I was inspired by this thread to try some blind testing of my own. For
those of you on Linux unable to test with the downloads mentioned
earlier I thought I'd post exactly what I did so you can repeat the
experiment for yourself with your own CDs.
The method is below, but my results were inconsistent. I found that I
could generally spot 128kbp MP3 immediately. I could hear a difference
between the others, but I consistently failed to spot which was FLAC
and which was MP3. Sometimes the MP3 was more "pleasing", sometimes the
FLAC. This was quite disturbing. The only time I noticed a distinct
improvement was with an older recording of a Bach prelude... with MP3
the background hiss was much more distinct. Otherwise I couldn't decide
which I preferred.
Incidentally, I have an SB3, NAD 3020 driving Mission 762i speakers.
Hardly audiophile stuff, but much better than PC speakers. Maybe I need
better equipment... :-)
----
1. Select a track, rip into an empty directory with "cdparanoia
<tracknum>". Also save the attached Ruby script into the same folder as
"shuffle.rb" and make it executable with "chmod +x shuffle.rb". Edit it
to set the titles, etc., at the top.
2. Encode the ripped file (which will be "cdda.wav") into whatever
formats you choose. In my case I used lame and flac. I tried three
different MP3 settings, the default ("lame cdda.wav cdda.mp3"), 320kbs
CBR ("lame -b 320 cdda.wav cdda-320.mp3") and highest-quality VBR
("lame -V 0 --vbr-new cdda.wav cdda-vbr.mp3") as well as flac ("flac
--best cdda.wav")
3. Run the script as "./shuffle.rb". This will update the metatags in
the audio files in a random order, "Sample 1", "Sample 2", etc., and
generate an "order.txt" file that you can examine later. Don't examine
it yet!
4. Rescan your music collection, then browse to genre Test. You won't
know which you are listening to until you go right and look, or read
the "order.txt" file that the script generates.
Hope someone finds this helpful...
+-------------------------------------------------------------------+
|Filename: shuffle.txt |
|Download: http://forums.slimdevices.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=2478|
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--
joatca
------------------------------------------------------------------------
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