Double blind test 128Kbps vs lossless? I'll be amazed if you can tell much difference - Page 3

Quote:

Originally Posted by Br777 

so....music sounding good to me both compressed and lossless makes me a victim of snake oil??? 

 

where is the context for that comment?  I dont get it.

Snake oil being, "Lossy music can't possibly sound as good as lossless. Lossless is vastly superior." Taken from your "calling BS" when they sounded the same to you. As in, you jump to conclusions about the test being fake before you accept that lossy might sound as good as lossless here.

@ below: Yep, old encoders are definitely inferior. Look for that thread by the guy who thought his hearing was going when he couldn't differentiate lossy and lossless now, when he used to do it all the time. Can't remember what it was called, but the title addressed the very issue of whether or not MP3 encoding has improved.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Head Injury 

Which encoder was used for your file?

 

 

There's other variables too. Like the $50 buds could have a peak right at the frequency which distorts in your file. Or the source used to make your file could have been bad to begin with. Have you compared it to its lossless counterpart?

no idea

yeah i mean i was just using 1 example.. i have had many old rips that sounded very artifacty that were higher than 128.. it probably was the encoders used. some of my files are pretty ancient as far as mp3 technology goes. I remember that particular cd definitely sounded better when i re-encoded it.
 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Head Injury 

Snake oil being, "Lossy music can't possibly sound as good as lossless. Lossless is vastly superior." Taken from your "calling BS" when they sounded the same to you. As in, you jump to conclusions about the test being fake before you accept that lossy might sound as good as lossless here.

touche.

I guess I am clearly not up to date on how far audio encoders have come.    the last time i heard a 128 file was probably early 2000 and i can still remember how awefull it sounded. 

having only that reference for "low quality" files, its still hard for me to believe that the compressed file is 128... but hey.. it probably is, and if thats the case... more power to it.  Its amazing how far file compression technology has come.

I'd love to listen to those tracks but the download freezes at about 12 MB. Could you upload it to a more worthy hosting site like www.mediafire.com, please?

Quote:

Originally Posted by magicalpig 

I'd love to listen to those tracks but the download freezes at about 12 MB. Could you upload it to a more worthy hosting site like www.mediafire.com, please?

Alternate Mediafire link

Quote:

Originally Posted by magicalpig 

I'd love to listen to those tracks but the download freezes at about 12 MB. Could you upload it to a more worthy hosting site like www.mediafire.com, please?

i know im off topic, but... best BP graphic EVER!

Took the test last night, and I'm reasonably certain I know which one is the lossy version. I was surprised by how good the quality on the 128kbps version was, and it took me a while to familiarize myself enough with the tracks to be certain. Which is what I've noticed with the newer lossy codecs, I find it very difficult to tell the difference when first hearing a song, but if it's a recording that I'm intimately familiar with it is noticeable almost immediately.

Are we stating our results in this thread or keeping it private in order to avoid biasing others?

Edit: I have confirmation on my answer from Chengbin. Knowing for sure that I am correct, I'd have to assume that it would be best not give away results since that would go a bit beyond just a risk of creating a potential bias in others unless I hear otherwise.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Head Injury 

Alternate Mediafire link

That was fast! Thanks!
I'll give this a listen when the wife goes to bed. ;)
 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Br777 

i know im off topic, but... best BP graphic EVER!

Yeah it is awesome.

I found it here : http://www.buzzfeed.com/awesomer/an-annotated-guide-to-images-from-the-anti-bp-move amongst a few others like these :

Sorry for the thread hijacking...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Head Injury 

Your experiences mean nothing without a blind test. That is what this thread, the whole sub-forum itself, is about. Please, don't try to convince us of anything until you have something to back it up.

 

You haven't even done the test with the two provided files, have you?

 I have not with this test as I am not that familiar with the recording but I have with my own files on my ipod with tunes that I have listened to in one format or another for 20 years and in particular with DAP's for the past five years. I wanted to make sure I knew the recording and the music first.

I used the first act from  Wagners the flying Dutchman and telegraph road by Dire Straits, both tracks I am very familiar with which makes more sense in a comparison scenario than listening to something I am not familiar with!

With Both recordings at 128 AAC and Apple Lossless I heard very little difference in actual details but as I have said I noticed quite substantial differences in the emotion of the recordings. I cannot prove this with statistics, just my feeling, which I have been open about before. I hope that helps you understand my thoughts. I am not trying to convince anyone I am right, that would be ridiculous as no one has my ears! 

If you read my posts I am actually asking if anyone else has had this experience!

I think it is harder to tell the difference (if any) if one is not familiar with the music, artist and recording, but that is just me and I guess my thoughts are null and void to you because of that!

Quote:

Originally Posted by ianmedium 

With Both recordings at 128 AAC and Apple Lossless I heard very little difference in actual details but as I have said I noticed quite substantial differences in the emotion of the recordings. I cannot prove this with statistics, just my feeling, which I have been open about before. I hope that helps you understand my thoughts. I am not trying to convince anyone I am right, that would be ridiculous as no one has my ears! 

Again, did you do this blind or sighted? It needs to be blind if it is to mean anything concrete to anyone else but you.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Head Injury 

Again, did you do this blind or sighted? It needs to be blind if it is to mean anything concrete to anyone else but you.

Ahh, Got you, I was slow on the uptake there, Yes Blind, I had all four kbps files recorded and listened on Shuffle in a playlist. I listened a number of times with either my Stax set up, K701's or IE8's. Hope that clarifies it, sorry If I was vague!

Quote:

Originally Posted by ianmedium 

Ahh, Got you, I was slow on the uptake there, Yes Blind, I had all four kbps files recorded and listened on Shuffle in a playlist. I listened a number of times with either my Stax set up, K701's or IE8's. Hope that clarifies it, sorry If I was vague!

So what were your results? How many times did you guess which file was lossless? How many of those times did you get it right?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Head Injury 

So what were your results? How many times did you guess which file was lossless? How many of those times did you get it right?

Just checked my notes. I listened to each track 4 times in each form and I must admit I could tell each time!

Remember I am very familiar with these particular recordings via vinyl, CD and CD transfered to tunes over the years.

I can't tell the difference between those files. I don't listen to much classical though and of course I'm broke right now so I'm listening on lousy equipment.

If indeed one is lossless and the other is 128kbps, either my ears are getting old or mp3 encoding have much improved.

This was fun, can't wait for the details.

From my experience of old rips I have still floating around on my PC and other threads I've seen investigating the differences in bitrate, 128 seemed to be the point where frequencies would start to distort and lack depth. I used to have it bookmarked, but this one gentleman had an interesting thread where he measured FR from a track that was encoded by different programs with different bitrates and 128kbps tend to have no frequencies from 16 and above, most of the higher frequencies leading up to 16K would be heavily distorted and the bass would be similar with a cut off point and distortion in frequencies leading off with only the mids showing signs of survival. Again, as I recall, 256kbps got nearly as good as lossless from a few programs but did terribly in others. If someone knows which thread I'm talking about and has access to it (I've tried searching and this new search feature hates me) then please link it.

That above mentioned thread was a few years old and there were significant improvements from versions of the programs (i.e. Windows Media Player v9 vs. v10, etc.) so it could very well be that current programs have begun to increase efficiency when it comes encoding at low bitrates.