128k MP3's versus WAV/Lossless - Page 5

Agreed, I did a test with a five way switch going between silver, copper, and different grades there of, and I could not hear anything. I can, however, hear the M4A/MP3 difference, on well recorded songs.
 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Spelaeus 

Seeing as how the differences between a 320kb/s and a lossless file are measurable even if not always easily heard by ear, and the differences between two adequate cables are not measurable... I'm going to have to call that one into question.

just posting based on experience here... I'm not a head-fi expert here (stated by my post count)...

May I know what music you tested it with... because based from my experience as I dj (occasionally) I can tell you one factor is the music it self... you can clearly see the difference between 128 and 320k if you are listening to dance music (House, techno, trance, etc) but if you tested it with soft music (i tested once with Jack Jhonson) then your right the difference is not very clear...

maybe it on the the low level sounds that gets affected by the lower and higher Kilobyte size...

To report back, converted a flac to a 400kbps aac file via foobar and sounds perfect. Size approx 9 meg.

I only have an 8 gig Itouch, sentimental reasons.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shike 

MP3 is beneficial in encoding time, doesn't require being converted to work with the majority of players, and also offers space savings.

 

Even though space is cheap not everyone wants to deal with the first two . . . not to mention I don't think managing two of the same collection would be highly efficient.

Well some have the ability to justify anything they do in the audio world good and bad..  You can argue a place for lossy on portables but even that is starting to phase out.  Lossy compression routines have no place in a system built for sound quality.
 

Quote:

Originally Posted by El_Doug 

DAMMIT MAN!  You shoulda posted a warning about that - i had my amp volume at 1 o'clock and everything!!! 

 

crap that hurt
 

 

Yeah it's surprisingly loud

Quote:

Originally Posted by ROBSCIX 

 

 Lossy compression routines have no place in a system built for sound quality.
 

Agreed, with hard drive space so cheap now there is very little reason to not back up your CD collection in full lossless.

I can definitely tell the difference between 128kbps mp3 and FLAC lossless. It's at the 256-320kbps mark that the lines blur though, they sound very close to lossless.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ROBSCIX 

 

Well some have the ability to justify anything they do in the audio world good and bad..  You can argue a place for lossy on portables but even that is starting to phase out.  Lossy compression routines have no place in a system built for sound quality.
 

I heavily disagree on the need in the portable market being phased out.  With the loss of many good HDD players and moving over to flash, good lossy compression is still very important.

Unless I can DBT a difference between lossy and lossless, I'm not going to bother as there's no reason to.  I've ripped some of my stuff to FLAC and compared to LAME MP3 I've done before - there's never been a difference yet that I can pick up.  We could just as easily argue that there's no place for CD in a system built for sound quality and instead DVDA be mandatory (CD is lossless too after all).

Of course, some would call BS and say "if I can't hear a difference it's not worth it" - and that's the point.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Azathoth 

I can definitely tell the difference between 128kbps mp3 and FLAC lossless. It's at the 256-320kbps mark that the lines blur though, they sound very close to lossless.

Sorry to bump a 10 day old thread, but posts like these intrigue me. If you've done an ABX test before, why wouldn't you just save the results (number of trials, number of successful matches vs unsuccessful) so people can view it easily and add credibility to your statement (which would mean you have REALLY good hearing, but supposedly so do 90% of the posters here, which I find hard to believe). Foobar's abx plugin will give you ample ability to save your info into a text file for later in less than 5 seconds.

If you haven't done an abx test, then your perceptions are easily explained by experimenter expectancy and there's no legitimacy in your claimed result. I'd like you to post the result of a 192 kb/s mp3 vs the lossless it was transcoded from and get it right 15 times out of 20. You say that it doesn't get hard until 256, so prove it :P

This goes to anyone who makes a habit of posting that they can tell the difference between a lossy format and lossless. Just do an ABX test and you can post those results until a newer codec comes out that improves lossy. I can say that all my trials between 192 and lossless show that I am basically just guessing.

Yeah! It's mandatory now. 

I say 2 is lossless. Using my computer (with not very stock sound card) and a FA-003! Let me know how I did, the second file seems to have more body to it. 
 

Quote:

Originally Posted by chengbin 

Let's speak science here, since we're in the science forum. 

 

I am the member that challenged the OP to the test. I converted him from a "128Kbps MP3 is crap" believer, and I will try to convince you with this blind test. 

 

Below is the file of 2 wav files. One is lossless, one is 128Kbps mp3, converted to wav. Can you tell which one is which just by listening? (In my other thread someone used multiple analyzers). 

 

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=EUG6Y4RH

 

In your reply, please state what equipment you used, and what difference you hear. 

 

@OP, I'm amazed you can hear a difference by just using Logitech speakers. I have a Logitech Z-5500, and they're not very high quality speakers, certainly a big step below my RE0.