Skip to main content

Notice

Please note that most of the software linked on this forum is likely to be safe to use. If you are unsure, feel free to ask in the relevant topics, or send a private message to an administrator or moderator. To help curb the problems of false positives, or in the event that you do find actual malware, you can contribute through the article linked here.
Topic: Measuring audio quality degradation (Read 14338 times) previous topic - next topic
0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Measuring audio quality degradation

Reply #25
In order to come close to being able to define a "better/worse" scale, you'll have to be very specific about the scenario you are targeting. One scale that targets young listeners who like to sit in a quiet room with good equipment and pay close attention to the music is going to be very different than a scale targeting older people who visit heavy metal concerts all the time and who will be listening with crummy noise-canceling headphones while working in a noisy factory.

That's why people say that, for example, a 128 kbps MP3 made with a decent encoder is likely to be perceived as the same as the original by most people, most of the time, with most music, not all people all of the time with all music. Even if we has a "perfect" psycoacoustic model, you'd still run into the fact that the particular situation of each individual listener is going to be different.

As for your original question: Without reference to the original recording you won't be able to be certain that any audio you obtain is going to sound "authentic" as there's nothing keeping someone from running the audio through an EQ or other processing before compressing it, even for lossless files, and this even applies to physical media like CDs, where you might run into remastered versions with more DRC or different EQ, or whatever.

Measuring audio quality degradation

Reply #26
Indeed, that's what properly ran ABC/HR trials are for and why you need anchors in the scale, both top anchor and bottom anchor. (Unless you're measuring the extreme top, then you might need two bottom anchors.) Even with bad equipment you might be able to hear the difference. (Or perhaps actually it might be easier.)

Generally the differences compress but the rating ordering still remains. The differences may turn insignificant though.
ruxvilti'a

 

Measuring audio quality degradation

Reply #27
Indeed, that's what properly ran ABC/HR trials are for and why you need anchors in the scale, both top anchor and bottom anchor. (Unless you're measuring the extreme top, then you might need two bottom anchors.) Even with bad equipment you might be able to hear the difference. (Or perhaps actually it might be easier.)

Generally the differences compress but the rating ordering still remains. The differences may turn insignificant though.


Seems to completely miss the point is that when measured performance is sufficiently high (e.g. the 100 dB rule) subjective tests are a complete and total waste of time.