Public MP3 Listening Test @ 128 kbps

Welcome and thank you very much for taking part in this listening test. Your results will be very valuable.

Here are the instructions:

Download and decompress the "ABC-HR_bin.zip" package to its own folder.
Download one ore more sample packages (location of the packages is below).
Place the sample package ("SampleXX.zip") in the same folder as ABC/HR and uncompress it. Make sure you keep the directory structure intact or the configuration files will not work.
For an idea how the folders should look like (in case you downloaded all sample packages), check "folder-setup.png".
WINDOWS USERS:
     Navigate to the "bin" directory and run "DecodeXX.bat" ("XX" being the number of the sample package you want to prepare for testing). If you would like to prepare all packages, run "DecodeAll.bat".
     Wait until the command prompt screen disappears.

*NIX (Linux, OS X, BSD, Solaris, etc.) USERS:
     Linux users are asked to use Wine with "wine wcmd /c DecodeXX.bat" from the "bin" directory.
     OS X users are asked to handle decoding of samples themselves (sorry).
You need the Sun Java Runtime Environment version 1.5 or newer to run ABC/HR.
If you don't have Java, download it from here: http://www.java.com.
You need to use the ABC/HR for Java version provided in the "ABC-HR_bin.zip" package together with this readme. Older versions are not compatible with the configuration files format.

WINDOWS USERS:
Double-click "abchr.jar".

*NIX USERS:
Run "java -jar abchr.jar" from the shell.

Once ABC/HR is open, click "Open ABC/HR Config..." and load the file "SampleXX.ecf" (again, "XX" being the number of the test you want to take - make sure you ran the batch file respective to that package before).
Take the test. If you need information on how to properly do that, check ff123's page: http://ff123.net/64test/practice.html.
After you finish the test, save the results, (7-)ZIP, RAR or ACE them together and mail the file to ~~mail@listening-tests.info~~.

The test is scheduled to end on November 3rd, 2008. No results will be accepted after that date, unless the test is extended. Eventual extensions will be announced at the test page (http://listeningtests.t35.com).

You don't need to test all samples to participate. Even one single result is already very helpful. Of course, the more you test, the better for the final results' significance.

All results and comments I receive will be published. If you want to be associated with your results, please enter your (nick)name in the "Show name in results file" field in ABC/HR (check the checkbox next to it to enable the field). Otherwise, your results will be anonymous.

These are the sample packages:

- OR (alternate download links) -

The average package size is 4 MB.

Thank you very much!

Best regards,
Sebastian Mares