[frostyforst]

I'm new to this hobby and a lot of my friends who are 'veterans' in this hobby are obsessed with file quality. Being that I am new, I want to test it for myself. It seems like it's an unsettled debate whether someone can hear the difference between 16/44KHz and 24-bit 192KHz.
I've found online tests such as this one http://abx.digitalfeed.net/ that allows you to test between lossy and lossless but it doesn't have different level of lossless tests?
I know that you can also do your own tests with foobar from what I read, but I dont have a bunch of files that are good comparisons of different lossless quality.
Any ideas?

 

[VNandor]

Download a track that you think would make a "good" comparison between different lossless qualities. Download foobar and the abx plugin. Use foobar to downsample your selected track. Use the abx plugin to set up a test to determine if you hear any difference between the files.

 

[frostyforst]

Download a track that you think would make a "good" comparison between different lossless qualities. Download foobar and the abx plugin. Use foobar to downsample your selected track. Use the abx plugin to set up a test to determine if you hear any difference between the files.

thanks, Im kinda new at this, how do I downsample the track using foobar the right way? (without introducing some obvious tells/artifacts etc)

 

[BS5711]

I'm new to this hobby and a lot of my friends who are 'veterans' in this hobby are obsessed with file quality. Being that I am new, I want to test it for myself. It seems like it's an unsettled debate whether someone can hear the difference between 16/44KHz and 24-bit 192KHz.
I've found online tests such as this one http://abx.digitalfeed.net/ that allows you to test between lossy and lossless but it doesn't have different level of lossless tests?
I know that you can also do your own tests with foobar from what I read, but I dont have a bunch of files that are good comparisons of different lossless quality.
Any ideas?

Maybe try lossy versus lossless first since you have an available source already, if you haven’t already.

If you can’t hear the difference between better versions of lossy and say CD quality lossless you probably don’t need to worry about comparing between lossless and hi res.

I can’t hear any difference between LDAC or AAC bluetooth and 24/192. I don’t listen for subtle cues on specific parts of music to indicate artefacts I just listen generally like I am just enjoying background music.

I use wired lossless or hi res just because ….. seems like the right thing to do.

 

[VNandor]

thanks, Im kinda new at this, how do I downsample the track using foobar the right way? (without introducing some obvious tells/artifacts etc)

You have to reduce the bit depth to 16bits and the sample rate to 44kHz. You can right click a track already open in foobar and go to convert->...
Clicking the 3 dot option brings up a dialog with 4 parts: output format, destination, processing, other. Set the output format to wav, 16bit, always dither. Set up the destination to wherever you want the converted file to appear. For processing pick Resampler(dBPowerAmp/SSRC) The PPHS resampler is, or at least used to be surprisingly bad, do not pick that. It will appear on the active DSP side once you double click it. Click on the 3 dots and set the target sample rate to 44100. Go back from the processing menu and click convert.

 

[bigshot]

When testing lossy, there are different codecs... MP3 Fraunhofer, MP3 LAME, AAC, Ogg Vorbis, etc. There are also different data rates... 96, 128, 192, 256, 320. Use CBR, not VBR for your test. Apply VBR when you decide which one you want to use. I would suggest converting your lossless reference track to multiple codecs at multiple data rates and then systematically compare each one to the lossless. If you can consistently detect a difference, then eliminate that one. I think you'll find that there is a point with each codec that you can't hear a difference beyond. That is the threshold of transparency.