Notes by ff123
NOTICE: The listening tests performed with Lame 3.88 are for an alpha version, and are not necessarily representative of the Lame 3.88 beta version.
3/20/01: Using Grado SR325 headphones. Fanless computer operation. Decoding mp3 with Fraunhofer decoder within Winamp 2.73. Using WMA decoder from Winamp 2.5c to decode WMA files to WAV.
This is the first 16 seconds from the Soundtrack of Star Wars Episode I, "Duel of the Fates" You can download the clip (duel.flac) from my Audio Samples Page. The file has been losslessly compressed using the FLAC format.
This sample is a mass of people singing in a chorus, which must be pretty hard for audio codecs, because almost all of them seem to have trouble at 128 kbs. For a hoot, listen to the flutter produced by mp3enc or FhG/Radium. Yowie. WMA 8 sounds best to my ears, but it also filters very aggressively. Of the mp3 codecs, Lame with --nspsytune wins out.
| Encoder | bitrate | settings | ABX results | Comment |
| Xing in AudioCatalyst 2.1 | 128 | no high freq | didn't bother | sounds like tape flutter |
| FhG mp3enc31 | 128 | -qual 9 -bw 16500 | didn't bother | worse than Xing; very bad flutter |
| FhG 1.2 build 63i external codec (Radium) | 128 | didn't bother | about equal to mp3enc; very bad flutter | |
| Lame 3.88a10 (Mar 16, 2001) | 128 | -h --nspsytune --athtype 2 --lowpass 16 | 16 of 16 | slight flutter; much better than mp3enc and Radium; best of the mp3 codecs |
| Lame 3.88a10 (Mar 16, 2001) | 128 (average) | -h --nspsytune --abr 135 --athtype 2 --lowpass 16 | 16 of 16 | similar to Lame CBR above |
| FhG "FastEnc" codec (EasyMP3 1.1.0) | 128 | "Faster" | didn't bother | flutter, worse than Lame with --nspsytune |
| FhG "FastEnc" codec VBR 50% (EasyMP3 1.1.0) | 119 (average) | Using CBR 128 to set max bandwidth | didn't bother | similar to FastEnc above |
| Ogg Vorbis beta 4 | 128 (average) | 16 of 16 | slight flutter; perhaps slightly worse than Lame with --nspsytune | |
| Microsoft WMA (version 8.0.0.0302) | 133 (average) | 10 of 16 | can't hear a difference; best to my ears | |
| Psytel AAC (version 1.0, April 19, 2001) | 128 | -br 128 -qual 9 -production | 15 of 16 | slight flutter |
| Liquifier Pro 5 AAC (streaming 128) | 132 | default equalization | didn't bother | flutter; worse than Lame with --nspsytune |