Test your ears - WAV vs various MP3

[Morgan C]

I struggle to hear the difference between WAV's and Mp3's, so I'm just making this to see how many of you truly can hear the difference and who's just claiming they can.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/324723/Raw Audio.rar (give it 5 mins to upload)

Minute long segment, some loud bits, some vocals (forgot this song didn't have real vocals) and some quiet bits.
All I did was rip the WAV from the CD, convert it into 3 separate mp3's, import all 4 into Sonar, realign them (mp3 conversion added a bit of delay) and exported them individually as 16bit 44.1khz stereo wav's with no dithering. So even the WAV has a touch of degradation from being converted again, but it should be minimal.

4 choices:
WAV
320kpbs
192kpbs
128kpbs

Post which you think is which, and the poll is which file you think is the WAV.

 

[Erik Monsonis]

Can't really tell any significant difference, though I'd say:

A - mp3 320
B - mp3 192
C - WAV
D - mp3 128

 

[Josh M.]

D definately sounds the shittiest, but I can't really tell between A, B and C that much.

I would have to say A-Wav, C-320Kbps and B-192Kbps and D-128Kbps

Plus I have a cough/congestion, so I can't hear properly.

 

[paladin shredder]

Can't really tell any significant difference, though I'd say:

A - mp3 320
B - mp3 192
C - WAV
D - mp3 128

+1

yeah, seems like the conversion only affects whats above 16k

 

[Harry Hughes]

A - 192kbps
B - Wav
C - 320kbps
D - 128kbps

 

[Habsburgs]

A- 320
B- Wav
C- 192
D- 128

HARD

 

[arv_foh]

B is the WAV. C is 320. A is 192. D is 128. I'm pretty confident about that.

 

[guitarguru777]

yup I agree with Arv on this one.

 

[ahjteam]

Kinda hard to tell on headphones, but easy to tell with spectrum graph. A stops at 18khz, B goes beyond 20khz, C stops at 20khz, D stops at 16khz. Since mp3 introduces a lowpass filter, I came to this conclusion and I'm 95% sure about this:

A - 192
B - WAV
C - 320
D - 128

 

[FIXXXER]

sounds all the same to me

 

[Ermz]

+1 to everyone else.

A - 192
B - WAV
C - 320
D - 128

I'm still hearing some weirdness in the cymbals on even B. At that point it could have to do with my general indifference to the mix on the album, lossless or not. But it does sound relatively consistent with my FLAC-rip version of the record on here, and it does seem to have the most detail retained.

From listening to them I'd judge their appropriate use as such:

D - Terrible, never do it. If you cant hear the loss get you ears checked immediately.
A - Good candidate for mobile devices with stock, low-end ear buds.
C - Good candidate for streaming web audio for consumer playback devices (ie. pc speakers etc.)
B - Standard option. But the highs do still bother me a touch here. Could be mix processing, I dunno...

If B really is the wav then i have to try some 24/96 stuff on these monitors. It feels like they still have some fidelity left to give.

 

[ahjteam]

D - Terrible, never do it. If you cant hear the loss get you ears checked immediately.

I tried B/D testing it and I honestly didn't hear the difference in the high end with headphones, loud or quiet. but I was also sick yesterday so that might also be one the reasons. Also the HD25 headphones are really dark sounding headphones anyway and meant more for loud enviroments like FOH mixing or DJing.

 

[Morgan C]

Yeah I can't hear a difference between any of them (doing it blind). Hopefully it's because I've come down with a pretty bad cold, otherwise my couple of years of drumming without earplugs really fucked me up.

 

[diafebus]

practically the same here…
where i can here differences is on the bass definition between D-A and B-C(those sound more
… maybe acoustics room can affect to audio definition too… im in krk rp6

anyway
I downloaded NIN album THE SLIP which you can download for free at their webpage and its available at 96khz 24bit and there i can really hear the difference between 96khz 24bit vs 320kbps mp3 or wav. (the music sound much more alive at 96khz)

 

[ratsapprentice]

A - 320
B - WAV
C- 192
D- 128

 

[Ermz]

I have to admit I've never heard anything in 96kHz. I need to grab some extra ADAT cables, and give the ADI-8 the double data rate so I can actually play the format back across all 8 channels.

 

[Dexter_prog]

(didn't read any replies in case of spoilers)

Nice stuff, man, but next time you should throw vbr in V0, V1, V2, so that there are more variables

edit: listened to the files:

A: 192
B: 320/wav
C: 320/wav
D: 128



I have regular speakers (Edifier R1000) and not studio monitors.

I didn't vote on the poll as I can't distinguish between 320 and a wav file. I could barelly hear the difference between D and the rest and for some reason I felt A was closer to D, that's why I thought it was the 192kbps one.

easy to tell with spectrum graph. A stops at 18khz, B goes beyond 20khz, C stops at 20khz, D stops at 16khz.

Man, that's not the idea of a blind test.

 

[wishtheend]

In regards to 96khz, also check out Radiohead's Kid A and Nine Inch Nails Ghosts I-IV. Also if you have some nice vinyls, hook up your turntable and listen to it with your interface clocked to 96khz.

 

[diafebus]

anyway, if our ears can only listen to 17khz-19khz it should be barely difficult to hear difference between 192kbps mp3 to 44.1khz audio right? the biggest difference audible I think is between 16bit and 24bit.
that is much more noticeable that 320 to wav or even 256 to 320 or to wav because the audio information is more clean and bright.
anyway i'd like to know if room can affect to that thing… with my sony i don't hear that difference at all, I supose that i know much more how do my speakers sound than my headphones which i use less. (sony mdr 7509HD)

 

[Skaldir]

In regards to 96khz, also check out Radiohead's Kid A and Nine Inch Nails Ghosts I-IV. Also if you have some nice vinyls, hook up your turntable and listen to it with your interface clocked to 96khz.

Why should you convert your vinyl AD and back when you can just connect it directly with your stereo or monitors?