garym;488116 Wrote: > No, I'm talking about very serious BLIND ABX listening tests with high > quality equipment conducted by serious folks. I'm not talking about > average joes happy with AM radio. And I'm not saying that no one can > detect the difference between an mp3 128 and original source, just that > it typically takes very good hearing and songs where potential artifacts > are likely. These are not the typical case for most listening. If you > really want to learn more about this sort of thing go over to > hydrogenaudio.org and read the material on this issue and the many forum > posts. But I'm getting the idea that you're not actually interested in > learning anything that changes your initial beliefs and you're happy to > accept the heuristics and biases that may color your beliefs. That's > ok--to each their own. We're just listening to music, not curing cancer. > And as I said, I personally prefer all my music in FLAC (lossless) if at > possible (even streams if they were available)....but not because I > think I can hear any difference (in my library of over 100,000 songs > I've heard less than a dozen songs that were not transparent at 128).
I have done quite a few blind tests that I have distinguished between 128 and 192 or higher listening to well recorded classical and jazz. Most commercial pop recordings are so bad that it doesn't seem to make much diff. It takes an experienced listener with a well trained ear to hear the difference. At 128 the soundstage is flatter, less 3 dimensional. There is less hall ambience which is so helpful in creating spacial cues. There is less air around instruments etc. 192VBR seems to be the starting point for adequate hi-fi. It is much harder to hear differences above that rate, although I have been able to do that on some recordings. At 128 it is actually very easy to hear the diffs blind on well recorded music especially if you are very familiar with the recording. One should remember that any listening test is testing the listeners "ear training" as well as the bit rate. Not everyone will hear the diffs. However the majority of people can be trained to hear those diffs, as proven through years of musicians improving their aural skills in ear training classes. -- tomjtx ------------------------------------------------------------------------ tomjtx's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=7449 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=71602 _______________________________________________ discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
