kooma
Well-known member
saw this in reddit:
http://www.npr.org/sections/therecord/2015/06/02/411473508/how-well-can-you-hear-audio-quality
http://www.npr.org/sections/therecord/2015/06/02/411473508/how-well-can-you-hear-audio-quality
How Well Can You Hear Audio Quality?
- Thread starter kooma
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mattiasNYC
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Statistically speaking I can apparently not hear a difference. I'd also add that I hate the sound of Coldplay. All of it sounds like overly compressed mp3's at low res to me... then again, didn't it all???
Yeah, I agree the examples may not have been the best. If something bothers me with compressing to low-res it's typically cymbals.
Yeah, I agree the examples may not have been the best. If something bothers me with compressing to low-res it's typically cymbals.
Rocinante
Well-known member
Those were all terrible examples.
Every one of those albums weather they're compressed or not has no dynamics and I'm not listening for clarity; I'm listening for feeling (minus Coldplay cause they are just awful dollar store robots)
If I want clarity I'll listen to Godspeed you black emperor, Beethoven's 9th, Opeth's Deliverence, or Carl Orff o fortuna. Pieces that make me want to feel/hear every detail.
Harvest Moon is a good album but Im fine listening to that on a cassette player.
Motorhead albums don't need to be heard in hifi. That's the beauty of them.
Every one of those albums weather they're compressed or not has no dynamics and I'm not listening for clarity; I'm listening for feeling (minus Coldplay cause they are just awful dollar store robots)
If I want clarity I'll listen to Godspeed you black emperor, Beethoven's 9th, Opeth's Deliverence, or Carl Orff o fortuna. Pieces that make me want to feel/hear every detail.
Harvest Moon is a good album but Im fine listening to that on a cassette player.
Motorhead albums don't need to be heard in hifi. That's the beauty of them.
pucho812
Well-known member
I question their delivery method. was the audio squeezed into aac or some other compression scheme to fit the website?
hymentoptera
Well-known member
I could barely hear any difference and my results were 0/6. I thought they all sounded bad.
Biasrocks
Well-known member
I got 5 out of 6, of course 'high res' was 16/44.1 which is far from high res in my book.
Oddly enough I could easily identify the 320kbps mp3 every time, it has a slightly confused sound to my ears. I had to listen to the 128kbps version against the full res version a few times before I could identify it. The easiest to identify was the Susan Vega vocal, the hardest was the classical track which I picked the 128kbps version!
I really think it's down to knowing what to listen for. The transients and decays of instruments and ambience are the easiest to pick out.
Oddly enough I could easily identify the 320kbps mp3 every time, it has a slightly confused sound to my ears. I had to listen to the 128kbps version against the full res version a few times before I could identify it. The easiest to identify was the Susan Vega vocal, the hardest was the classical track which I picked the 128kbps version!
I really think it's down to knowing what to listen for. The transients and decays of instruments and ambience are the easiest to pick out.
weiss said:
This was my thought too, maybe they wanted to make it harder this way. Mostly details of vocals and synths, along distortion made the difference for me. Like Biasrock i had to pick two mp3s first and made most effort with classical piece, always failed with Katy Perry. Got 3/6 with computer speakers, after that 5/6 and 4/6 with monitors.
I chose the 320kbs version on all six, so 0/6 on my built in speakers :'(
I once took archery lessons and learned, that grouping the arrows from a set is the hardest thing. Once you've mastered that, you can easily adjust to the target.
I hope the same goes for audio quality appreciation
Gustav
I once took archery lessons and learned, that grouping the arrows from a set is the hardest thing. Once you've mastered that, you can easily adjust to the target.
I hope the same goes for audio quality appreciation
Gustav
Listened to the samples via direct netbook output on los most cheapos in-ear headphones and I hardly hear a difference between any of those sampels. So I conclude that there definitely is a market for data reduction when it comes to less than ideal listening situations. Might check on monitors when I have time. What surprised me was that I didn't know Katy Perry and JayZ. Who are these people ???
shot
Well-known member
I've heard the differences, though it was tough and I played over and over those files before clicking for possible answer.
Got 6/6 !!
But when I shared it on FB, I got few hate mails from my sound engineer friends who felt it was a hoax since they didn't hit big score! Hehe!
Got 6/6 !!
But when I shared it on FB, I got few hate mails from my sound engineer friends who felt it was a hoax since they didn't hit big score! Hehe!
Mbira
Well-known member
Ouch!
Well, I got two .wav, two at 320, and two at 128!
The only time I've noticed in the past has been with reverb tails and cymbal crashes, but I couldn't find anything on these examples that definitively pointed me to a correct answer....I was pretty much guessing.
Well, I got two .wav, two at 320, and two at 128!
The only time I've noticed in the past has been with reverb tails and cymbal crashes, but I couldn't find anything on these examples that definitively pointed me to a correct answer....I was pretty much guessing.
hymentoptera
Well-known member
pucho812 said:
I'm with pucho812. I have a pretty slow internet service, and those all loaded too fast to be believable. Besides, if they were truley different compression schemes I would expect different buffer times would have been the dead giveaway.
I can usually hear the difference between 128kbps and uncompressed, especially on my monitors. The cymbals and sometimes sibilance on the vox are the most obvious for me. The only major diff I heard on these was that one was louder than the other two.
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