Over the years ABX and sequel DBT listening test methodologies have become increasingly strong influences on mainstream audio.
The strong influence of DBT technology on the development of lossy compressed audio is well known, but the issues related to lossy compression cause some audiophile angst.
The fact that one of the largest and most sucessful audio manufacturer steadily points out their reliance on DBTs during the market research, development and quality control aspects of product development is also pretty well known.
ABX has now been publicly introduced into the music production and mastering process by one of the largest if not the largest media distribution organizations in the world - Apple's iTunes.
http://www.macgasm.net/2012/02/23/ap...-itunes-store/
"Neil Young came right out and said what everyone was thinking while he was on stage at the AllThingsD media conference: iTunes music quality sucks. Way too much information is being lost between mastering a track in studio and running it through the Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) algorithm before a song gets distributed on iTunes. Approximately 80 to 85 percent of the information present at the time of recording is lost during the process of converting the files to something Apple's iTunes store will recognize.
It seems Apple has finally taken the complaints to heart, and it's now focusing on helping studios master their tracks for iTunes. In addition to providing studios with the tools they need to create the best sounding mixes of their catalogs, Apple has set out an area in the iTunes store for consumers. The new sections highlights albums that have been specifically mixed just for iTunes."
"The Apple Mastered for iTunes document provides a great deal of information on using the iTunes Droplet for converting master tracks to iTunes Plus tracks. It also highlights information on using the afconvert utility from the command-line, in addition to providing detailed afclip, and AURoundTripAAC Audio Unit information."
"Apple, my ears thank you."
http://soundexpert.org/news/-/blogs/...red-for-people
"AURoundTripAAC Audio Unit is intended mostly for blind ABX testing of encoded audio material. With this tool an author can test critical parts of the track for encoding artifacts audibility. No doubt this utility will be helpful also for those listeners who would like to test their ability to hear coding artifacts at various bit rates"
A similar tool is an add-on for the FOOBAR (freeware) music player software:
http://www.foobar2000.org/components
"ABX Comparator 1.3.4
2009-04-25
Performs a double-blind listening test between two tracks."
The strong influence of DBT technology on the development of lossy compressed audio is well known, but the issues related to lossy compression cause some audiophile angst.
The fact that one of the largest and most sucessful audio manufacturer steadily points out their reliance on DBTs during the market research, development and quality control aspects of product development is also pretty well known.
ABX has now been publicly introduced into the music production and mastering process by one of the largest if not the largest media distribution organizations in the world - Apple's iTunes.
http://www.macgasm.net/2012/02/23/ap...-itunes-store/
"Neil Young came right out and said what everyone was thinking while he was on stage at the AllThingsD media conference: iTunes music quality sucks. Way too much information is being lost between mastering a track in studio and running it through the Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) algorithm before a song gets distributed on iTunes. Approximately 80 to 85 percent of the information present at the time of recording is lost during the process of converting the files to something Apple's iTunes store will recognize.
It seems Apple has finally taken the complaints to heart, and it's now focusing on helping studios master their tracks for iTunes. In addition to providing studios with the tools they need to create the best sounding mixes of their catalogs, Apple has set out an area in the iTunes store for consumers. The new sections highlights albums that have been specifically mixed just for iTunes."
"The Apple Mastered for iTunes document provides a great deal of information on using the iTunes Droplet for converting master tracks to iTunes Plus tracks. It also highlights information on using the afconvert utility from the command-line, in addition to providing detailed afclip, and AURoundTripAAC Audio Unit information."
"Apple, my ears thank you."
http://soundexpert.org/news/-/blogs/...red-for-people
"AURoundTripAAC Audio Unit is intended mostly for blind ABX testing of encoded audio material. With this tool an author can test critical parts of the track for encoding artifacts audibility. No doubt this utility will be helpful also for those listeners who would like to test their ability to hear coding artifacts at various bit rates"
A similar tool is an add-on for the FOOBAR (freeware) music player software:
http://www.foobar2000.org/components
"ABX Comparator 1.3.4
2009-04-25
Performs a double-blind listening test between two tracks."
