Sebastian's Public Listening Tests

Welcome and thank you for your interest in my public tests.

The recent developments in perceptual audio coding, including new formats like AAC, Ogg Vorbis and Windows Media Audio, have brought competition to an arena formerly completely dominated by MP3. Users want to check out these novelties, but frequently stumble over the doubt of "What to choose?".

One of the most important aspects to consider about a format is its sound quality. Undesired artifacts like hissing, pre-echo and stereo-collapse can ruin the pleasure of the listening experience.

One of the most acclaimed methods of comparing codec quality is performing so-called "double blind listening tests". In this sort of test, the participant compares various encoded samples against each other and against an uncompressed reference sample. The "blind" part means that the participant does not know which sample was encoded by which encoder. That guarantees that there will be no psychological bias towards his or her favorite codec or against the codec he or she dislikes.

The purpose of this page is hosting the public tests I conduct from time to time. This includes hosting instructions, results, graphs, etc.


Current open test: No test open at this time.


Links:

Acknowledgements: I would like to thank the following people...


If you have any questions, feel free to contact me via e-mail: mail@listening-tests.info.

Best regards,
Sebastian Mares