Costumers test of TAC

Only 30 minutes after the DEMO-4 was available we started testing the settings AAA, AA, A and B: 1. as usual (comparing the original wav and the decoded copy) 2. listening to decoded copies of perfectly known waves. Our equipement: (far beyond the every day top class products)
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- Soundcard with dig. Out / Amplifier with dig. In - 2(3) different Speaker Systems: One very linear and one somewhat more effectfully sounding. As an alternative we used a set of excellent earphones. - 8 Testers with very good ears, partly professional audiophil.
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Now for the result: When comparing tracks DIRECTLY it IS in fact possible to hear minor distortions in mode A. And it was very easy in mode B. Almost everyone agreed in this point. Only one seemed to have lost his senses and claimed that even mode A was perfect.
Compared to that, mode AA and especially AAA were "almost" out of the question audibly lossless. (You can always find some dust on a clean shelf :-) So, if you want to archive or transfer music professionally then using AAA (and for most users AA) provides the same result as you would get with LPAC, but with at least twice compression.
When listening to wellknown tracks without a direct comparison (mode B) only 6 of us could constantly distinguish the copy from original wav. This changed with mode A: The chances were 50:50 but even the best of us couldn't truly identify the copy. (Only one of us seemed have a higher hit rate) In the end (and after more than 50 very different waves, that were all together critical to us) we had to agree that it is practically impossible to tell the originals from the copies without switching between both streams. The quality of the resulting music was "original" either way. No track seemed to sound obviously "wrong".Everything else is really nonsense.
km, we had the chance to test two other encoders (unreleased professional versions) too. They are really good with AAC Main, but they are not as good as TAC. (price, license problems, decoders (winamp), quality, file size and again overall quality)
Let's put it straight: You won the match. We will promote TAC in every way possible to us! Our santa-wishlist for future releases: - the possibility to downsample AA/AAA to a lower mode (A-D) ! - a multichannel version - a fast hardware encoder/decoder (This file can also be found in your BBS)
Best wishes for the future N.B.