cdmackay wrote: > Is this really consistent with that? This test seems to show a > preference for MP3, which suggests a lack of transparency, for whatever > odd reason. Or are you saying this test is the rare special case? > > and thanks to OP for the excellent test :)
Yes, you're correct. I was too sloppy with my comment. My thinking (although I didn't explain well) was more along the lines that many large scale ABX tests of transparency of mp3 files document that reasonably high bit rate mp3 files are not determined to be different from the original lossless files (search hydrogenaudio.org for more on this). In this study mp3 was preferred. So in my mind the consistency with the older studies is that the current study is more evidence that there are generally no audible differences between high bit rate mp3 and lossless (except for a few problem samples). That is, if someone preferred the mp3 file, they obviously didn't think that the mp3 file was *lesser* quality than the lossless. I think the author did very nice work here. Obviously some can quibble a bit with some of the research design. A few comments have already been made in that regard. But this doesn't lessen the interesting work from my perspective. Every research paper I've ever written has a section at the end called "limitations" (and in PhD seminars the students and faculty spend most of their time tearing apart papers that had already been through peer review (where the referees "tear apart" the work) and have already been published in top academic journals. So bottom line, there is no perfect experiment. In the past I've done some ABX testing of transparency of mp3 vs lossless and personally could reach transparency on typical pop music at about 192kbs. But I'm an old guy with normal high frequency hearing loss, etc. I did participate in this particular test. I'm sorry to say, I forgot which of sets I rated as sounding better (A or B). I did force myself to make a choice (based on what I thought *might* have been some artifact of mp3 coding) but noted in an earlier post in this thread that I really wasn't sure I could even detect a difference. So whatever choice I made could have just as easily been "no difference". I did at least report that my decision was "very hard". ------------------------------------------------------------------------ garym's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=17325 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=98010 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/audiophiles
