[Berlioz]

I tested this myself, and posted the results in a new thread. Take a look. I know I was disappointed...

 

[Earwax]

I lost interest in comparison listening for a while, but I recently came back to the 2 players still loaded with music.

I started listening on speakers and I'm surprised at what a clear difference I hear between the ogg vorbis 8 encoding and flac. No contest. [The clarity of the speakers has caused me to become a little disapointed in my headphone setup. ]

Next round will be 320 mp3 vs. flac.

 

[deepsix]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ILikeMusic /img/forum/go_quote.gif No doubt there, most would cringe if they had to go back to what they were using ten years ago, even if it was state-of-the-art at the time. But then again encoder technology has been improving right along with the hardware over the years. .

huh? 10 years ago I was using a fantastic sounding Sony discman and CDs recorded in PCM. Recent technology has taken a big step BACKWARDS in SQ that audiophiles are having to go to great lengths to rectify using just contemporary equipment. If only they made em like they used to huh?

 

[deepsix]

...

 

[hortoholic]

I think it is a fair test because you are comparing a lossy versus a lossless. Although, it is extremely difficult even witha reall good pair of cans. For those who want the smallest size with best sound its usually 320kbps for an mp3 anyways.

 

[b0dhi]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Earwax /img/forum/go_quote.gif The reason I was thinking about decompressing a mp3 or ogg to wave would be to eliminate any possible playback idiosyncrasy. Whatever was lost during inital compression is still lost but the player will treat both tracks the same.

This is a great idea for a long term test. Convert high and low quality tracks to wav with identical filenames, both for the reasons you stated and also because they will be identical from the point of view of the person undertaking the test. No need for socks

Someone else would have to load them onto the 2 players and label the players A and B, but after that, you could use the players as you please. There's no pressure and the test is as close as you can get to regular long-term listening.

Over time, presumably you'd form a preference for one player over the other. You tell your preference (if any) to the person who knows which player is the high quality player.

It might also be required to volume-match the outputs between the two players, which could be easily done by altering the volume on the music files after they're converted to wav.