Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater MP3 vs Lossless Compression - the proof

Now the MP3 guys and FLAC guys can weigh in against each other.

I made a quick little audio WAV file (sorry Mac guys - hope you can play this somehow) that shows the data that's missing from an MP3 that appears in an uncompressed or lossless compressed file.

I was actually surprised at how little detail is lost.

The MP3 was encoded with the Fraunhofer encoder for DOS (s-l-o-w but the best encoder I've heard - they started the whole push, so it made sense to use them as the standard) at 256kbps - which is a good balance of archival quality and file size, though some encoders do go higher, once you get past this bitrate you start getting into nearly the same file sizes as FLAC - why use a lossy codec if you can get a lossless for the same file size?

Sample for sample phase cancellation was used to produce a perfect copy of the differences between the two files, I have not adjusted the levels or "normalized" this file in any way, so it is quiet, you may have to turn up your speakers.

The sampled song used is New Model Army's "Queen of My Heart" - why? Was the closest thing I had at hand that's a pretty good mix of rock and electronic.

A 15 second clip - right click this link and choose Save As to save it to your local drive.

Bren R.

Bren, I would love to use FLAC, but there is no easy/inexpensive way to stream FLAC to my audio system from my PC.

Fraunhofer may have started it but they have lost faith with more then a few over there high charges for license fees for any of there A codecs and the speed as you have mentioned, is brutal to say the least. However Fraunhofer is by far the way to go if you rip at lower bitrates. LAME and a few others are designed with a higher bit rate in mind and are not user friendly for the most part. As you know I do it all at 320kbs which is overkill and I know it but when you have almost 300gigs of storage I don't lose any sleep over it.

As for Lossy Encoders vs. Lossless Compressors we can be here all day going over that one. In the end it comes down to which encoders make better decisions regarding what to keep and what to discard. One review that I read awhile back that stuck with me is this:

Downside of Lossless Codecs

"If lossless codecs are so good," you might be wondering, "why isn't everyone using them? Why do people even bother with MP3s and lossy codecs?" Good question. The bad thing about lossless codecs is that they offer poor file-size reduction .. compared to MP3s and lossy codecs.

In other words, a song compressed with Monkey's Audio or other lossless codecs will consume more hard drive space than the same song encoded with an MP3 or other lossy codec.

Lossless codecs typically reduces file sizes to half their original bulk. The exact amount depends on a number of factors, such as the type of music and the specific song. Live music doesn't compress well because of the background noise. Each song will be different.

High-quality MP3's typically require bit-rates of 175- to 225-kbps. Let's use 200-kbps as a happy median for purposes of making a comparison. Wave files from the original CDs are 1411-kbps. This number is calculated like so: 44.1 KHz * 2 channels * 16 bits = 1411.2-kbps [or nearly 10-MBytes/min].

Note that this calculation assumes k=1000-bytes. Most computers assume k=1024 bytes. So if your actual sizes differ slightly from what you calculate, this is why. Also the "b" in kbps = "bits" [not Bytes].

A 200-kbps MP3 file is ~14% the size [about 1/7th] of the original wave file [1411-kbps]. In other words, lossless files [typically 600-900 kbps] will be roughly 3 to 4 times larger than MP3s [consuming 3 to 4 times the hard disk space], but half as large as the original wave file ripped from the CD. You should now have a good feel for the pro's and con's of how lossy codecs compare with lossless compressors.

Seeing as how this thread will end up in some debate over compression we should go down the Dolby Digital vs. DTS road next!

All in favour say I! :-)

.....................and I have no real thoughts on VBR. I tried it, didn't like it and never went back. I should however try it again as it does make for a nice file size.

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Bren, I would love to use FLAC, but there is no easy/inexpensive way to stream FLAC to my audio system from my PC.

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Again, this is just to illustrate what is missing from an MP3 to drop the file size to 1/6 the size. Play what you will at home, this post is for educational purposes only.

Bren R.

BTW, Bren, WAVs are no problem for us Mac users. We can pretty much play any audio format... with the right software. I have a feeling I'd need extra software for FLAC, and I know I do for WMA and (hahahahaha) Real whatever it is, but WAVs...we got that covered.

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Fraunhofer may have started it but they have lost faith with more then a few over there high charges for license fees for any of there A codecs and the speed as you have mentioned, is brutal to say the least. However Fraunhofer is by far the way to go if you rip at lower bitrates.

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And if you have time on your hands, you get a darned good quality MP3 at the rate. As for it's speed, well, for someone like me, I compress a few songs a month for bands' websites as their new singles come out, and the difference between encoding at 1/5 real time and 4x real time is kind of moot. I'm more concerned about total quality for file size.

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LAME and a few others are designed with a higher bit rate in mind and are not user friendly for the most part. As you know I do it all at 320kbs which is overkill and I know it but when you have almost 300gigs of storage I don't lose any sleep over it.

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If you'd like to put your encoder where your mouth is, I'll gladly supply the same uncompressed 15 second WAV for you to compress at 320kbps with LAME and we can compare again.

Bren R.

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If you'd like to put your encoder where your mouth is

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To much coffee today? LAME can be had all over the net as can EAC. Go nut's! Post your graphs, post your notes, hell put up whatever you think you need to. At the end of all of this, I will still be using EAC and LAME. I have been having this debate with people since the dawn of MP3's and I'm not going to change now.

I'm a little lost as to where your going with this. Not once did I state that LAME in anyway shape or form was any better then Fraunhaffer. I just pointed out a few problems that Fraunhaffer has these day's. If you disagree with my comments on LAME being intended for a higher bitrate, then state why. Another one I forgot to mention is that they got sold to the people who brought us MP3PRO. Great idea, bad end result.

Well, a few things..

a) For those who're somewhat in disbelief that a 128k MP3 is not the 'CD-quality' it's advertized as, listen to this as a 128k MP3. Even at 320k, it has its flaws, with any MP3 encoder. I usually use this when people wonder why 128k MP3s off of kazaa don't satisfy me.

b) I'd suggest you try it with LAME and the --alt-presets. It's far better than the fraunhofer stuff now(except at very low bitrates), and it's been proven to be through ABX testing time and time again.

I find that lossy codecs don't make an immediate difference when encoded at high bitrates with well encoders, yet it does over a longer period of time. Up to 192k, if I listen enough, I can ABX 16/16 times the original from the MP3. Kind of tedious, but it was also nice to listen to music while on the computer. Sooner or later it becomes evident that something is missing, it doesn't sound as 'full'. With MP3, the higher frequencies sound somewhat blander and recessed at lower bitrates.

My Rio portable supports FLAC and Ogg Vorbis, so that is what I use. MP3 is a somewhat outdated codec, so if I choose a lossy encoder, I'd rather use something newer with a better psychoacoustic model.