[kuhchuk]

Quote:

Chrome + adblock and you pretty much only see the green DL button. Or you can hover your pointer on the button and make sure it isn't a link that takes you elsewhere

I'll definitely second adblock plus.  However, ABP works a LOT better on Firefox than it does on Chrome.

Note, this is not to say that I hate chrome.  It's a wonderful browser for what it offers (speed at the cost of functionality and addons).  However, ABP works a lot better on firefox in my experience.

 

[rjohn]

128 vs 320 might be distinguishable, but what about 320 vs FLAC? That would be interesting.

 

[kn19h7]

Quote:

128 vs 320 might be distinguishable, but what about 320 vs FLAC? That would be interesting.

I think anyone who have some blind test experience would agree that 128 vs 320 is more distinguishable than 320 vs FLAC.

 

[fogwall]

Nice "listen and judge" thread but way too easy. 128k bitrate is for cheap preview listening only. 192k does very well in relation to size vs. audio quality. 320k is overkill for a lossy format. For serious music listening lossless is the only way to go.

 

[IA64]

Quote:

Fairly easy TBH. The lossless, B sounds less compressed in the dynamic range, the soundstage is more airier, the highs have better sounding resolution and airiness to them and the kickdrum's impact in beginning was more clear and defined and realistic (especially the "after-impact" fading sound in the lossless one.
 
For me it was like the lossy didn't engage me with the music, felt like I was left out due to the a lot more compressed dynamic range especially so it sounded more streamlined and less vivid while the lossless made me more interested and I got better engaged with the track as the small details described above came out much more clearly so it made it more interesting to listen to.

 
I get heartache when I read posts like this.
 
They sounded almost the same until I heard a slight difference @ 00:26 otherwise I couldn't really tell. ( Imac 27 -> Yulong DAC MK2 -> JH16 Pro -> late 20's ears with audible frequency range up to 18.5KHz - no hearloss yet )  
 
I so wanna throw everything in the trash and get myself a cheap iPod nano before I get hysterical...

 

[laon]

what a **** recording

 

[ezzony]

Voted. I had to transfer the files to my fav mp3 player and had to use my denon ah-d1001's ( which I think are very good and never had anything better ) . I think I know my equipment quite well which  makes it easier to  tell any differences. I know when I first started using flac I could tell the difference fairly easily. Erm how do I know if I was right ?

 

[ezzony]

Quote:

 
I get heartache when I read posts like this.
 
They sounded almost the same until I heard a slight difference @ 00:26 otherwise I couldn't really tell. ( Imac 27 -> Yulong DAC MK2 -> JH16 Pro -> late 20's ears with audible frequency range up to 18.5KHz - no hearloss yet )  
 
I so wanna throw everything in the trash and get myself a cheap iPod nano before I get hysterical...

lol . I'm 41 with slight bit of tinnitus using a Creative Zen Micro and a pair of Denon ah-d1001's. Hardly high end stuff but I could tell the difference instantaneously.  I only had to play back the recordings a second time to confirm what I had at first thought - thankfully !... as I didn't wanna listen to it again !! 

 

[ezzony]

Who Is cheating who? I did this to satisfy my OWN curiosity - I wouldn't care if my vote wasn't counted ! I've nothing to prove . 
 
Reading though the posts now that I've done the test and saw that I got it right I would like to add that I thought the difference was significant and not 'slight' as some have said. Of course I mean ' to me ' : )

 

[IA64]

Quote:

lol . I'm 41 with slight bit of tinnitus using a Creative Zen Micro and a pair of Denon ah-d1001's. Hardly high end stuff but I could tell the difference instantaneously.  I only had to play back the recordings a second time to confirm what I had at first thought - thankfully !... as I didn't wanna listen to it again !! 

 
Can you tell me what kind of difference you're hearing ? like put some example, maybe if you tell me specifically which parts of the track sounded different ( minute:seconds) then I could double check myself to rule out hearing damage.

 

[GrindingThud]

Both sound terrible, but A has the characteristic swishiness (flanger like) of low bitrate mp3. HD558 and an iPad, the differences stood out in the 1st 4 seconds during the letter "s".

 

[RevMen]

Quote:

Both sound terrible, but A has the characteristic swishiness (flanger like) of low bitrate mp3.

 
That's what I heard, too.  The difference is in the background.  B has a "clean" background while A has swishy noises from the sounds that just played or are about to play.  I heard the difference in a couple of seconds from each track.
 
foobar2000 w/ WASAPI plugin -> V-DAC -> Woo WA3 -> DT880 250
 
I think the differences would have been more obvious to everyone if the test material wasn't a crowded brickwall-limited pop track.

 

[TheAnomaly]

great idea for a thread, this is something i've been "investigating" lately as well. i did not read any posts in the thread or read the poll results before listening. i loaded them into foobar and used replaygain - i was quite certain which file was lossless and upon reading around the thread it seems i was right. as others have said i immediately picked up on the "swishiness" of the lossy file. but this is the sort of thing that's a lot more obvious when you are able to compare them side by side. in any other context it would be indistinguishable, i think.
 
what is more interesting to me is taking the best recordings i can think of, applying replaygain, and comparing them. i have recently been doing this with some of my Steely Dan tracks and i have to say that i cannot tell a difference, even with my headphones, let alone my nearfield monitors. i've been listening to various 24/96 FLAC files from Gaucho and comparing them to some 192kbps mp3s i also have in my library; after replaygain i cannot really discern any difference (using foobar's ABX plugin). this was surprising to me as i had previously (a few months ago) believed that i could tell the two apart. i always believed the difference was minor: the way the track was recorded/produced/mastered initially is of much greater importance than the file you ultimately listen to on your computer.

 

[nbohaychuk]

I chose B, but the recording isn't of the right quality to really be able to hear a difference. If you did this on purpose to reflect more mainstream music tastes, I completely understand, but I would have chosen a good classical or jazz album for a test comparing lossless and lossy. This song sounds like it has suffered from the loudness war.

 

[bonfirehay]

Quote:

This is pretty interesting.
 
I'd like to see this sort of test/poll repeated for a few other criteria.
 
1.  I'd like to see if Head-Fi folk could hear the difference in a WAV file that was copied straight from a CD  vs. a file that went from WAV=>FLAC=>WAV.  (Absolute Sound recently published a series of articles that claimed there would be clearly audible differences, and in fact the unmolested WAV file would sound better, even though they were bit-identical...)
 

 
LOL Its interesting that someone believes they sound different while believing they are bit-identical