[Hi Rez]

In my experience it really is equipment dependent.  On my home and transportable systems, the difference is pretty apparent.  But I have compared 320 mp3 with lossless using my iPhone as the source and couldn't tell them apart to save my life. 

 

[moriez]

Guys, for anyone interested in doing some testing for himself -which it's all about-, how about this simpleness:
 
Take one flac file and convert it to 320
Put them on the playlist
Hit previous/next track a few times so you don't know which one is playing
Now listen and tell
 
If you have a hard time not looking at what's playing then minimize your player and use keyboard for controls. Do this as many times as you want with different tracks. Quite fun!
 
Edit: might be even more interesting to add a third and fourth file conversion/format. Here you could select shuffle-mode.
 
 
If this method is flawed tell me.

 

[extrabigmehdi]

Quote:

 
If this method is flawed tell me.

 
Just use the ABX comparator from foobar, easier.

 

[moriez]

Foobar only though :\

 

[sterling1]

This thread demonstrates, without ABX, that some folks have too much time. Here's my advice, since leisure time is a luxury, do something with it more compelling than indulging in this sort of back and forth exchange of gobbledygook  pseudo science.  Go out for an ice cream cone and tell me what flavor you like and why. That would be a more entertaining discussion than this one. BTW, I can't discern any difference in material presented to me from 256k to SACD. I now therefore get most of my music from iTunes using points I've earned at Speedway on junk food.

 

[peterBj]

hi Julian
take it easy.
I'm merely trying to get a cross,to you guys where the benefits  i.m.o. are to be gained.
So in short,
on well recorded material(Paul Berner Band"Road To Memphis")
using my P.C.
my RME. U.F.X interface ,
Sound Devices Head Phone Amp,
AKG 702 HP's,
I can not tell a difference.
 
Happy now?

 

[julian67]

Thank you for your advertorial.

Your post is finally, at least in part, on topic. Congrats. I'm not sure why you feel the need to "get a cross,to you guys where the benefits .... are to be gained" except as part of your apparently relentless self-promotion.

I have to say that if I was trying to sell 24-bit 96 KHz studio masters at premium prices I would probably not be going public in saying I can't tell them from mp3. So thank you for your frank revelation. Will you be stating the same on your music store's "Studio Showcase Series" section?

 

[peterBj]

Well well.....
the reason for me listening to Paul Berner's ''Road to Memphis'' in 320mp3 and Flac for my little test, is of course that I know the sound of the album very well.
16.50 euro for a full album is hardly premium prices.
And the reason we sell Waw files only is,so that you know that you get a true one to one copy of the studio master and then  people can convert  them into any form they are happy with.
And I am not afraid to admit having difficulties hearing the difference between ,320,mp3 or Flac but I can, as I said before, hear the difference between a well recorded 24/96 file and some obscure upsampled remaster,that so many of the big sites are selling,that being Flac or Mp3.
And yeah I think that, it might be a good subject for the blog on our site.
I even remember back in the day of minidisc,having some audiophiles believing they heard the CD while they were listening to a minidisc,but in their defense the minidisc I was playing to them was a great sounding album,Peter Erskine's ''As it Is''(Ecm)if I remember correctly.
And that about ''getting across ''is that not good English?,should I have used another term?English is not my 1th language,Danish is,so sometimes I might use a wrong phrase,and I do not want to offend or advocate in any way that I am ''the one '' with the right answers.
I just want to convey my opinions,and in doing so I talk about the things I know and have experience with.I do try to keep an open mind.
 I am learning all the time and a great deal of what I learn is from this forum.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

[peterBj]

I am in agreement that everyone hears differently and that arguments about compression rates are relative only to individuals who can hear the difference, BUT:
considering that prices of storage media are very reasonable and most computer drives are significantly larger than were even a few short years ago, why not rip to a lossless format like FLAC and preserve the integrity of the original recording? What this protects against is a future where your ears may be able to detect more subtle differences in recorded music and/or acquiring a more revealing audio system that magnifies that difference.

 hey mambosenior, that makes a lot of sense.

 

[julian67]

I agree as well. I can't help thinking that it's a mistake to become more accustomed to greatly compressed audio than to uncompressed. How to assess quality or reliably identify difference if one is never or rarely exposed to the uncompressed original?

There is a very good blog by Dr. Sean Olive which I expect lots of people here read. One interesting article was Part 2 - Differences in Performances of Trained Versus Untrained Listener

He speculates after conducting a loudspeaker comparison:

.....The college students - the poorest performing group - were also the youngest and least experienced test subjects. They tended to give all four loudspeakers very similar and very high ratings indicating they were easily satisfied. While this is pure speculation, the students may have had lower sound quality expectations developed through hours of listening to low quality MP3 files reproduced through band-limited earbuds.

That is just a snippet and really the whole article should be read because the context and other factors are important. It is speculation but it's speculation coming from someone with a great deal of experience and credibility in conducting research using double blind listening tests.

 

[peterBj]

One thing that we musicians find gets better with age is our ability to hear chord changes and keys,that has probably to do with experience,I guess,and maybe that is the same in the above mentioned article and with discerning between mp3 and Flac.
Experience.

 

[extrabigmehdi]

Quote:

 How to assess quality or reliably identify difference if one is never or rarely exposed to the uncompressed original?

I think it's less an issue with  modern encoders. I remind a long time encoding an album with xing encoder,  and I was not understanding why suddenly an album I loved, provided a subpar experience. There was also "mp3 pro" also, but software support was limited.   Now it's ok for me with lame vbr 0, if I  want to put more stuff on my mp3 player, but I  keep everything lossless at home.

 

[Limniscate]

The recording matters as well when trying to distinguish between mp3/flac and different bitrates/sampling rates.  E.g., I can't tell the difference between 128kbps bit rate and FLAC on Dream Theater's Images and Words, but I could easily tell the difference between NIN's The Slip in 320kbps mp3 and 24 bit 96khz FLAC.  You can download The Slip for free online in different qualities.  I usually can't tell the difference between 224kbps VBR and FLAC though.

 

[extrabigmehdi]

Quote:

, but I could easily tell the difference between NIN's The Slip in 320kbps mp3 and 24 bit 96khz FLAC. 

again that "easily" overstatement.  Would be interesting to see if you could make a distinction between the flac 16 bit 44.1 khz & 24 bit 96 khz. (willing to do some abx ?).
The high def version takes too much place.
 
edit: ideally resample the 44.1 version to 96 khz to ensure  you are not abx-ing any aliasing from your source.

 

[Limniscate]

Quote:

again that "easily" overstatement.  Would be interesting to see if you could make a distinction between the flac 16 bit 44.1 khz & 24 bit 96 khz. (willing to do some abx ?).
The high def version takes too much place.
 
edit: ideally resample the 44.1 version to 96 khz to ensure  you are not abx-ing any aliasing from your source.

I haven't tried that yet.