Do you have an ear for music quality?

fade

fade

Staff member
1/6.

I want to see the stats on this test when it's been running a while. My research specialty is signal processing, and I know how the MP3 format works. It is, as the article mentions, pretty impressive. Even lost information isn't totally lost like it is in JPEG or MPEG compression. It's more like it's converted.
 
GasBandit

GasBandit

Staff member
I can always pick out which one is the 128mbit sample, but it's hard to tell 320 from uncompressed. Usually the most notable difference is in the high frequency bits... hihats/cymbals and such are usually a dead giveaway.
 
PatrThom

PatrThom

I was hoping @fade had seen this.
The only one where I didn't pick either the 320 or the WAV was, surprisingly enough, Tom's Diner, which was 100% vocal + reverb.
This was through a pair of earbuds on a stock 16/44.1kHz sound card, I'm wondering whether they would've sounded different through my 24/192 card + ATH M40fs at home.

--Patrick
 
grub

grub

4/6 on cheap sony plugged into my pc. the other 2 were the 320. There was a slight difference but not very noticeable.
 
PatrThom

PatrThom

If you're considering trying it, Gas has the right idea. The highs (or lack thereof) are a giveaway.

--Patrick
 
fade

fade

Staff member
I was listening specifically for highs and still couldn't really pick it out. Worth noting that listening to quiet highs specifically should be more telling. Loud highs are well represented by the algorithm.
 
Chad Sexington

Chad Sexington

For me, the hint seemed to be the clarity of quieter sounds. Not necessarily lower or higher. Anyway, I thought it was neat and I'd be interested to see what people can generally hear and differentiate.
 
PatrThom

PatrThom

Clarity of highs was one tell, but depth of range was another. The samples with higher compression felt "flatter" with noticeably less of a difference between quiet and loud passages.

--Patrick
 
Tinwhistler

Tinwhistler

3/6 through crappy dollar store headphones. The 3 I missed were recorded in 320K

The uncompressed tunes tended to have more "depth" of sound. There was just more to them.

But it was really subtle, and I had to listen hard to hear the differences. I didn't think the uncompressed music was significantly better than the compressed tunes. I might've had a different experience with better headphones/speakers/whatever.
 
Ravenpoe

Ravenpoe

What this test has taught me is that 320kbps sounds way better than uncompressed.

At least to me... since that's what every one of my choices were.
 
Bowielee

Bowielee

sound.jpg


I got 1/6 when I did it on my standard TV speakers (HDMI audio out from the PC), the second time I did it with my USB headphones and the difference became very apparent to me. The only one that threw me was the Neil Young one.[DOUBLEPOST=1433389777,1433389709][/DOUBLEPOST]It also doesn't hurt that I used to be a DJ and had to run a sound board.
 
GasBandit

GasBandit

Staff member
Bowielee said:
It also doesn't hurt that I used to be a DJ and had to run a sound board.
Click to expand...
I also attribute my acuity to my profession. Before I got into radio production, I couldn't give a shit about mp3 compression.

Now, I can always tell when something is 128k and it grates. Lowest I can put up with is 192k, but I prefer 320.
 
Dave

Dave

Staff member
6/6 but I guessed on the classical one. It was between two of them and I couldn't easily discern them. The first four were really easy, I thought.
 
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