Test your ears - WAV vs various MP3

[wishtheend]

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

Yeah, hooking the TT preamp directly to the monitors would be best - I just have a bitch time disconnecting everything so it's easier to just route through the interface @ 96khz. Of course your way is more accurate to the signal

I'm actually finding a lot of vinyls where the vinyls sound so much better than the CD so I've also been ripping them and converting them to 24bit/48khz for ipod listening.

 

[John_C]

A and D have less high end, B and C have more, of which B is a little cleaner sounding, there are some high end artifacts audible in C.

The thing is,

I'm gonna go with A is 128 (less high end, more artifacts), D is 196 (less high end but less artifacts), C is 320 (more high end but some artifacts), B is WAV although i agree with ermz that there's still something a little strange going on there

 

[Melodeath]

My first instinct was that B sounded the cleanest, but the more I listened, the more they sounded the same (which is also consistent with what we know about hearing memory). And medically, I have excellent hearing. I'm going to try the test again later tonight. I've always been a proponent of "there isn't much difference, if any," though, tbh, in many aspects of audio

I've also been "training" my ears for mp3 for roughly 10 years. I listen to more mp3 than wav

 

[KHE]

haha i can`t notice a difference between all of them... a god or a bad thing?

 

[Mikaël-ange]

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.

Don't do it!!!
More seriously, try to record in 88,4 and dither back to 44,1 again record in 44,1.

 

[Soundlurker]

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.

How's your monitoring and room? The difference beween wav and mp3 is generally pretty huge in my treated room with the Adam a7s, whereas in my small control room with cheap monitors I could only say for sure that B sounds a bit better and D a bit worse.

 

[Morgan C]

How's your monitoring and room? The difference beween wav and mp3 is generally pretty huge in my treated room with the Adam a7s, whereas in my small control room with cheap monitors I could only say for sure that B sounds a bit better and D a bit worse.

You don't want to know. It seems to work though, people like my mixes, clients are happy.

I'll post the results in a day or so.

 

[P-E]

I don't know about your room but you have a fine taste in women.

 

[HeadCrusher]

Seems like I got two out of four:

B is the WAV
D is the worst

Not sure about the others.

Listening on AKG K240s.

 

[Scottxx]

For me...

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

 

[Audiosprite]

without listening yet i'm pretty sure B is the wav since it's the only one that's a different file size and modified at a different time...:Smokedev:

but i'll try it for real now

edit: yep B is the wav, C is the 320, A is the 192, D is the 128

 

[ThatGuitarGuy]

I'm using Beyerdynamic DT770 PRO headphones for this as I don't have a nice set of monitors.
Here's my go:
A 192
B WAV
C 320
D 128

The give away for me was actually the second clip where the guitar on the right comes in to harmonize with the riff on the left. The clarity of the notes really helped. It was really obvious on clip D with a weird wooshing/flangy whatever sound on the high end of the guitars. Really interesting. I have no idea how well I did though.

 

[dani]

Kinda hard to tell on headphones, but easy to tell with spectrum graph.

kinda defeats the purpose, no?

i'm fairly certain D is the 128kbit mp3. I can still hear some digital artifacts in A, so i'm guessing it's 192. honestly, there isn't much in it between B and C.

i'm interested to read the results.

thanks,

 

[Morgan C]

Results posted below, scroll up quickly to avoid..




































A lot of you were right. Anssi kind of gave it away -_-
A = 192kpbs
B = wav
C = 320kpbs
D = 128kpbs

The artifacts in the .wav may have come from my exporting it again as a 16bit wav, although this shouldn't degrade it should it, being lossless? Otherwise it was a direct rip from the CD, so it must be an issue in the original mix.

 

[Dexter_prog]

Thanks for this Morgan, it was quite interesting.

 

[Morgan C]

Thanks for this Morgan, it was quite interesting.

Np. I might try it with another album later on. Watershed is quite a dull mix so perhaps not the best for this comparison.

 

[Dexter_prog]

Is there any way to avoid being able to see the LP that mp3 files add?

 

[Morgan C]

Sorry, LP?

 

[Ermz]

Low-pass.

Another thanks for doing this test. It's good to know it isn't just placebo effect.

 

[Morgan C]

Still not quite understanding, how do you see the lowpass? Unless you've got one of those EQ visualisers on, in which case you could just turn it off?

I wanted to do this with Ayreon's 10101010101, really nice mix with a great high-end, especially with all the synths, but BOTH my CDs seemed to be scratched. I'll try get them working.