[yakzil]

Initially I did a lot of ABX testing when I was deciding on what mp3 bit rate to choose. The irritating thing was that for a given track some parts ( 20 sec samples) I struggled to differentiate 128 bit from uncompressed, whilst on other parts the difference was totally clear. I ended up at 160 VBR. Overkill for my ears on 60-80% of the music. Since then I have switched to FLAC, because hard drive space is no longer an issue, and whatever happens in the future I can go back lossless to wave format. I've stuck all my CD's on an external hard drive and use an external USB DAC to play music via my laptop through my stereo, which is a bit more demanding in terms of sound quality. It has the big advantage of not having to search though a pile of CD's to find the one I'm looking for. Even so I struggle to notice the difference between 160 VBR mp3 and FLAC

 

[Calroth]

Well, at the end of the day, the question is not whether you can tell the difference, but what you want to spend your time listening to.

Some people can hear that last 5% difference between lossy and lossless, and it drives them nuts to hear it.

Some people can hear that last 5% difference, but don't care about it.

Some people can't hear that last 5% difference, but have a psychological need to want "the best", so go for lossless anyway.

Some people can't hear that last 5% difference, and don't care.

And there was that guy who found that compression improved the sound of some tracks

 

[episiarch]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Calroth /img/forum/go_quote.gif Well, at the end of the day, the question is not whether you can tell the difference, but what you want to spend your time listening to. Some people can hear that last 5% difference between lossy and lossless, and it drives them nuts to hear it. Some people can hear that last 5% difference, but don't care about it. Some people can't hear that last 5% difference, but have a psychological need to want "the best", so go for lossless anyway. Some people can't hear that last 5% difference, and don't care.

Amen, brother. Thanks for putting it so well.

 

[uofmtiger]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Calroth /img/forum/go_quote.gif Well, at the end of the day, the question is not whether you can tell the difference, but what you want to spend your time listening to. Some people can hear that last 5% difference between lossy and lossless, and it drives them nuts to hear it. Some people can hear that last 5% difference, but don't care about it. Some people can't hear that last 5% difference, but have a psychological need to want "the best", so go for lossless anyway. Some people can't hear that last 5% difference, and don't care. And there was that guy who found that compression improved the sound of some tracks

I would also say that some people would rather just go with lossless and not have to worry about testing to see which category they fall in...In other words, they would rather spend time enjoying the music than worrying about ABX testing each song in their collection.

Of course, they may take the chance that mp3 would actually sounds better to them, but they are probably not too worried about that.

 

[Aphexe]

With lossless music, I tend to pick up sounds and low frequencies that I cannot hear in lossy formats of the same music, that is just my findings. I always prefer lossless music though.

 

[Calroth]

Quote:

Originally Posted by uofmtiger /img/forum/go_quote.gif I would also say that some people would rather just go with lossless and not have to worry about testing to see which category they fall in...In other words, they would rather spend time enjoying the music than worrying about ABX testing each song in their collection.

Ah yes, the "ignorance is bliss" crowd

There are good reasons to know whether you'd settle for lossy, though. Like if you have a portable device with limited space, and you'd rather not keep two versions of your music. Or if you want to know whether your iTunes Music Store purchases will sound any good (DRM issues aside).

But if none of this applies to you, or even if it does... hell, it's your music to listen to as you like

 

[uofmtiger]

Quote:

Ah yes, the "ignorance is bliss" crowd There are good reasons to know whether you'd settle for lossy, though. Like if you have a portable device with limited space, and you'd rather not keep two versions of your music. Or if you want to know whether your iTunes Music Store purchases will sound any good (DRM issues aside). But if none of this applies to you, or even if it does... hell, it's your music to listen to as you like

As I pointed out earlier in this thread, unless you are prepared to test every single song on the component you are using for playback, the test is limited. If I cannot hear a difference on an AC/DC track, but I can on a Boston Pops track, then I know the results for those two tracks on the playback device that I used for testing.

I am not prepared to test 17,000 songs to see if I can tell a difference or not on my ipod and then on my main system and then on my office computer and then in the bedroom and then on my laptops and then in my car (the many places I listen to my lossless files). Life is too short for that. Go with lossless and just save yourself the trouble...at least for archiving and home use.

Secondly, the issue of space vs encoding on portables will always be at issue on small drives. If you determined that 320kbps is your cutoff point on the sampe tracks you used for testing, you would still have to decide if you are willing to trade that space for quality.

I listen to my Creative player with a combination of Rhapsody (160kbps) or Yahoo (192kbps) songs. It is not necessary for me to know if they sound similar to lossless because I do not own them on CD....

"Ignorance is bliss" does not apply to lossless encoding (which is the benchmark). It only applies to comparing something of lesser quality to the benchmark. In other words, if I drive a Ferrari (using it as a benchmark for performance in this situation) and do not test it against a car built from Ferrari scraps, I am not ignorant to the situation. I just have no reason to test them because I already have the benchmark and can live with it. If, on the other hand, I had the car built for scraps, then I may want to test it against the Ferrari to see how it performs.

 

[Calroth]

Congratulations! You've been trolled.

 

[jeanius]

I sometimes can but most of the time I when I think I can tell the difference I tell myself that my head is playing tricks on me. I'm afraid I will be able to run into more situations like that when I upgrade my equipment. It's very possible that my ears will be able to detect the difference and it will always be on alert to find the missing ingredient in MP3s. That could be the end of MP3s altogether.

 

[EnOYiN]

We should add a rulel to this forum that when someone claims to be able to hear a difference between one file and another they will have to provide an ABX test result. Something they do do on HydroGen.

Anyways, that won't work since a lot of people here like the placebo effect you get when you buy a $7500 headphone.

( I do not mean to offend anyone in particular here)

 

[Konig]

Quote:

Originally Posted by EnOYiN /img/forum/go_quote.gif We should add a rulel to this forum that when someone claims to be able to hear a difference between one file and another they will have to provide an ABX test result. Something they do do on HydroGen. Anyways, that won't work since a lot of people here like the placebo effect you get when you buy a $7500 headphone. ( I do not mean to offend anyone in particular here)

320kbs is really really good enough for me.

 

[uofmtiger]

Quote:

Originally Posted by jeanius /img/forum/go_quote.gif I sometimes can but most of the time I when I think I can tell the difference I tell myself that my head is playing tricks on me. I'm afraid I will be able to run into more situations like that when I upgrade my equipment. It's very possible that my ears will be able to detect the difference and it will always be on alert to find the missing ingredient in MP3s.

Yep, this is my main point. You can test all you want, but do you really want to archive in something less than lossless? Do your ABX testing now, but change anything in your playback system (including an individual track) and you will have to test again. If you find out that changing to new "$7500" headphones or even a $50 amp shows a noticible difference, then you will have to start over from scratch and burn your CDs again.

If you archive in lossless, you may want a second copy of each song in mp3 format for a portable. However, if you want to update to a new and better codec in the future, you can just run a batch converter program to re-burn all your music from lossless instead of having to go back to the original CD. Now that hard drives have come down in price, I think it makes sense to go to lossless for achiving. It may save you tons of time down the road.

If we are going to post ABX testing results, we should also mention everything in the test we are using...not to mention a letter from your doctor saying your hearing is up to scratch.

 

[lordgibbness]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Konig /img/forum/go_quote.gif 320kbs is really really good enough for me.

I doubt you could find any difference between 320CBR and LAME VBR -q0. In fact you could argue that 320CBR is actually a big waste of space as there are almost no songs that require 320kbps all the way through. Using VBR is the way to go.

In fact I doubt there is anyone who can tell a FLAC apart from a LAME VBR -q0 file. If they can then I'd love to see they're ABX test log... please post them!

In most cases I use q2 as it's good for me.

 

[Traddad]

Funny this: I just did a desk top test this very morning to soothe mt nagging fears after ripping my entire collection. Quite frankly, my 50 year old ears could not discern the difference between my high quality LAME VBR files and the originals from which they were ripped. Any difference I heard I would characterize as "within the margin of error" due to equipment choice (my test: MS-1, iAudio X5L, D-15 Diskman) or plecebo effect. I'm getting a set of SR-001s soon, but I doubt it will change the outcome. I agree that it would be better to store lossless so you could batch file come any format change....but what if the next format change is something along the lines of the switch from analog to digital? Could happen.

 

[EnOYiN]

Funny how this thread does not evolve but just repeats itself.