The new Opus format intrigued me half a year ago so I decided to test it out. It reminded me of a new-generation OGG which despite popular propaganda completely sucked and failed to outmatch AAC so I didn't have high hopes. Hydrogenaudio was drooling over it but I didn't trust their rigged listening tests so I did one of my own.
I thought I'd post it for anyone interested in Opus.
That song was a fast-paced trance piece with lots of broadband. Opus outmatched AAC but only at 64 kb/s. At the other bitrates it was a choice between bad treble or bad stereo and the stereo in this song was very wide and pronounced so Opus in my opinion sounded more pleasant by better preserving the channel separation.Code:ABC/HR Version 1.0, 6 May 2004 Testname: grcitrance MP4/OPUS 1R = M:\grcopus32.wav 2L = M:\grc64MP4.wav 3L = M:\grc64MP4cbr.wav 4R = M:\grc32MP4.wav 5L = M:\grcopus48.wav 6R = M:\grcopus64.wav 7R = M:\grc48MP4.wav --------------------------------------- General Comments: --------------------------------------- 1R File: M:\grcopus32.wav 1R Rating: 2.5 1R Comment: Extremely rough --------------------------------------- 2L File: M:\grc64MP4.wav 2L Rating: 3.6 2L Comment: Kinda duller and the upper freqs are distorted --------------------------------------- 3L File: M:\grc64MP4cbr.wav 3L Rating: 3.6 3L Comment: cant tell apart from sample2, I believe it's slightly better --------------------------------------- 4R File: M:\grc32MP4.wav 4R Rating: 2.4 4R Comment: Somewhat less rough than sample1 but has reduced stereo --------------------------------------- 5L File: M:\grcopus48.wav 5L Rating: 2.9 5L Comment: Less distortion than 1 but more than 2 and 3 --------------------------------------- 6R File: M:\grcopus64.wav 6R Rating: 4.0 6R Comment: Noticeably rougher treble than original and slightly dull but otherwise pretty good --------------------------------------- 7R File: M:\grc48MP4.wav 7R Rating: 2.8 7R Comment: It has less distortion in the upper freqs than 5 but sounds duller like the upper freq was cut completely and stereo is reduced --------------------------------------- ABX Results: Original vs M:\grcopus32.wav 9 out of 10, pval = 0.011 Original vs M:\grc64MP4.wav 10 out of 10, pval < 0.001 Original vs M:\grc64MP4cbr.wav 10 out of 10, pval < 0.001 Original vs M:\grcopus64.wav 10 out of 11, pval = 0.006 M:\grc64MP4.wav vs M:\grc64MP4cbr.wav 3 out of 5, pval = 0.500
This next song is a very tonal MIDI-like tune, very little broadband besides a drum and cymbals. AAC triumphed this time, being practically transparent at 64 kb/s and audibly better than Opus at every bitrate. Stereo wasn't very prominent in this song so it mattered less than signal distortion which Opus brought plenty of.
It looks to me Opus is good for songs with lots of broadband content (hard rock, trance, distortion, noise etc.) while AAC is better for tonal audio (vocalization, instruments without heavy percussion and so on.)Code:ABC/HR Version 1.0, 6 May 2004 Testname: Mazgal AAC/opus 1L = M:\mazgal64MP4.wav 2R = M:\mazgal32opus.wav 3R = M:\mazgal64opus.wav 4L = M:\mazgal64MP3.wav 5R = M:\mazgal32MP4.wav 6L = M:\mazgal48MP4.wav 7L = M:\mazgal48opus.wav --------------------------------------- General Comments: --------------------------------------- 1R File: M:\mazgal64MP4.wav 1R Rating: 4.8 1R Comment: The strike of the heavy notes have a little treble accentuation, difficult to notice --------------------------------------- 2R File: M:\mazgal32opus.wav 2R Rating: 2.4 2R Comment: Extremely metallic melody --------------------------------------- 3R File: M:\mazgal64opus.wav 3R Rating: 4.0 3R Comment: A much reduced form of distortion than 2 --------------------------------------- 4L File: M:\mazgal64MP3.wav 4L Rating: 2.2 4L Comment: Heavy smearing, top shelf gone, obviously 64kbps MP3 --------------------------------------- 5R File: M:\mazgal32MP4.wav 5R Rating: 3.3 5R Comment: Stereo greatly simplified, some distortion on upper shelf and kinda echoey melody --------------------------------------- 6L File: M:\mazgal48MP4.wav 6L Rating: 3.6 6L Comment: Greater distortion in the treble than 5 but much less loss of stereo --------------------------------------- 7L File: M:\mazgal48opus.wav 7L Rating: 3.5 7L Comment: Seems to be more distorted than 6 but with more texture. Not sure what to decide. --------------------------------------- ABX Results: Original vs M:\mazgal64MP4.wav 18 out of 20, pval < 0.001 Original vs M:\mazgal64opus.wav 10 out of 10, pval < 0.001 Original vs M:\mazgal32MP4.wav 10 out of 10, pval < 0.001 Original vs M:\mazgal48MP4.wav 10 out of 10, pval < 0.001
I tested these before XIPH released that new Opus beta with supposedly better support for tonal audio but it's not that much better than before if at all so I didn't bother doing a retest.
And MPEG will soon release the new audio standard (USAC or whatever it's called) that'll beat the shit outta Opus anyway.
So there you have it.
EDIT: Samples used in test available upon request.
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Last edited by Mephesto; 6th Oct 2013 at 13:11.
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Very true --- just like Vorbis, Opus was designed for fitting in the poorly-designed Ogg container. The Matroska devels did have to think too much in order to find an "acceptable" way of putting the wannabe audio codec into MKV files.
And MPEG will soon release the new audio standard (USAC or whatever it's called)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unified_Speech_and_Audio_Coding
that'll beat the shit outta Opus anyway.Last edited by El Heggunte; 4th Oct 2013 at 14:44. Reason: tool unlink
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Wikipedia page says unlike Vorbis it doesn't require "large codebooks". I don't even know what that means but does it have anything to do with the poor design of OGG you talk about? All I know about Vorbis is that when it doesn't go in OGG it bloats the hell out of any other container with huge overhead. For AVI, 75% of the filesize will be the overhead to store the Vorbis stream, lmao....
I never liked Vorbis and Opus seems to be its bastard child. Oh well, at least it's free. It might have way better quality if it actually allowed the same framesizes as AAC and others. We'll see.
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