[com2kid]

It is a good analysis! The null test was surprising, I'm sort of interested how bad the result would be if you went up against something like 192kbit MP3! My music collection is in FLAC and MP3 (256kbit VBR actually), just because MP3 is so widely supported.

Thank you for the interesting read!

[byproxy]

In my own testing the only thing that stands out in null testing is artifact noise and stuff that's lost in the higher frequencies, i.e. cymbals. The more compressed you go, the more artifact noise introduced and high frequencies lost. As someone who can enjoy classical music (for simplicities sake "classical" and not some other classification), I notice that a bunch of "audiophiles" seem to think that's where their money is going - to increased listening satisfaction of classical - when that tends to be the type of music where least is lost in compression. Music with constant cymbal hits (e.g. rock music with drumkit) seems to lose the most.

Again, my own personal null testing with music spanning various genres in my library.

[gkefalas]

Thanks! I agree, some things were surprising. I'm really bummed that the null tests were affected by source audio amplitude, plus the frame size causing alignment issues—I feel like it's not as accurate a test as it could have been. I have to revisit the methodology to come up with a baseline of sorts. I was thinking of doing a comparison all the way down to 128kbps next time… sounds like what you're saying!