How Well Can You Hear Audio Quality? (side by side comparison 128/320/uncompressed)

[GivenToFly]

http://www.npr.org/sections/therecord/2015/06/02/411473508/how-well-can-you-hear-audio-quality

[Silent Jay]

Always interesting. 4/6 with headphones.

[spliff]

You got 2 out of 6 correct!

Despite its bad rap, the MP3 is actually a remarkable feat of engineering, and pretty good at filtering out mostly the sounds you can’t hear. Depending on the quality of your headphones, you might be able to distinguish between the two MP3s, but you’re unlikely to do better without an amplifier or a digital audio converter.

I could tell which one was 128kbps but wav and mp3 sounded the same so I guessed

Edited June 3, 2015 by spliff

[dalsh327]

It depends on how you're listening to it and what you're listening for. Most rock music wasn't recorded with attention to detail in mind until the 70s. Even if you have a bunch of MP3s, if you kept your CDs you've probably converted them to lossless by now. 24 bit is kind of the endgame for music, the "as close to master quality as you can get".

[RussTCB]

Listened through my PC speakers and got this:

You got 5 out of 6 correct!

If you did well on this and were listening through built-in speakers, you either have extraordinary ears or got lucky. If you had trouble picking out different versions of these songs, we give you permission to blame your tools. The speakers on your phone, laptop or tablet weren’t made for anything resembling hi-definition audio. Plug in a pair of headphones and try again.

The only one I missed was Jay-Z, but I still picked 320 over 128.

[Strange Broue]

You got 5 out of 6 correct!

Despite its bad rap, the MP3 is actually a remarkable feat of engineering, and pretty good at filtering out mostly the sounds you can’t hear. Depending on the quality of your headphones, you might be able to distinguish between the two MP3s, but you’re unlikely to do better without an amplifier or a digital audio converter.

Funny shit, cuz the only one i missed is Jay-Z and i could swear my choosed sample was better and it's just 128kbps

Anywa, i listened this through a 5 dollar headphone without any DAC's, seems like my hearing is ok

anyway all of the artists in this one are terribly bad, but it's good for a test

Edited June 3, 2015 by Strange Broue

[classicrawker]

We had Audio training here at work and did a similar test and it proved that most people can't hear the difference between an uncompressed Wav file and an MP3 ripped at 320K even through good quality headphones. As you get down to lower rip rates it is much easier to tell the difference.

When you factor in that most people usually listen to Music with some ambient background noise present I am willing to wager it is even tougher if not impossible to really tell the difference when you rip your music at 320K.

[Jakey Styley]

Found a cool test that tries to gauge how well you can determine audio quality:

http://www.npr.org/sections/therecord/2015/06/02/411473508/how-well-can-you-hear-audio-quality

I got 4/6 on a Sennheiser gaming headset. Katy Perry and Coldplay were really hard for me. Maybe pop music is kinda designed with that in mind, for it to sound the same to all listeners.

[Len Cnut]

You can't hear fuck all these days, it's why Kanye tries to do a fuckin' Kraftwerk and we find ourselves left with fuckin' tinny toney fuckin' Dalek music for mongoloids instead of bass and groove and all that. Something so you can dance. Y'know, a proper dance and not just one that demands your bird use the twitch muscles in her arse (although they have their place too )

Never trust music without good bass, whether in terms of volume of strength of groove. Yes, thats groove

Edited June 3, 2015 by Len B'stard

[Gordon Comstock]

I got 3 right, the pop songs were hard for me to tell the difference on, but I got the coldplay one right and picked MP3 over WAV for the Neil Young song.