Hydrogenaudio Listening Tests

From Hydrogenaudio Knowledgebase

From time to time, HydrogenAudio members have been conducting listening tests, either public ones or private ones. These listening test should be valuable in gauging the performance of various digital audio techniques, e.g. compression, transcoding, etc., at a certain point in time.

It should be noted that these tests may become obsolete by newer enhancements in the techniques. So please ensure that there aren't newer tests before drawing conclusions.

This page contains links to Listening Tests carried out by various members of HydrogenAudio.

When you read the test results, you may happen upon many unfamiliar terminologies, especially concerning artifacts. ff123's Artifact Training Page is the place to go to understand what these 'artifacts' are all about.

Note: There are no such things as listening tests for Lossless compression. There are only performance tests (e.g. compression ration, encode/decode speed, etc). So, check out the Lossless comparison page instead.


Format-specific Tests

All tests sorted by date, with older ones at top. All dates are in ISO8601 format.


AAC

Date Title
Samples
Performed by Type Codecs Links
2004-12-09 Ahead vs Apple 128-kbps
Classical
Guruboolez Private iTunes 4.1.052, 4.7.042;
Nero 2.5.9.7, 2.9.998 CBR, 2.9.998 VBR
HA Thread
2005-09-05 48- & 64-kbps HE-AAC
Classical
Guruboolez Private CT aacPlus v.2 48- & 64-kbps
Helix 11.0.0.1897, Nero 3.2.0.20 VBR
HA Thread
2006-02-05 48-kbps HE-AAC
Classical
Ivan Dimkovic Public Nero HE-AAC v1 & v2 HA Thread
2006-02-20 48-kbps HE-AAC
General
Gabriel Public 3gpp (v1), CT (v1 & v2), Nero (v1 & v2) HA Thread
Complete Result


MP3

Date Title
Samples
Performed by Type Codecs Links
2004-01-18 Dithering Test (1)
Special
Guruboolez Private MP3 Decoders:
MAD, LAME, Fraunhofer, foobar2000
HA Thread
2004-11-15 130-kbps LAME
rjamorim
Guruboolez Private LAME 3.90.3 ABR, 3.96.1 ABR, 3.96.1 VBR HA Thread
2005-01-11 128-kbps LAME
ff123
Guruboolez Private LAME 3.90.3, 3.96.1, 3.97a5 HA Thread
2005-10-17 LAME 3.98 -V5
Classical
Guruboolez Private LAME 3.98: -V5, -V5 --vbr-new,
-V5 --vbr-new --athaa-sensitivity 1
HA Thread

Notes: (1) Performed under extreme listening conditions not reproducible on daily listening.


MPC

Date Title
Samples
Performed by Type Codecs Links
2005-06-18 --standard
Classical
Guruboolez Private 1.01j, 1.15u HA Thread


Vorbis

Date Title
Samples
Performed by Type Codecs Links
2003-06-18 128-kbps
ff123/rjamorim
Guruboolez Private GT2 & PCVS HA Thread
2004-06-17 160-kbps
Special
Guruboolez Private CVS, GT3b2, aoTuVb2, aoTuVb2+QK HA Thread
2004-02-05 -q4
Transients
Guruboolez Private RC3 2002-03, RC3 2002-04, 1.01, 1.01 QK2 HA Thread


WMA

Date Title
Samples
Performed by Type Codecs Links
2003-06-18 128-kbps
ff123/rjamorim
Guruboolez Private WMA9 Standard & Pro HA Thread


Multiformat Tests

Date Title
Samples
Performed by Type Codecs Links
2003-10-11 130-kbps
Classical (Baroque)
Guruboolez Private AAC (FAAC, PsyTel, Nero, QuickTime)
MP3 LAME 3.90.3, MPC 1.14, Vorbis GT3b1, WMA9 Pro
HA Thread
2003-12-13 128-kbps
Classical
Guruboolez Private AAC (iTunes, Nero, FAAC),
Vorbis 1.01, WMA9, MP3 LAME 3.93.1
HA Thread
2004-07-12 175-kbps
Classical
Guruboolez Private Vorbis Megamix -q5,50, -q5,99 -q6,00
MP3 LAME 3.97a3 -V3, -V2, MPC -q5

HA Thread

2004-12-09 130-kbps
Classical
Guruboolez Private AAC Nero 2.9.9.998
Vorbis aoTuVb3

HA Thread

2005-03-05 140-kbps VBR
Classical
Guruboolez Private AAC Nero 3.0.0.4, Vorbis 1.1, QK28

HA Thread

2005-03-17 256-kbps Transcode from MP3
subset of ff123
Guruboolez Private AAC iTunes 4.7, MP3 LAME 3.97a8
MPC 1.15u, Vorbis aoTuVb3, WavPack 4.2b3 Lossy

HA Thread

2005-07-11 80-kbps
Various
Guruboolez Private LAME MP3, AAC-HE and -LC,
Vorbis aoTuV, WMA Std
HA Thread
2005-08-09 96-kbps
Classical & Various
Guruboolez Private LAME MP3, AAC,Vorbis aoTuV (Lancer), MPC, WMA Hardware.fr thread (in French)
2005-08-22 180-kbps
Classical
Guruboolez Private AAC, MP3, MPC, Vorbis aoTuVb4 HA Thread
2006-01-13 128-kbps
General
Sebastian Mares Public iTunes & Nero AAC, LAME MP3,
Vorbis aoTuV, WMA Pro
HA Thread
Complete Result


External Tests

Other people also held listening tests outside of Hydrogenaudio (although the organizer of the tests are usually HA members :)

So, check out the following sites: