How well can you hear audio quality?

[Mr Janny]

certainly this has something to do with the speakers you're listening on, but it's interesting.

http://www.npr.org/sections/therecord/2015/06/02/411473508/how-well-can-you-hear-audio-quality

 

[Mr Janny]

for the record, I got 2 of 6 right, but I guessed on all of them. I had a hard time discerning any difference.

 

[SerenityNow]

for the record, I got 2 of 6 right, but I guessed on all of them. I had a hard time discerning any difference.

Got 3 of 6, but felt like I guessed on them as well. I could discern a little difference on the Suzanne Vega track and the Mozard track.

 

[pulse]

That was interesting. I used headphones on my phone and mostly picked 320, which is apropos because that is what I rip at.

I'll have to try again through my receiver.

 

[MeowingCows]

5/6. Got Screwed by Jay-Z. And tiny computer speakers.

 

[Acylum]

There were a couple I thought were fairly obvious. I got 5/6, missed the orchestral one (#5?). I could usually eliminate one, and then guessed on most of them.

 

[pulse]

Did better through my receiver. Have try one more time on home theater system.

 

[Iastfan112]

Never picked 128, degradation was fairly evident there. Had a much more difficult time between 320 and uncompressed. My headset isn't exactly high end or high quality so that's probably at least part of the issue. 4/6 but 2 of those were coin flips.

 

[SNEDDS3]

I got 2 of 6 but it's probably because I've been spending too much time in the yelling thread.

 

[tzjung]

6/6 biotches! :smile:

Home theater system FTW!

 

[ISUcyclones11]

#5 was the only one I could actually tell the difference on

 

[Gorm]

I'm going to have to pipe these into my 2 channel system in the listening room.

Current setup is Logitech Squeezebox with enhanced 192k Software, then Jolida tube DAC, then McIntosh C22, then McIntosh MC240. Thats being piped into extremely sensitive and transparent custom built speakers.

With that system, I can hear the compression in 320k files vs FLACs. However on my computer system, I cannot.

 

[DJSteve]

I got 5/6 using my DJ headphones (Sennheiser HD280 pros--good, but not exactly "hi-fi" as they're somewhat more optimized for isolation than absolute pristine sound quality)

This is probably a decent real world test, but I was a little bit miffed that they put the portions of the song where you were likely to be able to tell a difference ("clean" sections with strong high frequency content) consistently toward the end with no way to fast forward. So you have to listen to the whole clip and remember what it sounded like rather than being able to A/B directly.

The one I missed was Coldplay. There seemed to be artifacts in both the 320 kbps and WAV which were not present in the 128 kbps... not sure if that was something weird with my computer/sound card or if it was just weirdness that was in the original recording that got averaged out with the lower bitrate.

 

[oldman]

2/5 but I guessed on all of them. I shut JayZ off after 5 seconds of sample 1--must be showing my age.

Last year, after wifeypoo demanded I get my hearing checked, the doc's aide declared me deaf.

Probably listened to Neil Young's Harvest too loud in my youth.

 

[Angie]

I have crap hearing in my left ear - no clue if that's only why I got one right.

 

[mj4cy]

Used crappy stock receivers from a computer 10 years ago and got 3 out of 6. Wish I had my really nice headphones...most I guessed on, but interesting nonetheless.

 

[ArgentCy]

Only got 1 out of 6, must be getting older but I have pretty crap computer speakers hooked up. Also have had tinnitus off and on for some time so the high end goes first, as you get older. I did pick the 320k 4 of 6 times.

This is a big reason why an expensive streaming service will not be a big hit, there aren't many audiophiles out there like the artists.

 

[ShopTalk]

I have crap hearing in my left ear - no clue if that's only why I got one right.

You can hear crap with your left ear? I'm sure there's a research study waiting to find you.

 

[jdoggivjc]

First time around I listened using my laptop speakers (which are supposed to be decent) and got 0 out of 6.

Second time around I listened with my headphones plugged into my laptop and got 4 of 6.

I do know one clue is listen to the bass. MP3s absolutely killed the bass of my Chevelle CDs (especially the Wonder What's Next CD, which has incredible bass sounds, and sounded incredible off the Monsoon sound system in my Pontiac Grand Prix a decade ago) when I converted them into MP3.