PG Music Home Forums PG Music Product Forums Band-in-a-Box for Windows Audiofile vs. Ultra/Everything

Can someone explain the difference in sound quality between the two? Is there a drastic difference? I understand that the Audiofile version comes with the lossless WAV files for the realtracks. Is there a justification for spending the additional $$$ to acquire the licensing of the Audiofile WAV's ?

What is the Ultra/Everything package using for the Realtracks sound files?


Thanks,

Vince

The 'regular' versions, not the audiophile version, use .WMA files. Although these are compressed, they sound remarkably good. The difference is certainly NOT 'drastic'.

The audiophile version with the original uncompressed .WAV files is, in my opinion, best used for commercial projects. There have been many threads about this in the past but few recently, so I'll repeat my opinion that yes, I can hear the difference, but it takes good equipment to do so. Noise is additive in a mix, so if you have many Real Tracks it could make more of a difference in a commercial mix. Still, if your final product were an MP3, or a CD played in a car, you would probably never hear a difference.

This is all subjective, and my opinion will be different from others, no doubt.

There is one other small advantage to using the audiophile versions: they regenerate in BIAB slightly faster. The 'regular' Real Tracks are first uncompressed by the program as they are used. However, given the dramatic improvement in regeneration speed in version 2010, this is far less of an advantage than it used to be.

The Ultra/Everything package uses WMA files for the RealTracks, whereas the audiophile version uses WAV files (which are about 10 times larger in size, because that's the way WAV files are). From what I've read, a number of folks here say there is a marked different between the two, and there is, especially if you listen to them side-by-side. But it really depends on what you are going to do with them. Lots of folks use the WMAs live, as well as creating their own recorded songs, and are happy with them. Others will only use the audiophile WAVs. Generally, songs saved as WAV (using the WMA files) sound pretty good; if you rip them to MP3, then you may start noticing the difference, since will have used a lossy conversion twice (once to WMA, again to MP3).

As Mac often says, use your own ears to decide what's best for you. Also, when updates arrive, it takes a lot longer to download WAV files than to download WMAs.

I personally wish PGMusic would save the files using FLAC or one of the other lossless WAV CODECs; that would save about 50% space. I don't know what it would do to performance or it they could use FLAC natively (versus converting to WAV first), but it would be a nice compromise between the two and preserve the fidelity of the RealTracks. My $0.02 worth.

I could be wrong, but I believe the demo files posted by PGMusic are made using the WMAs. It would be nice if they (or someone) posted some side-by-side examples of the same song, created under the same conditions.

Thanks for the responses gents!

Would you happen to know how the WMA's are encoded?



Example:

Windows Media Audio 10 Professional
Windows Media Audio 10 Professional (WMA 10 Pro) is the most flexible Windows Media audio codec available – supporting profiles that include everything from full-resolution 24-bit/96 kHz audio in stereo, 5.1 channel, or even 7.1 channel surround sound, to highly efficient mobile capabilities at 24 Kbps to 96 Kbps for stereo, and 128 Kbps to 256 Kbps for 5.1-channel sound. WMA 10 Pro offers incredible quality for consumers using high-fidelity hardware and 5.1 channel surround sound-equipped computers -– and for consumers playing audio content on their mobile devices. WMA 10 Pro supports streaming, progressive download, or download-and-play delivery at 128 to 768 Kbps.

For more information about the mobile capabilities in WMA Pro and how it compares to other audio codecs, see the NSTL Test Report.

When using 5.1 surround sound audio compressed at 384 Kbps with WMA 10 Pro, most listeners cannot discern any differences between the compressed music and the original pulse code modulation (PCM) files. WMA Pro also offers dynamic range control using the maximum and average audio amplitudes that are calculated during the encoding process. Using the Quiet Mode feature in Windows Media Player 9 and later, users can hear either the full dynamic range, a medium difference range up to 12 decibels (dB) above the average, or a little difference range up to 6 dB above the average.

If a user tries to play back a file that was encoded using the 5.1 channel, 24-bit, 96 kHz sampling capabilities, but does not have a system or sound card that supports multi-channel or high-resolution sound, multiple channels are combined into stereo audio (for example, 16-bit, two channel audio), ensuring that users get the best playback experience their systems can provide.

The following table compares WMA Pro to competing compression technology.

Audio Data Industry Compression* Windows Media* Compression Savings
2 ch x 48 kHz x 16 bits
Dolby Digital 2.0 at 220 Kbps
WMA 10 Pro at 128 Kbps
1.7:1

6 ch x 48 kHz x 20 bits
Dolby Digital 5.1 at 384 Kbps
WMA 10 Pro at 192–256 Kbps
1.5–2:1

6 ch x 48 kHz x 24 bits
DTS 5.1 at 1,536 Kbps
WMA 10 Pro at 768 Kbps
2:1

I've been using nothing but the wma files since RealDrums/RealTracks came out.

I've produced stuff for airplay, jingles, commercials, underscores and CD demos.

Not one customer to date has said a word about any lack of audio quality.

I think that there is a lot of misunderstanding concerning the technology being bandied about.

First, the wma format started out at its inception as not suffering from the problems that mp3 files needed to sort.

Then, Fraunhofer, the original license people of the mp3 format, stopped development entirely several years ago. LAME encoder project kept right on developing and today, IMO is the better codec choice. For mp3's. Nuts -- we are talking WMA here anyway.

There is also another fact involved. If you are recording say, a single track of a lone solo trumpet player, as an example, you do not need "DC-to-Daylight" frequency response at all. The fact is that you could use wmas at a "reduced" bitrate and still capture the vast majority of the sound spectrum that is important enough for our ears to know that it is a cleanly recorded Trumpet. That is just one example. Direct Injected Pedal Steel Guitar or Mic'd Electric Guitar might be more apropos to the users around here. Again, the amplifier/speaker combination itself is actually an intentional bandpass filter in many ways. Most guitar speakers that are considered to be great sounding don't make much if any energy above about the 6K mark and are usually centered well below that, around 2K or so. The bottom end is also truncated due to the need for AC hum filtering, etc. No need here for DC to Daylight, either.

Now here comes the fellow who wants to talk about those delicate harmonics way up there and how they add a lot to the music. I'd like to see that dude's actual hearing test results (grin). Especially if he's over 40. And I can tell him that his soundcard, while maybe able to produce response above the 20KHz mark, is in almost every case delivering that high frequency energy to a speaker monitoring system that is rated out to only 20KHz or so. Couple that with the FACT that he can't hear 10KHz reliably and what do we really have here?

Yes, the WMA format chosen by pgmusic sounds pretty darn good!


--Mac

I have the audiophile versions of the first realdrums and the difference is very subtle on my Genelec 1031A via a MOTU 2408 mkIII.
I work mainly for video so I have to change from 44.1 to 48k that is anyway a loss in quality. So I have decided to use the normal versions.

I wonder if the Realtraks are recorded 16bit-44,1K or something better.
Maybe 24bit-96/98k would be a real audiophile format that worths the extra $$$?