Mark Lanctot;187133 Wrote: > ... In fact the 320 difference test shows almost no differences in the > guitar riff until the big cymbal crash. Interestingly, the cymbal > crash drops a lot of material for all tests.
When I first got my SB3, I did a lot of testing back and forth between 256k MP3, 320k MP3 (Fraunhofer IIS) and FLAC. My conclusions: on most CDs, 256k will bring out basically everything the production tea wanted us to hear and then some. And I also somewhat hastily -as I was to find out later on- concluded that 320k basically was undistinguishable from the CD source. Ths lead to me initally ripping everything to 256k and 320k MP3 depending on how much I liked the music. And 192k for stuff I had downloaded online (I typically burn a CD with online content and then rip it at 192k, so I never have to deal with stupid DRM stuff again). Alas, after more months, and longer listening sessions with more time and less I-got-to-rip-all-my-CDs sweatshop type work, I noticed that listening to a 320k MP3 (and even more so a 256k) and a FLAC would have interesting effects: more demanding portions of the song would be "airier", there'd be more playful, natural and musical resolution, where the MP3 would seem to bring out sonic detail, yet collapse things a little and make them sound a bit more bunched up and blended together. A barely perceptible difference, but it would make a difference in how quickly one would get tired during a music session. I actually had 2 friends come over, have a good glass of red wine, and would make them listen to the same sequence of songs in FLAC and MP3. The reaction wuld be interesting: for R&B music people would tend to prefer the MP3, but then with many jazz recordings the choice would be clear, comments like "it sounds a bit more open", and "sounds a bit more pleasant, I don't know" being common. I don't think MP3 at 320k cuts off a clearly determined frequency range - cymbals will bite darn near the same. But the "control" of it will every so perceptibly shift, and the spacial definition, most things will get an extra molecule or two of crystal doused on them. I think it too categoric to say "it cuts everything above 19.7kHz" or something like that, even though I was told by someone that MP3 encoding indeed does, and that there are good reasons for it supposedly. I think if it was only 300Hz in the upper range, where our hearing is very resolution weak as a rule, we'd barely hear it. I assume some other effects are kicking in, and that how they "sound" when merely subtracted from the original may be stochastic. -- pablolie ------------------------------------------------------------------------ pablolie's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=3816 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=32576 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
