I can't take this test. I got 5 seconds into that Coldplay song and gouged my own eardrums out.

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quote:

Originally posted by cryophonik I can't take this test. I got 5 seconds into that Coldplay song and gouged my own eardrums out.

LOL!!

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Phil

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I think that the test is skewed. It feels like the samples were deliberately chosen to make it very hard to tell the difference between them. I find the largest difference in sound quality lies in the upper frequencies. Say 17kHz and up. In the regions where MP3 was not designed to be most effective. When doing A/B testing with tunes that have decent percussion samples I can almost always tell the difference between 320kbps mp3 and a lossless codec. Having decent monitor speakers helps, of course.

In this case the samples have relatively little high frequency content forcing to tell the difference between samples by trying to compare the dynamic range, which I find hard as fuck.

I think the hardest one was Tom's Diner, which I ironically got right. All in all I guessed 3 samples correctly.

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3/6 using cheap sennheiser buds via the macbook out.

Differences ranged from minimal to imperceptible for me, although my 43 year old ears have a hard time with the higher freq's anyway!

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I used to be able to pick these things very accurately, but I've suffered too much hearing damage to be able to do that any longer.

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quote:

Originally posted by cryophonik I can't take this test. I got 5 seconds into that Coldplay song and gouged my own eardrums out.

I was going to say "isn't uncompressed audio supposed to make the song sound better, or does the lead singer always sound that dreadful....oh wait..."

I got 4 out of 6.

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Originally posted by Halcyon+On+On djshire don't give a fuck.

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Originally posted by Intellekshual Rave to the grave.

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Originally posted by wotyzoid djshire, you're a cool nigga.

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Originally posted by Taipan Agreed. You da man!

I got 3/6 listening through my mac book pro's computer speakers.

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Originally posted by Zak McKracken theyre all sounding like 64kbps and overcompressed shit. put on some uncompressed heavy metal and i could tell right away. this songs are incredibly bad mastered.

Heavy metal is probably the most compressed genre there is. You can't mix it any other way.

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I got 4/6 listening through my Drawmer amp with my DT800s, but to be honest, at least two of them were lucky guesses between the wav and 320. I retook it with my iPad and Klipsch earbuds (i had my wife select the files so I couldn't see them) and got 1/6 right...I actually picked the 128 version 3 times.

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quote:

Originally posted by Zak McKracken What I'm saying is that this test would be a lot more interesting using songs that use the entire frequency range and dynamic range with good mixing and mastering that keeps everything intact.

I 100% agree with anything you said, except this.

Having thought about the test for a while, it is starting to seem like a piss take on the Hi-Fi (or whatever you want to call it) movement. The fact that makes the test interesting is that none of us can spot the differences between formats accurately. It's a nice pun really.

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check out:
dtb.planet.ee <-- A couple of my mix cd-s (Deep House & Progressive with a trancy touch

I was already pretty much convinced that it's all in the mind. Doing a null test makes the difference between 128kbps and WAV quite apparent, but I can't really tell the difference in practice. I was listening on my laptop with headphones; not ideal, but I doubt going for monitors and a decent DAC would change my results.

Things I attributed to MP3 compression (sligthly louder reverb tails for instance) were actually the uncompressed WAV and vice versa. I identified various differences but drew the wrong conclusions .

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If less is more think about how much more more would be. -Frasier