On 05/09/2017 04:44 AM, Patrick Schluter wrote:
On Tuesday, 9 May 2017 at 08:24:40 UTC, Nick Sabalausky (Abscissa) wrote:
On 05/09/2017 02:10 AM, Patrick Schluter wrote:
Interesting. Any links? Not familiar with what "c't" is.
https://www.heise.de/ct/artikel/Kreuzverhoertest-287592.html
So, I got some details wrong in my recollection from memory. They
compared 128 kbit/s, 256 kbit/s and CD. To remove bias, they burnt the
mp3 after decompression on CD so that the testers couldn't distinguish
between the 3 formats and played them in their high quality audio setup
in their studios. The result was surprizing in that there was no
difference between CD and 256K mp3, and only a slightly lower score for
128K mp3.
Not surprised the 128k MP3 was noticeable. Even I've been able to notice
that when I was listening for it (although, in retrospect, it was likely
a bad encoder, now that I think about it...)
They were also surprized that for some kind of music
(classical), the mp3 128K was even favored by some testers over the
other formats and they speculate that the encoding rounds out somehow
some roughness of the music.
They also had one tester who was 100% accurate at recognizing mp3 over
CD, but the guy had had a hearing accident in his youth where he lost
part of the hearing spectrum (around 8KHz) which breaks the
psycho-acoustic model and allows him to hear noise that is suppressed
for the not hearing impared.
Fascinating.
The 128k being sometimes favored for classical kinda reminds me of how
some people prefer vinyl over CD/etc. Both are cases of audio data being
lost, but in a way that is liked.
I don't know where I got the 160 KBit part of my message.
Your memory recall must've applied a low-pass filter over "128K" and
"256K" ;)
