Musepack vs modern codecs?

[Ambient384]

Why does there seem to be a lack of interest in Musepack?

Why does there seem to be a lack of interest in Musepack?

hydrogenaud.io

Never understood this I've done a basic A/B with MPC vs other codecs. I've found It way more robust to vast amount of problem cases, It is quite ignorant to claim MPC only good at 224kbps VBR. FYI they removed MPC from 2006 DBT face off's because It was 4.8/5 at 128kbps VBR while AAC/Vorbis were 4.3/5.

96kbps VBR(Q3) = Much better than Vorbis/LAME, Very close to AAC/Opus. Great for low complex music like audiobooks to ambient.

128kbps VBR(Q4) = Pretty much ties to AAC/Opus/Lame. Vorbis still suffers from Stereo crush.

165kbps VBR(Q4.9) = Beats AAC/Vorbis/Opus. Blows LAME away on pre echo heavy samples.

224kbps VBR(Q6) = No change still transparent.

 

[Snoopy]

People still use MP3 etc?

 

[Eetu]

I have flacs only. Storage is cheap and where I live internet providers have no data caps. I appreciate the fact flac is 'archival' quality, no second guessing if it's good enough.

 

[TheBatsEar]

People still use MP3 etc?

Once downloaded and on your disk, what are you to do except play it?

I replace it with flac if an opportunity presents itself, but still have plenty of mp3 in my collection.

 

[Snoopy]

Once downloaded and on your disk, what are you to do except play it?

I replace it with flac if an opportunity presents itself, but still have plenty of mp3 in my collection.

Qobuz + Tidal. And delete all that MP3 stuff

 

[VMAT4]

Qobuz + Tidal. And delete all that MP3 stuff

How often do you hear a difference between 320 kbs MP3 and whatever Qobuz and Tidal have to offer? Are you really under the curse of the "Golden Ear"?

 

[oversky]

People still use MP3 etc?

Most new vidoes on youtube are using AAC or Opus.

 

[TheBatsEar]

How often do you hear a difference between 320 kbs MP3 and whatever Qobuz and Tidal have to offer? Are you really under the curse of the "Golden Ear"?

It is us that are cursed with tin ears, i'm afraid.

The entire industry if full of people that claim to hear things i for one can not. Mp3 vs flac. SACD vs CD. This vs that amp.

Qobuz + Tidal. And delete all that MP3 stuff

They could remove it from their catalogue and then you end up with nothing. I'm not in the market to rent, only buy.

 

[oversky]

When I was young, I can hear differences between 128 kbps and 160 kbps mp3.
But at that time, either mp3 encoder or decoder are not as mature as today.

 

[Ambient384]

People still use MP3 etc?

AAC has seem to overtake on the most used lossy codec with Opus being 3rd place. No idea why MP3 lasted as long It did since if you are moderately sensitive to pre echo even 320kbps won't be transparent with MP3. Newer codecs & subband based ones don't suffer those issues if we are ignoring bad AAC encoders.

But these days I struggle to tell 256kbps VBR MP3(LAME) from lossless beyond edge cases.

 

[digitalfrost]

I have a ton of Musepack. I was very active at hydrogenaudio in the past, some of you guys may even remember r3mix.net before dibrom founded hydrogenaudio...

Anyway. The reason I don't use it anymore is just there's no device support. And there never was. I eventually moved to FLAC as storage got cheaper and now if I have a need for smaller files for the phone or something, I simply use LAME -V3 and be done with it.

I see no reason for lossy codecs anymore except for space constraints, but then why not use the most compatible. Back in the day Musepack was miles ahead in terms of quality, but when LAME matured around 2005 really I see no reason for it anymore.

 

[ZolaIII]

Only WavPack lossy hybrid is worth it regarding lossy codes this day's at least regarding me. You can get 30~50% reduction in size (without correction file) compared to losseles (flac or Apple), can't hear or point on the graph regarding difrence, it doesn't mess anything (sample rate or bit precision) and you can get losseles matrix back by combining it with correction file. Even so it's not either very handy (adoption is far from embedded tho it's a part of FFmpeg) nor something I think I can't live without.

 

[Andretti60]

People still use MP3 etc?

People still ride bicycles etc?

 

[oversky]

AAC has seem to overtake on the most used lossy codec with Opus being 3rd place. No idea why MP3 lasted as long It did since if you are moderately sensitive to pre echo even 320kbps won't be transparent with MP3. Newer codecs & subband based ones don't suffer those issues if we are ignoring bad AAC encoders.

But these days I struggle to tell 256kbps VBR MP3(LAME) from lossless beyond edge cases.

According to wikipedia, AAC also has pre-echo.
Is this the same as what you were talking about?

Pre-echo - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

It occurs in transform-based audio compression algorithms – typically based on the modified discrete cosine transform (MDCT) – such as MP3, MPEG-4 AAC, and Vorbis, and is due to quantization noise being spread over the entire transform-window of the codec.

 

[ThatM1key]

There is many kinds of MP3s even at the same bitrate. Early MP3 320kbps files had a sharp cut at 16Khz but overtime the MP3 format had gotten better and now we got MP3 320kbps files that has plenty of audio data over 16khz. I will admit OGG does a better job these days then MP3 and I wish it was supported more.

 

[digitalfrost]

I tried to ABX MP3s with content above 16khz and without, I think was around 18 at the time, and back then I couldn't. MP3 will never be able to efficiently encode content above 16khz https://wiki.hydrogenaud.io/index.php?title=LAME_Y_switch

But for music it doesn't matter. You don't even need MP3 for this. Just lowpass any music at 16khz and tell me if you can hear a difference. Most people can't. I'm not talking test signals. Back then I could hear up to 18.5khz. But with music if the content above 16khz is cut, I couldn't notice a difference.