Encoders 224 kbit/s

If you´d like some other audio codecs to be added to this section, please drop us a line with your proposal.

ogg VBR@210.7 (OggEnc 2.6) 7.57 (≈4%)     mp3 VBR@217.3 (Lame 3.97b1) 7.18 (≈3%)     mp2 CBR@223.9 (VCD) 6.07 (≈3%)     mp3 VBR@231.9 (Lame 3.98) 5.73 (≈6%)     SBC CBR@228.8 (Middle Quality) 4.68 (≈2%)

mp2 CBR@223.9 (VCD) - MPEG-1 Layer 2 CBR, 223.9 kbit/s FBR (VCD audio tracks) CODER: QDesign MPEG Audio Codec 1.01 for ACM - Encoder optimized for: Quality - Enable CRC: On - 44100 Hz Stereo DECODER: MAD 0.15.2b mp3 VBR@217.3 (Lame 3.97b1) - MPEG-1 Layer 3 CBR, 217.3 kbit/s FBR CODER: Lame 3.97b1 - usage: lame -V 0 --vbr-new test.wav test.mp3 - 44100 Hz Joint Stereo DECODER: MAD 0.15.2b mp3 VBR@231.9 (Lame 3.98) - MPEG-1 Layer 3 VBR, 231.9 kbit/s FBR CODER: Lame 3.98 - usage: lame -V 0 ref.wav out.mp3 - 44100 Hz Joint Stereo DECODER: MAD 0.15.2b ogg VBR@210.7 (OggEnc 2.6) - Ogg Vorbis, 210.7 kbit/s FBR CODER: OggEnc 2.6 (-aoTuV- beta4.5) - usage: oggenc2 -q7 ref.wav - 44100 Hz Stereo DECODER: OggDec 1.0 SBC CBR@228.8 (Middle Quality) - Subband codec for Bluetooth A2DP profile, CBR, 228.8 kbit/s FBR CODER: SBC Encoder LIB Version 1.5 (Philips) - usage: sbc_encoder -jv -r229000 -oout.sbc ref.wav - Middle Quality setting recommended by Bluetooth SIG - 44100 Hz Joint Stereo - bitpool:35, bands:8, allocationn method: SNR DECODER: SBC Decoder LIB Version 1.5 (Philips)

How to read the ratings

The ratings are updated live as new participants add their grades to the system. Rating bar consists of the following elements:

- Device or technology being tested.

- Value of actual perceived audio quality (rating) which is also indicated by a bar length . Anchor points could be interpreted as follows:

In most cases using this device/technology:

1.0 – you will hear heavily distorted sound
2.0 – you will hear unpleasant sound artifacts
3.0 – you will hear distinctly audible but tolerable sound artifacts
4.0 – you will hear faintly discernible sound artifacts
5.0 – you will not hear any sound artifacts
above 5.0 – all sound artifacts will be beyond threshold of human perception with corresponding perception margin

and - The high and the low of a rating. As each device is tested under nine different sound items, there are nine different local ratings for a device. In fact, the actual rating is an average of those nine local ratings. The highest and the lowest ones are indicated. Big gap between them means that sound quality of device/technology is not consistent enough. It will vary with type of sound material: music of different genres and complexity, voice with or without music, noisy/clear recordings etc. The lowest local rating is more important in this sense as it indicates worst case behavior of tested device.

- Reliability of rating. It is also indicated by the color of bar - more reliable ratings have less percentage values and darker bars. Reliability depends on number of grades returned by participants. In most cases 5% or less is OK.

- Ruler for convenient measuring of highs and lows.