[MPlayer-users] RFC: docs update for "how to create a high quality DVD rip"

[H du Plooy]

On Tuesday 08 June 2004 23:10, rcooley wrote:
> Lots of people convince themselves they hear defects in lossless audio,
> but few really do...  At 96k, I'd be hard-pressed to tell the difference
> between a Vorbis file and the original, and I have pretty good ears.
> Any audio encoded to MP3 (even with lame) at less than 192k VBR sounds
> terrible to me.  Yet with Vorbis, even at 64k, I'd say few people will
> be able to hear even a rare artifact.  At 96k, I'd bet less than 1 in 10
> million can hear the difference, and I sincerly doubt anybody can
> honestly think it sounds "disgusting".

I agree completely that vorbis does a better job with audio, especially at 
lower bitrates.   But 96kbit vorbis sounds nothing like the original.  I made 
it through a music degree and into a professional symphony orchestra, so I 
would dare to say my ears are pretty good too.

> There certainly is such a thing as good onboard sound, and it comes on
> good motherboards...  That said, I'm personally using SB Live soundcards
> on my systems (they're dirt-cheap these days), so you can't blame the
> hardware.
Can you name a few?  OK, just to clarify, I'm not taking SPDIF setups, just 
normail audio out.  I'll tell you which to impressed me most.   One was a 
Gigabyte GA-7ZX (I think) which had a Creative 128PCI chip (Ensoniq 1371) on.  
The other was some cheapo P-II mobo which had 4 channel audio that sounded 
like something inbetween the es1371 and a SB Live.  I don't know what it was, 
but it sounded good.

I have heard al the latest and greatest Intel and VIA and nVidia surround 
sound setups, and while impressive, they sound dry.  Like something is 
missing.  I think for most commercial pop/rock/r&b/ect. this doesn't really 
matter, but put some Stan Kenton, Harry Connick Jr, Glen Miller or a good 
symphony recording (like the RCA label recordings of CSO with Fritz Reiner), 
and you'll hear what I'm talking about.

Low quality soundcards and speaker setups (like what most PCs have), just 
cannot reproduce either a good or a bad signal properly, so to a lot of 
people it would sound the same.  It doesn't mean that is the same or that it 
should sound the same to everyone.

Of course, if you're happy with 96kbit audio, power to you - saves you space.

Hans