SO YOU THINK YOU CAN HEAR THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MP3 AND UNCOMPRESSED AUDIO

Erik

Erik

New Metal Member
Oct 10, 2001
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southernmost voyage
i've designed a little test because i'm tired of people going "oh no don't judge this by 192 kbps mp3, unless you hear it on cd you can't talk about the production blah blah i don't know shit" -- so here's your chance to show that you know what you're talking about (or not).

this file contains 5 clips of an album generally considered well-produced (iron maiden - seventh son of a seventh son) in these 5 qualities:

1. 128 kbps constant bit rate mp3
2. 160 kbps constant bit rate mp3
3. 192 kbps constant bit rate mp3
4. --alt-preset standard variable bit rate mp3
5. uncompressed audio

of course, not in that order. listen well to these and post your guesses of which order the clips come in. after i get a few answers, i will post the correct ones.

download here:
FLAC format (16M)
WAV, zipped (22M)

do it it will be fun :)
 
Authentic Metalhead said:
There is definitely a difference, but not enough to make me feel like 192 K is better than 64 K. I mostly download my shit in 64 because it's a lot smaller and the sound quality is more or less the same to me.
Click to expand...
well that just means you're basically fucking deaf. 64K is absolutely terrible. i didn't even include anything lower than 128 in the test because it would be obvious to pretty much anyone, sorry
 
I rip everything at 128 because I don't hear a significant difference between that and 192, so I fully support your test, Erik Grahn.
 
1. 128 kbps constant bit rate mp3
2. 192 kbps constant bit rate mp3
3. --alt-preset standard variable bit rate mp3
4. uncompressed audio
5. 160 kbps constant bit rate mp3

I couldn't tell shit really though.
 
I would take it, but I don't have a program that plays FLACs. I honestly don't see what the big deal is. I rip everything at 192kbps and it sounds just like the CD to me. I used to rip at 320 but the sound doesn't make a huge difference to me between that and 192.


P.S. 64 is fucking terrible. Has holes in it and everything.
 
A lot also depends on the quality of the speakers that you're using to listen to the MP3s. If you use a small pair of PC speakers or something you probably won't notice any difference at all. If you have your computer hooked up to an expensive 500 watt system with an equalizer the difference in quality becomes much more apparent.

As an experiment take the best stereo/speakers you own and burn two copies of the same album, one in 128k MP3s and one in 192k MP3s and listen to them both through the same stereo. If you have decent hearing you should notice a clear difference.
 
I have a quality set of surround sound speakers with my computer, if I could hear differences at all I would be able to hear it on my computer.
 
you could use google

--alt-preset standard is the "recommended" setting for the LAME encoder for most material, in practice it is around 180-200 kbps at most times and it is the format that most mp3 releases by "release groups" are in these days

also no, iron maiden does not use a "limited range of frequencies". i'll grant you that they (and most metal) use less DYNAMIC RANGE than classical music. metal is what we discuss here, though
 
I actually did a small experiment like this yesterday. I can definitely tell a difference between 128 and 192. Can't tell between 192 and 320 or VBR.
 
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