I can't tell the difference between 320kbps and 128 kbps music

[rezel]

Quote:

Come on lads, don't bother posting results to show off unless you go to at least 25 with full 100% accuracy.
 
Like so. 

 

 
It's all in the hips, and by hips, I mean attack.
 

Wow, I just got told. O_O
 
I don't think I can clearly define the differences but when I focus on small sections, I can decide. Not very consistent

 

[kingpage]

The force of photoshop is strong with this one. Kidding.

 

[Blue Boat]

Quote:

Come on lads, don't bother posting results to show off unless you go to at least 25 with full 100% accuracy.
 
Like so.

 

 
It's all in the hips, and by hips, I mean attack.

With Stax? 
 
@Rezel
 
With the Pro 900?
 
 
TEACH ME. 

 

[rezel]

Um yeah with the Pro 900.
 
Just go with deadlylover's advice. He's got some magic voodoo going on I'm sure he can reveal. 

orz

 

[deadlylover]

Aahahahhaha
 
Loss of air in the song with those bongos. Listen for the missing high frequencies.
Massive compression artifact/pre echo in the first sound in the song with the annoying screaming girl.
And for beautiful love, her voice loses it's punchiness/sharpness, I found this one to be the hardest of the three since her voice irritates me.
 
You kind of get nowhere if you just focus on the tonality or how things 'sound', like I said, it's all the the hips. And you kind of get good at this stuff when you used to go 320 v lossless ABX for hours and hours on end.
 
YOU MUST BELIEVE, DO, OR DO NOT. THERE IS NO TRY.

 

[Blue Boat]

yeah her voice is annoying. I can't really concentrate ...

 

[johnman1116]

i cant stop loving you baby : reverb/weird echoing thingy of voice in right side.
beautiful love: i can tell by the cymbals, they dont come out as nicely
instrumental: definitely the bongos, but was hard to tell (for me)
 

 considering that im using a laptop source into m50s and i just got into audiophile, well i just got my m50s a week ago so yea.. obviously im a noob but im still pleased i could pick out some differences. i started off bad but by the end, was getting most right.
makes me wish i had the gear to easily differentiate between bitrates but i feel like its more about having the ear trained to hear such differences. cant really say, since its not like i have high end audio stuffs. 
 
was wondering how many times you repeat the song before you make your decisions, or do you just listen once, (would blow me mind...)
 
btw, deadlylover, you are amazing.
stax op.

 

[TheGomdoRi]

"You may get better results using a Cambridge Audio DacMagic Digital-to-Analog Converter with USB, Silver"

LOL? Is it just me or does it say at the bottom of the page?

 

[Stereodude]

Quote:

"You may get better results using a Cambridge Audio DacMagic Digital-to-Analog Converter with USB, Silver"

LOL? Is it just me or does it say at the bottom of the page?

It's not just you.  I saw that and rolled my eyes.
 
I could tell the difference between them reliably with my laptop's built in sound + Westone 4's.  I didn't bother to do it 25 times since there are only 3 tracks and I knew I wasn't guessing when I was picking correctly.
 
However, I will say that in general if you just played the 128kbit files without a reference they're not really objectionable whereas something like XM or Sirius satellite radio is completely unlistenable without any reference.  I can get a brief listen and instantly know it's terrible.

 

[navii]

http://mp3ornot.com/clips/ginoauri128.mp3
 
http://mp3ornot.com/clips/ginoauri320.mp3
 
 
--------------
 
http://mp3ornot.com/clips/milman128.mp3
 
http://mp3ornot.com/clips/milman320.mp3
 
--------------
 
http://mp3ornot.com/clips/juliette320.mp3
 
http://mp3ornot.com/clips/juliette128.mp3

 

[Zombie_X]

Quite true sir! The E9 itself is not all that bad just not nearly as "juicy" as some people claim. I do agree about the Airhead and it's one darned powerful portable amp for sure. Back to the E9 I still find it can drive lower impedance stuff nicely. I must retract a certain statement I made on another thread about it being bad for high impedance gear. I find it drive my K501 nicely, sure not as I would desire but it gets the job done with good results. Same goes for my HD600. It sounds pretty nice on this amp. Now low impedance stuff sounds nice but I noticed the FR is a bit off on this amp with my KSC75'a, SR-80i's, and PRODJ100's.
 
As for the DT880 and tube amp that's an iffy subject. I personally love tube power. I think tubes amps can power them batter at a lower price point than what solid state can but there is no way a tube amp is required. I think most of the time people push tubes amps is because of their sonic signature. Boy the DT880 do sound nice with a quality tube amp. I think the C2 from Audio-GD is pretty good for the DT880.
 
Amps are entirely overstated on these boards. I always tend to recommend a beefier amps because you have more reserve power.
 
Just wanted to state my opinion Travis. I agree with all of it.
 
Quote:

Don't listen to this nonsense about your HD-650 being under-powered. Sure, they do benefit from better amps, but there is absolutely 100% no way an E9 can't drive an HD-650 well enough to sound good.
I can say for sure that the HD-650 is not muddy sounding out of the E9. It's even clearer sounding than even from the Asgard. Most people haven't compared them and won't agree, but that's OK.
Heck, even a $99 Total Airhead can drive an HD-650 decently. Seems most here think a headphone is underpowered just because they didn't like how it sounded.
 
These are the guys who also claim you need tube amps for a DT-880 in order to get sound...apparently most people here with a post count over 3,000 seem to think an E9 can only drive a KSC75.
I think it'd actually have a harder time driving that properly than an HD-650. No, I'm not kidding.
 
One learned I've learned here is that someone will almost always claim your amp/dac isn't good enough if you don't like the headphone that's attached to it.
 
BTW based on my experience, the HD-650 is quite good at making some lower quality tracks sound decent. I don't find them extremely revealing, but that's sometimes a good thing.
HD-650 certainly is no detail monster and I think most people would agree. Yes, this varies with cable swaps and better gear somewhat.

 
 

 

[B-Dawk20]

Honestly, on that website,  I could not reliably tell the difference with my M50s. The AD700s I could do it 100% of the time out of ten tries. The staging and some of the detail in some ranges just were slightly off. I think it has a bit to do with that site and the song choice though. Although I can honestly say that for some recordings, I have a hard time with 192 and 320. FLAC or whatever else lossless helps that out but I think the old "can you hear the difference between xxxkbps and xxxkbps or FLAC" argument has a lot more different elements than some people like to admit. Some songs just aren't recorded well or the genre or style just doesn't allow for things to get extremely revealing at any level.

 

[Mikae]

Quote:

http://mp3ornot.com/clips/ginoauri128.mp3
 
http://mp3ornot.com/clips/ginoauri320.mp3
 
 
--------------
 
http://mp3ornot.com/clips/milman128.mp3
 
http://mp3ornot.com/clips/milman320.mp3
 
--------------
 
http://mp3ornot.com/clips/juliette320.mp3
 
http://mp3ornot.com/clips/juliette128.mp3

 
Is it only me or do the files differ (not only in the bitrate)? As far as I can see, the 320 kbit/s files are more compressed and are lacking peaks, thus making it virtually indistinguishable.

 

[deadlylover]

Quote:

Is it only me or do the files differ (not only in the bitrate)? As far as I can see, the 320 kbit/s files are more compressed and are lacking peaks, thus making it virtually indistinguishable.

I think it only looks that way because the missing HF makes the peaks smaller on the 128k files, making it look less compressed.

 
They aren't indistinguishable, but it really opens your eyes on how small the differences really are, compared to the 'night and day' stereotyping around here.

 

[B-Dawk20]

deadly lover, who's in your avatar? She looks reallly familiar.