[bonfirehay]

Quote:

It's really less of a question how great or expensive your equipment it. Instead, it's ime far more important being trained / know what to listen for.

To quote Sean Olive: "if you do half an hour of training a day, I think in a month or two you probably gonna get up to the minimum level harman requires before listeners are allowed into product tests".
I know, that sounds quite a bit over the top, but take a look at their research results:

 
How to train / get training?
 
EDIT: Never mind, found the software: http://harmanhowtolisten.blogspot.pt/2011/01/welcome-to-how-to-listen.html

 

[gradohn]

No read others, try to find the answer by myself with my Ultrasone 2500 (a bit power bass) and decide that B is lossless because it clearly is better than A.

 

[Meremoth]

B definitely sounded better to me.
 
Did he ever say which one was which?  

 

[davidsh]

B sounded better on my Stax system, no doubt here. Didn't like the song, though.

 

[miceblue]

Yay, I like 128 kbps vs lossless tests. It's really interesting to see the results of these tests sometimes.

 
To me, track B sounded more spacious, and A a bit muffled and artifacty(?) (I don't know if that's the right term; aliasing?). Lowering the bitrate tends to affect the highest frequencies the most from what I've tested, and track B definitely has more detail in the cymbal crashes.
 
 
MacBook -> Audirvana Plus (hog mod, integer mode) -> ODAC -> SRS-2170
 
What song is this if I may ask? It sounds really familiar...
 
I'll probably do a Foobar ABX text later today. I need to finish some stuff in OS X first though.
 
 

Spoiler: Don't look if you haven't taken the test yet

Yup, it looks like B is the lossless file after analysing the two tracks in Audacity with the spectrogram viewer

 

[hogger129]

I did this test awhile back.  I made a playlist with about 10 files as FLAC and 10 files as 128k MP3.  I could tell the difference every time when played back on my home theater system.
 
I also much prefer AAC for lossy encoding over MP3.
 
When I get to 256k AAC, the difference between lossy and lossless is WAAAY harder to tell.  I think for on the go listening, I'd use 192k AAC if you have a limited amount of space to work with.
 
I just make up a playlist of FLAC files in foobar2000 and put it on my SD card in my Rockboxed Sansa.

 

[miceblue]

Yeah I've read that AAC is technically superior to MP3 at the same bit rates. I plan to re-convert my library to AAC instead if MP3 when I get the time, and patience.

 

[miceblue]

All righty. I finally booted into Windows and did the [in]famous Foobar2000 ABX test.

Spoiler: ABX Log/Results

foo_abx 1.3.4 report
foobar2000 v1.2.9
2013/09/12 00:46:41
File A: C:\Users\Michael\Desktop\A.wav
File B: C:\Users\Michael\Desktop\B.wav
00:46:41 : Test started.
00:56:57 : 01/01  50.0%
00:57:08 : 02/02  25.0%
00:57:22 : 03/03  12.5%
00:57:28 : 04/04  6.3%
00:57:38 : 05/05  3.1%
00:57:44 : 06/06  1.6%
00:58:18 : 07/07  0.8%
00:58:38 : 08/08  0.4%
00:58:45 : 09/09  0.2%
00:58:55 : 10/10  0.1%
00:59:03 : 11/11  0.0%
00:59:27 : 12/12  0.0%
00:59:57 : 13/13  0.0%
01:00:08 : 14/14  0.0%
01:00:18 : 15/15  0.0%
01:00:33 : 16/16  0.0%
01:00:48 : 16/17  0.0%
01:00:49 : Test finished.
 ----------
Total: 16/17 (0.0%)

 
 
I think the test results are quite indicative that I can hear the difference between the two files.
 

Spoiler: Don't read unless you have done the test/comparison

Yup, B is definitely the lossless version. File A sounded really thin in comparison to B right next to each other during the ABX test, and it was pretty obvious to me which was which. File A also sounded pretty grainy in the treble.

 
 
Setup:
MacBook Pro -> Windows 8 -> Foobar2000 -> WASAPI (event) -> ODAC (24/96 mode, exclusive mode checked) -> STAX SRS-2170 (SRM-252S amp + SR-207 earspeaker)

 

[Brooko]

  All righty. I finally booted into Windows and did the [in]famous Foobar2000 ABX test.
 
I think the test results are quite indicative that I can hear the difference between the two files.
 
Setup:
MacBook Pro -> Windows 8 -> Foobar2000 -> WASAPI (event) -> ODAC (24/96 mode, exclusive mode checked) -> STAX SRS-2170 (SRM-252S amp + SR-207 earspeaker)

 
Did you volume match (apply replay gain) before taking the test?  Most people aren't.  But the two files are different by ~ 0.4 dB.  "B" is the louder one.  Just makes the abx that much easier.

 

[UltMusicSnob]

The MP3 algorithms are complex, with lots going on (it's astonishing and impressive that MP3 128 can be so accurate with less than 90% of Redbook bit rate).
 
On the basic psychoacoustic theory, the above responses on cymbals and percussive sounds generally, this is a nice demonstration of an inherent weakness of the model. Since psychoacoustic masking depends on identification of particular strong frequencies (in a given frame) and consequent masking of **nearby** frequencies, it makes sense that sound sources which have a larger noise component (as opposed to a pure sine wave, or say a flute or soprano's voice) will translate less well. The pick attack on strummed guitar strings is what I noticed here--less well-defined, blurred into a noise sound instead of a reproduced pick strike on a string.
 
A sound source which produces a relatively uniform spread of frequencies doesn't provide the differentiation that MP3 needs in order to identify the psychoacoustically masked components. I basically never listen to MP3's, period, so I hadn't looked at this before. Seems like it would be a pretty severe limitation, given the importance of the full drum set in popular music.

 

[miceblue]

 
All righty. I finally booted into Windows and did the [in]famous Foobar2000 ABX test.

I think the test results are quite indicative that I can hear the difference between the two files.

Setup:
MacBook Pro -> Windows 8 -> Foobar2000 -> WASAPI (event) -> ODAC (24/96 mode, exclusive mode checked) -> STAX SRS-2170 (SRM-252S amp + SR-207 earspeaker)

Did you volume match (apply replay gain) before taking the test?  Most people aren't.  But the two files are different by ~ 0.4 dB.  "B" is the louder one.  Just makes the abx that much easier.

Hm no I didn't. How does one volume match using Foobar2000?

 

[UltMusicSnob]

Hm no I didn't. How does one volume match using Foobar2000?

With the equipment I have, I'd probably scan both in SoundForge 10, then process and then Save the file to get as close an RMS match as possible (by reducing one--increasing volume on one is likely to put the file into clipping).
 
Could do that in Audacity (free sw). I think foobar has a function to match, or at least a plugin you can get.

 

[stv014]

Simple solution with foobar2000:
- select the two WAV files
- right click, then ReplayGain -> Scan per-file track gain
- click "Update File Tags" (this only adds gain information as a tag to the files, but does not actually change the PCM data)
- when starting the ABX plugin, make sure that "Use ReplayGain" is checked
Note that this method will make the sound quieter by about 11 dB (for this particular track), so you need playback hardware that has enough dynamic range to handle that without audible noise.
 
You can remove the ReplayGain tag with "ReplayGain -> Remove ReplayGain information from files".

 

[scottosan]

how are the files the same size at 8.43M?  It would appear that is too small for lossless.

 

[stv014]

Both files are lossless, but one was converted to MP3 and then back to WAV. Since the samples are short (but still longer than 30 seconds, by the way), a file size of 8.43 MB is normal.