[OhmAlone]

Hi All,

I do not have a reliable way to blind-test myself to determine if I can hear a difference between 320kbps and lossless, and I’m trying to see if I might be wasting my money by subscribing to a higher bitrate streaming service. Does anyone know of any reliable scientific tests that were conducted to determine what differences, if any, normal people can be expected to hear at different bitrates? Respectfully speaking, I’m not interested in attempting to test myself again or in perusing casual discussion forum tests, but rather looking for something more along the professional lines.

Thanks!

 

[go_vtec]

Sound quality and ability to hear differences in audio quality are not standard nor normalized among most of publications. Since our own ability hear are quite different based on environment, age, and genetics, you can always conduct your own experiment and make your own conclusion. In other words, I doubt that you will actually get a copy of such subjective study done in objective manner and what you get from such study does not necessary guarantee they will be 100% applicable to you. This is one of the most religion like debate here in head-fi including what bit rates should be optimum or how much DACs and cables make actual differences.

Based on your wording, you are already knew that. May I recommend, if I am allowed, that you create some songs you often listen plus few well mixed full frequency songs from last few years, and share your experience. I would love to hear what people actual perceived from our own community with their own ears on 320kps vs lossless. YMMV, but I just wanted to throw that out there before this thread gets out of control.

 

[OhmAlone]

Sound quality and ability to hear differences in audio quality are not standard nor normalized among most of publications. Since our own ability hear are quite different based on environment, age, and genetics, you can always conduct your own experiment and make your own conclusion. In other words, I doubt that you will actually get a copy of such subjective study done in objective manner and what you get from such study does not necessary guarantee they will be 100% applicable to you. This is one of the most religion like debate here in head-fi including what bit rates should be optimum or how much DACs and cables make actual differences.

Based on your wording, you are already knew that. May I recommend, if I am allowed, that you create some songs you often listen plus few well mixed full frequency songs from last few years, and share your experience. I would love to hear what people actual perceived from our own community with their own ears on 320kps vs lossless. YMMV, but I just wanted to throw that out there before this thread gets out of control.

Thanks for the reply!

I’m not even looking for a debate, really, nor even to cite my own anecdotal evidence; and I’m certainly not looking to stir the pot. I’m really just looking for a link to a scientific study for my own benefit (er, my wallet’s benefit, lol) if one exists. A few years back I remember reading a really well organized study on redbook vs. sacd stereo CDs, in which a fairly conclusive result was achieved (can’t remember now where I found it). I thought there was a similar one out there for bitrates, but I might be wrong.

 

[go_vtec]

Are you talking about "Audibility of a CD-Standard A/D/A Loop Inserted into High-Resolution Audio Playback" by E. Brad Meyer and David R. Moran?

 

[OhmAlone]

Are you talking about "Audibility of a CD-Standard A/D/A Loop Inserted into High-Resolution Audio Playback" by E. Brad Meyer and David R. Moran?

Yes! That’s the one. Is there anything like that in regards to bitrates, do you know?

 

[go_vtec]

Sorry, I haven't seen one that was done scientifically yet. However, a general consensus that that are some detectable differences between 320kbps vs lossless. However 320kps is great for most of portable applications where pretty good for on the go to preserve the sound quality and preserve the storage space. For desktop operation or to future proof system, most of folks will recommend ripping your sources with lossless or go with lossless if you are planning on using mid to high end system.

 

[OhmAlone]

Sorry, I haven't seen one that was done scientifically yet. However, a general consensus that that are some detectable differences between 320kbps vs lossless. However 320kps is great for most of portable applications where pretty good for on the go to preserve the sound quality and preserve the storage space. For desktop operation or to future proof system, most of folks will recommend ripping your sources with lossless or go with lossless if you are planning on using mid to high end system.

Gotcha. I really appreciate your replies and your knowledge on the subject.

 

[go_vtec]

BTW, what is your playback system? A double blind test is very hard without a set of unmarked duplicated hardware, but a blind test can be done if you only have a friend and PC as a playback system.

 

[OhmAlone]

Well, being an audio junkie, right now I have a few different systems (everything from an IPod to a 7.1). But really, I’m just interested in scientific papers like the one you cited, since I find this hobby to be so (almost uniquely) susceptible to perception bias. I often find myself almost wanting to believe the marketing hyperbole aimed against me, so it helps to have a solid foundation of knowledge with which one can defend oneself.

 

[go_vtec]

I understood. Any hobbies or any forums, there are those who love to share their personal experiences to help and guide others (like many folks here in Head-fi), there are those newbies who want to learn their new hobbies or re-discover their old hobbies through the forum (like catching up after some years of absents), those newbies who want to be approved of their already purchased "recommended" gears, and rare but some of those who want to show off what they purchased that can be considered the end game rig.

I've learned to not to judge anyone based on their gears or their status (newbie) since there are always things I can learn from them. However, audiophiles or not, we all have passion for music and this hobby can easily pull us down to the endless rabbit hole of buying expensive gears based only few words of mouths, aka needless upgraditus path. I hope someone with more "search" on bit rate experience will chime in with the more formal studies.

As for me, I've already done fair share of my own experiments to know that there are subtle but discernible differences in 320kbps vs lossless. However these differences are vary on how reliable one can distinguish can be heavily depend on the source songs (simple vocal vs full dynamic soundtrack) and the gears (mostly headphones and may be the amp to give sufficient power to drive the headphones). YMMV and let us know what you find.

 

[Roseval]

Maybe this one is of use: https://www.aes.org/tmpFiles/elib/20210228/18296.pdf

 

[OhmAlone]

Maybe this one is of use: https://www.aes.org/tmpFiles/elib/20210228/18296.pdf

Whoa, interesting! Thank you so much for this. I see they even reference the Meyer test.

 

[castleofargh]

Hi All,

I do not have a reliable way to blind-test myself to determine if I can hear a difference between 320kbps and lossless, and I’m trying to see if I might be wasting my money by subscribing to a higher bitrate streaming service. Does anyone know of any reliable scientific tests that were conducted to determine what differences, if any, normal people can be expected to hear at different bitrates? Respectfully speaking, I’m not interested in attempting to test myself again or in perusing casual discussion forum tests, but rather looking for something more along the professional lines.

Thanks!

I read this one on AAC a while back because it was free to read on AES.
https://downloads.bbc.co.uk/rd/pubs/whp/whp-pdf-files/WHP384.pdf
If the link dies it's called "A subjective evaluation of high bitrate coding of music"



In my case, anytime online radios or streaming sources had noticeable artifacts, it was because the bitrate was low, or because the signal was clipping. With lossy formats you have to consider intersample clipping as a potential source of audible artifacts. Luckily, the simple fix is to avoid sticking to 100% digital volume when listening to lossy formats. Some extreme cases seem to report oversample clipping with true peaks reaching more than 5dB, but in my case, I was never able to notice clipping by ear so long as I kept my digital volume level 3dB below full scale.
For most portable devices it's often a non issue as the volume control will be digital in the first place and you're unlikely to listen to a DAP or a cellphone maxed out.

 

[OhmAlone]

I read this one on AAC a while back because it was free to read on AES.
https://downloads.bbc.co.uk/rd/pubs/whp/whp-pdf-files/WHP384.pdf
If the link dies it's called "A subjective evaluation of high bitrate coding of music"



In my case, anytime online radios or streaming sources had noticeable artifacts, it was because the bitrate was low, or because the signal was clipping. With lossy formats you have to consider intersample clipping as a potential source of audible artifacts. Luckily, the simple fix is to avoid sticking to 100% digital volume when listening to lossy formats. Some extreme cases seem to report oversample clipping with true peaks reaching more than 5dB, but in my case, I was never able to notice clipping by ear so long as I kept my digital volume level 3dB below full scale.
For most portable devices it's often a non issue as the volume control will be digital in the first place and you're unlikely to listen to a DAP or a cellphone maxed out.

This is amazing - this is exactly what I was looking for. Thank you sir! (Obviously I need to work on my internet search skills, lol)

I’m not going to advertise the results here for fear of sparking an unnecessary debate, but, suffice to say, they’ve resolved my concerns quite nicely.

Thanks again - I really appreciate that a community like this exists in a world that’s gone altogether mad about advertising!

 

[go_vtec]

Just as a tip, Best Buy sometime sells Tidal annual subscription dirt cheap especially around Black Friday. When you made up your mind on what resolution will serve your purpose.