After I heard about Fraunhofer's codec interations (Fhg/Fdk) Being a next step/evolution in quality in the Realm of AAC, which is my favorite lossy codec, I thought it was about time to switch from Nero which was pretty much dead.
I've always liked Nero a lot and wholeheartedly adopted it about 6 years ago to encode all my portable and even part of my permanent collection in it after it surpassed aoTuV (my previous lossy choice after LAME) in both quality and compatibility.
Back at the day, I did several ABX tests to find my personal sweet spot for both non-annoying-low-size-portable-listening-quality (back in the day 8gb Micro SD cards were still expensive) and personal transparent archival setting. Since then I've been using the same settings on nero:
Q0.4~0.45 for portable listening, which was near transparent to me, some easy samples I would even fail on ABX at 0.45...
Q0.5~0.6 for storage/computer-quiet listening, which gave between 170~185kbps. Besides a single killer-sample, I always failed abx at this preset with Nero.
So after I heard FHG was considerable better and more optimized than NERO, I was hoping to at least encode it at similar to lower presets than this.
My first surprise was of course, to discover that Winamp FHG's doesn´t even Have a 160kbps preset. It jumps from 128 to 192, which I found absurd. Angry having installed winamp for nothing i switched to FDK.
I also got a little frustrated by the lack of a middle therm between 160 and 192 kbps settings, 190 (V2) setting is what I used with lame for 100% transparency, I also think compatibility is very important, if a format does not have any perceiveable gain in quality towards an old more compatible one, then I should just stick with the old one for it's compatibility.
Anyway, I decided to test both the 144 and 160 presets In Fdk with big hopes to fail ABX tests at even 144kbps which would result in significant savings in space, specially on mobile on the run.
I first tried a couple of "normal", not particularly difficult samples, encoded and before even started the ABX tests, on the first time listening to the freshly encoded file I could already hear easily distinguishable high-pitched artifacts at splashes/hit-hats and echos. I promptly set up the ABX test hoping it was just placebo and unfortunately I didn´t have much difficult in confirming it really was some real compressing artifacts I was hearing.
This is the first 144 log:
foo_abx 1.3.4 report
foobar2000 v1.3.2
2014/06/29 12:05:27
File A: F:\Musicas\ANIMES e Jmusic\Evangelion\Rebuild of Evangelion - EVANGELION 2.0 YOU CAN (NOT) ADVANCE\DISC II\15 The Final Decision We All Must Take (2EM33).flac
File B: M:\EVA AAC\Rebuild of Evangelion - EVANGELION 2.0 YOU CAN (NOT) ADVANCE\DISC II\15 The Final Decision We All Must Take (2EM33).m4a
12:05:27 : Test started.
12:14:42 : 01/01 50.0%
12:14:49 : 02/02 25.0%
12:14:59 : 03/03 12.5%
12:15:07 : 04/04 6.3%
12:15:13 : 05/05 3.1%
12:15:20 : 06/06 1.6%
12:15:32 : 07/07 0.8%
12:15:42 : 08/08 0.4%
12:15:49 : 09/09 0.2%
12:15:56 : 10/10 0.1%
12:15:59 : Test finished.
----------
Total: 10/10 (0.1%)
I then decided to try encoding at 160kbps, hoping I would fail an ABX at this level, this is the result:
foo_abx 1.3.4 report
foobar2000 v1.3.2
2014/06/29 12:31:42
File A: F:\Musicas\ANIMES e Jmusic\Evangelion\Rebuild of Evangelion - EVANGELION 2.0 YOU CAN (NOT) ADVANCE\DISC II\15 The Final Decision We All Must Take (2EM33).flac
File B: C:\Users\XXXX\Desktop\15 The Final Decision We All Must Take (2EM33).m4a
12:31:42 : Test started.
12:33:25 : 01/01 50.0%
12:33:30 : 02/02 25.0%
12:33:36 : 03/03 12.5%
12:33:40 : 04/04 6.3%
12:33:59 : 05/05 3.1%
12:34:09 : 06/06 1.6%
12:34:16 : 07/07 0.8%
12:34:28 : 08/08 0.4%
12:34:33 : 09/09 0.2%
12:34:37 : 10/10 0.1%
12:34:39 : Test finished.
----------
Total: 10/10 (0.1%)
Really disappointing.
I then tried Nero Q0.5 setting, the old setting I'd have used, it gave about 179kbps for this particular sample and I tried abxing it, had to focus really hard, thought I was onto some artifacts but ultimately failed the ABX.
I should of course try and lower the Nero setting to about the same bitrate of the FDK encode but i was already getting tired so I called out for the day. (I usually get tired pretty quickly when abxing, can hardly do it for more than 20 minutes on difficult samples)
Then today, I decided to try FDK again and I went on to grab a quieter and suposedely easier song and try testing at 160kbps again, while at a first casual listening I wasn´t easily identifying any artifacts, so it wasn´t annoying, at further ABX inspection with a little bit of focus I was able to pinpoint more than one excerpts of the song which I could differentiate from the lossless version:
foo_abx 1.3.4 report
foobar2000 v1.3.2
2014/06/30 12:43:32
File A: F:\Musicas\ANIMES e Jmusic\Evangelion\Rebuild of Evangelion - EVANGELION 2.0 YOU CAN (NOT) ADVANCE\DISC II\21 Tsubasa wo Kudasai -Tribute to 'Sound of Music'.flac
File B: C:\Users\XXX\Desktop\21 Tsubasa wo Kudasai -Tribute to 'Sound of Music'.m4a
12:43:32 : Test started.
12:43:44 : 01/01 50.0%
12:43:48 : 02/02 25.0%
12:44:00 : 03/03 12.5%
12:44:14 : 04/04 6.3%
12:44:24 : 05/05 3.1%
12:44:33 : 05/06 10.9%
12:44:40 : 06/07 6.3%
12:44:49 : 07/08 3.5%
12:44:58 : 08/09 2.0%
12:45:08 : 09/10 1.1%
12:45:17 : 10/11 0.6%
12:45:19 : Test finished.
----------
Total: 10/11 (0.6%)
So, it fails my transparency target but I admit it was a very difficult test and the file wasn´t annoying at all.
But I'm not a purist when It comes to audio encoding and I usually prefer to store most of my music, specially if they are not my personally favorites or exceptional composition in Lossy format anyway, so I would like to at least find the transparency threshold for a given codec to do it. Now I don´t feel comfortable at all on encoding to lossy my music at 160 kbps, and without a intermediate preset bellow 192kbps, I feel like I'll be actually downgrading quality x size wise from switching from nero which I felt comfortable at around 180kbps.
Another problem with FDK that kinda of got to me, is the fact that even if I choose to stick up with 192 kbps encodes, that meant having a harder more conservative lowpass setting. Nero used 18.5 khz lowpass, while I found out that FDK at 192 uses 17khz and 16 at 160 which honestly I find it rather low. At 224kbps it uses a 20khz lowpass witch is reasonably so why such an steep move from 20 to 17khz at just one lower VBR step? Others codecs have a more subtle Lowpass vs VBR-setting curve. aoTuV had a much more optimized high level lowpass 20khz at even lower bitrates, and even LAME have a 18.5khz lowpass at V2 (although if I recall correctly, it is a "hybrid" low pass, were it will only give extra bitrate if it has enough to spare, right?)
Of course I understand that above 16khz most of the audio is actually noise and even tough I can hear sine-waves at 19khz, It doesn´t mean I would be able to hear low-volume overtones at this level, let alone dream on abxing it. Yet I still feel uncomfortable of deleting my FLACs and embracing FDK as a lossy-archival solution knowing that at 160kbps my files would only top at 16khz, that is almost like encoding a wave at 32khz sample rate! It just feels wrong!
Does anyone knows about other tests between NERO and FDK ever been conducted? I have mentioned I use nero in other places recently just to be bashed about how "Inferior and abandoned" it is today, so when I heard all the hype towards FHG I got quite disappointed. I am still considering on doing more tests with more samples, (specifically, a direct nero vs fdk at the same final bitrate abx.) but since my first impression is already bad I decided to post here and listen to you guys opinions first. Does anyone know if FDK will still receive tuning in the future with an intermediate setting above 160kbps and why the conservative/steep low-pass settings?
Another question: I've always heard that we should avoid CBR settings as they are vastly inferior than an equivalent VBR setting, but in this case wouldn´t it be interesting to try a 175kbps CBR setting for the Winamp FHG codec or will it definetely be inferior than the q0.x settings of Nero at the same size?
Please excuse if I did anything wrong, I understand that more testings should be done, but I'd like to see other people tests first, specially if they are extensive. Also I wasn´t really sure if this was supposed to go on the AAC-tech or the listening tests section. I usually only lurk on HA.
Cheers