[jarrodking]

Thought this was an interesting as well as fun read.-

http://www.maximumpc.com/article/do_higher_mp3_bit_rates_pay_off


How We Tested

Each lucky participant was asked to bring in a CD with a track that he or she has listened to for years and knows so intimately that a single missing hi-hat tap would stand out like a sudden blast from a tuba. We ripped each track using iTunes at three quality levels: 160Kb/s, 320Kb/s, and uncompressed WAV. The compressed files were ripped using variable bit rate (VBR) encoding, meaning that a 160Kb/s VBR track allows the bit rate to rise and fall depending on the complexity of the music while maintaining the selected bit rate as the minimum bit rate for the track.

In a quiet room with mood lighting and kitschy Scandinavian furnishings, the participants put on a pair of Sennheiser HD 580 headphones that were attached to our test PC’s Creative X-Fi soundcard. The participants listened to not only the three versions of their own track, but also the three tracks from each of the other participants, for a total of 12 tracks in all. Each participant was allowed to listen to each track as long as he or she could stand it, and was allowed to repeat portions of the track and do A/B testing with the other tracks.

They had four judges; their final scores were-
The Pluralist 6/12 correct
The Hipster 3/12 correct
The Curmudgeon 5/12 correct
The Audiophile 5/12 correct

 

[boead]

Not surprised.

I’ve said all along that good sounding MP3’s sound, umm – good.
And when people claim to be able to hear the difference between an AIFF and an Apple Lossless I just think; this is a prime example of placebo. Although it is possible that the software app used to decode and play the lossless file might be responsible for a subtle change compared to something completely virgin.

What I think might be a serious flaw in this ‘test’ is the hardware and its inability to reveal the differences.

I’m very familiar with the HD-580. They NEED lots of drive to work correctly and can be somewhat detail shy and fat in the bottom end if not given enough power. Without a proper amp to drive them the testers would have been better off using a Grado or a high end Sony headphone. Secondly, the X-Fi is just ok, nothing special. I’d had lots and lots of different audio cards and devices, most somewhat better then the X-Fi, These devices are not particularly revealing and the dreaded kmixer kernel doesn’t help.

If I did this same test with lets say a USB ‘off ramp” to an audiophile DAC or even with a nice sounding Scott Nixon USB Tube DAC or moded SB powered by a Single Power tube headphone amp driving the same HD-580’s I think ( I know) the difference would be clear.
Also, comparing a 160vbr to a 320vbr doesn’t’ make much sense since the 160 is right on the cusp of being good enough. They should have chosen a highly compresses 128k MP3 (the default setting for most apps people use) and a 320vbr with the least compression applied.

So what does this article teach? First (to me) it says that Hi Res Audio is doomed since the average person will NEVER be able to hear the differences between a downloaded MP3 and a lossless file. Secondly, that even on the high-consumer-end (the X-Fi) the average person will never have anything that is better then mediocre.

[ctviggen]

I don't know.  Listening to my iPod (which admittedly uses high compression) with my Grado and comparing the same songs on my home system, the home system completely blows away the iPod/Grado combination.  It'd be interesting to try a comparison on the home system with different compression rates.  I currenly use FLAC on the home system.

[JoshK]

Years ago, I did an A/B with various encodings of a few tracks that were tracks that I thought MP3 often screwed up.  It wasn't a blind test as I couldn't have done this myself that way.  But I tried 3 or 4 different rates between 100 and 320, plus a few encoders (fraunhofer, mp3-pro, etc).  I also compared this to direct CD played from my computer.  The soundcard was sent into my prepro (B&K). 

All the mp3 encoding screwed up the parts of the tracks that they always did no matter what the encoding, the CD was obvious to pick out.  If I tried this on any ol track, it wasn't easy to always tell.  I think the soundcard > pre/pro wasn't the best hi-fi resolving system, so I remember I tried a bit with my headphones into the soundcard but got bored fast.

[budyog]

So what does this article teach? First (to me) it says that Hi Res Audio is doomed since the average person will NEVER be able to hear the differences between a downloaded MP3 and a lossless file. Secondly, that even on the high-consumer-end (the X-Fi) the average person will never have anything that is better then mediocre.

I could not agree more with you Boead except I would add that I feel this way about a whole lot of things in life. I do believe that my kids kids will live and be satisfied with everything in life just mediocre! The state-of-art will die when we die. I hope I am wrong!