. Recently I was a bit surprised when I recoded In Rock (Deep Purple) with SV8 and I got bitrates between 136 and 179 kbps. No problems with quality, though. However, some newer albums (dynamically compressed) are typically encoded at about 200 - 220 kbps. And the latest albums of Dream Theater goes to 230 - 270 kbps with the same encoding settings! So, it depends a lot of music content. But anyway,even if there are some artifacts at lower bitrates (no lower that 128 kbps anyway), they wouldn't be as annoying as mp3 artifacts. Enjoy the music

02 April 2010, 04:45 am	#4
Eyeballs Member Join Date: Mar 2010 Posts: 5	What software are you using to encode your music? At the moment Im using Foobar are there any better ? Thanks

02 April 2010, 06:10 am	#5
B7k Member Join Date: Feb 2010 Posts: 4	Foobar 2000 @Q5 works for all my rips you could try exact audo copy (EAC) or dbpoweramp but foobar2000 is the best option in my own opinion.

08 April 2010, 11:21 pm	#6
VoivoD Member Join Date: Apr 2010 Posts: 5	Foobar doesnt have error correction. Im archiving cds with eac, and if I need an additional copy in other format i use then foobar2000 + 64bit(if possible) encoders ^^.