opaqueice;581884 Wrote: > > > Reference please! http://scienceblogs.com/cognitivedaily/2007/11/few_listeners_can_distinguish.php
"Those rating themselves as more extreme audiophiles were more likely to be able to detect the difference between the different data rates of the Santana MP3s. This was not attributable to their having better headphones; they simply appear to have better knowledge or hearing ability than those who aren't audiophiles. Even so, the correlation between audiophilia and ability to detect the better Santana recordings, though significant, is not very strong: just 0.17." Ineresting test: the headline is "few listeners can distinguish..." But when you read the details, it turns out that the testers (a) didn't control the quality of playback, i.e. most playback was on desktop PC sound systems (many of which probably couldn't resolve the differences in the files); and (b)as they admit, they didn't test using music including cymbal sounds or similar sounds - exactly the sounds that make the differences in lossy encoding more obvious. I have read of some other tests where audiophiles rated significantly better at differentiating audio files, but this is the only one I found in a quick web search -- firedog Tranquil PC fanless WHS server running SqueezeServer; SB Touch slaved to Empirical Audio Pace Car; KRK Ergo, MF V DAC3, MF X-150 amp, Devore Gibbon Super 8 Speakers; Mirage MS-12 sub; Dual 506 + Ortofon 20 (occasional use); sometimes use PC with M-Audio 192 as digital source. SB Boom in second room. Arcam CD82 which I don't use anymore, even though it's a very good player. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ firedog's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=11550 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=82067 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/audiophiles
