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Hey man, just wanting to ask questions; |
Fire away I've got nothing to hide.
Like I said. I was amazed and disappointed when I first found out because I was a fully paid up member of the 'of course I can tell, it's easy' brigade.
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Do the other people that you tested the files with have any experience in higher quality audio? |
Yes. We are all rather old and have been collecting hi-fi gear since the 7Ts.
One guy in particular has a Linn Sonn, 3xNaim, Linn Iso system from the late 8Ts. He has failed twice and won't do the test any more taking the attitude already expressed that he cannot tell when he is concentrating but can when relaxed.
Most have Linn Sons or Regas and middle market (~£1,000) amp and speakers except 1 guy who is an engineer and has known this all along. He wires the cheapest gear he can find together with regular house cabling.
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And what type of equipment did you use? |
Foobar with LAME (3.98.2), MOTU UltraLite (same converters as RME) Soundcraft Spirit M4 and either Rogers A75 2 / Mordaunt-Short Pageant 2 (decent) or Kenwood KR-V7040 / TDL RTL 3 (loud) or M-Audio AV40 (desktop nfm).
I've also done the same experiment with mostly the same people using an MP3 CBR 320 and .WAV downloaded from Beatport, a commercial CD .WAV and a 12" vinyl original. All of the same tune.
Variety of cartridges inc. AT 440MLa, Stanton 500AL, Stanton TrackMaster & MC Denon DL-103 with Cambridge Audio 640P (which I'm not happy with btw got any suggestions that will not break the bank?).
The vinyl is easy to tell apart, of course, but not the digital files.
I think you might also be very surprised, I was, to find how difficult it is to tell the difference between a vinyl played direct and the same signal passed into the box via the MOTU and direct monitored out again after recording (Audacity).