2020-12-09, 08:59 PM
Also, the free audio encoders we mere mortals use can possibly not be up to the task with professional encoders, in particular AC3 and DTS; that's why many laserdiscs with the low bitrate of 384kbps sound great: professional encoded, theatrical mixes (all?most?), no stereo downmix.
Analog tracks, despite higher noise floor, sound... well, analog, that's why many prefer them - I fondly remember the few tapes I recorded from CDs using DBX!
I guess we should discuss here about the quality of free audio encoders; and I think the encoder could make a difference, albeit not so much as bitrates - I mean, encoder A could be better than encoder B at 384kbps, but encoder B at 192kbps should not be better than encoder A at 448kbps.
By the way, still reading here and there, and audiophile do not like multichannel AC-3 even at 640kbps, while they do like full rate DTS (1441/1509/1536kbps) but not half rate DTS (704.5/768kbps) due to its frequency rolloff; I guess that for our preservation, when not using lossless codecs, and for compatibilty's sake, we should stick to DTS full rate or at least 640kbps AC-3 for multichannel; personally, for DTS I'd not go lower than 768kbps (maybe even overkill) or AC-3 384kbps for stereo, and subsequently 384kbps DTS and 192kbps AC-3 for mono.
I tested - briefly, I must admit - several codecs, and the one that astonished me more is Opus; even at low bitrate, quality is relatively high; AAC is quite good, but Vorbis is better; MP3 is the worst; still, to get the best quality/filesize ratio, I'd not go lower than 4:1 compression with any lossy codec, while I'll never use lossy for archival purpose.
I'm very curious to read some evalution about the new MPEG-H Audio.
Analog tracks, despite higher noise floor, sound... well, analog, that's why many prefer them - I fondly remember the few tapes I recorded from CDs using DBX!
I guess we should discuss here about the quality of free audio encoders; and I think the encoder could make a difference, albeit not so much as bitrates - I mean, encoder A could be better than encoder B at 384kbps, but encoder B at 192kbps should not be better than encoder A at 448kbps.
By the way, still reading here and there, and audiophile do not like multichannel AC-3 even at 640kbps, while they do like full rate DTS (1441/1509/1536kbps) but not half rate DTS (704.5/768kbps) due to its frequency rolloff; I guess that for our preservation, when not using lossless codecs, and for compatibilty's sake, we should stick to DTS full rate or at least 640kbps AC-3 for multichannel; personally, for DTS I'd not go lower than 768kbps (maybe even overkill) or AC-3 384kbps for stereo, and subsequently 384kbps DTS and 192kbps AC-3 for mono.
I tested - briefly, I must admit - several codecs, and the one that astonished me more is Opus; even at low bitrate, quality is relatively high; AAC is quite good, but Vorbis is better; MP3 is the worst; still, to get the best quality/filesize ratio, I'd not go lower than 4:1 compression with any lossy codec, while I'll never use lossy for archival purpose.
I'm very curious to read some evalution about the new MPEG-H Audio.