How Well Can You Hear Audio Quality?

[Archsam]

Actually the point of the test is more relevant than ever - if some of us are still unable to reliably pick out the 128kbps mp3 from the lossless WAV, what is the point of chasing ever higher sampling rates and higher resolution playback gears?

It's a uncomfortable thought, but the bottleneck in the whole audio reproduction chain might be my own ears, and all the better gears with more accurate frequency response and lower distortion won't make a big difference because my ears can't tell the difference.

When I came across the test I just casually listened with my old B&W P7 plugged into my laptop, so the sound quality is hardly top notch, but maybe I'm just fooling myself by blaming the gears

I also think some of today's studio mixes are to blame as well, especially on loud and bass heavy tracks being produced today. One example being Lana Del Rey, I have her Ultraviolence album in 24/44 Flac and I hear all sorts of clipping when listening my good setup.

Metallica is also infamous for the loudness war episode with the Death Magnetic album.

 

[Jimbob54]

Same here, the Coldplay track was the only one I picked the 128kbps mp3

Oh, couldnt pick it. It was just a terrible harsh recording

 

[PenguinMusic]

Hi there,

It looks like being now on ASR will save me some good money.

First, because I did not went for a super expensive DAC after reading here and there that some measure better than others but that for a vast majority of them, as long as they're decently engineered, they will all sound about the same.

Second because of Headphone amps. I would have gone for something more expensive, but left it after reading some reveiws, even though my own HP amp was not reviewed :-(

And now because of this... I used to believe that I could tell a difference between "high-res" and "standard res" and "low res" files. I made the test. And I must admit that my 50 years old ears allowed me not to check the "low res" files, but that it was more a wild guess to tell high-res from standard res apart. So I had about half answers "correct"...
Of course it may be because of my system : I am listening to music through my computer, that sens music to an AUNE X8 DAC that itself feeds an AUNE X7s HP Amp that in turn feeds Oppo PM-1 Headphones. The weakest part may be the OS : it is Linux and it uses PulseAudio that resamples everything to 16/44 so maybe that can also explain the difference...
So to make sure I downloaded the same album from the same site twice (Qobuz) : in Hi-Res and Standard-Res and, to make sure, downloaded the same from another site (Deezer). I then played those songs over ALSA (so no resampling). And there, again, almost impossible to tell apart hi-res from standard res... and of course, impossible to my ears to distinguish Qobuz from Deezer...
Now I will have my ears "washed" for the next 2/3 days and see if that allows to hear a differnece, but from this experience I can tell that, almost for sure, if there is a difference between Hi-Res and Standard res, it is in all ways subtle...

Regards

 

[Sal1950]

Now I will have my ears "washed" for the next 2/3 days and see if that allows to hear a differnece, but from this experience I can tell that, almost for sure, if there is a difference between Hi-Res and Standard res, it is in all ways subtle...

You are not alone, to quote Mark Waldrep of AIX Records
"I would challenge the authors (A WhatHiFi article) to take the HD-Audio Challenge II, the survey I created in 2019 to test whether hi-res is perceptible vs. CD-Audio spec audio. As most of you already know, the results showed that even experienced audiophiles and professional audio engineers using state-of-the art, expensive equipment did no better than a random coin toss at picking the native hi-res audio files."
https://www.realhd-audio.com/?p=6713
Personally I make no claims but I'm 70+ yo and can't hear shit. LOL But I do believe that a properly engineered 16/44.1 Redbook file is not audibly different from a 24/192 of the exact same master. Thats JMHO.

 

[PenguinMusic]

You are not alone, to quote Mark Waldrep of AIX Records
"I would challenge the authors (A WhatHiFi article) to take the HD-Audio Challenge II, the survey I created in 2019 to test whether hi-res is perceptible vs. CD-Audio spec audio. As most of you already know, the results showed that even experienced audiophiles and professional audio engineers using state-of-the art, expensive equipment did no better than a random coin toss at picking the native hi-res audio files."
https://www.realhd-audio.com/?p=6713
Personally I make no claims but I'm 70+ yo and can't hear shit. LOL But I do believe that a properly engineered 16/44.1 Redbook file is not audibly different from a 24/192 of the exact same master. Thats JMHO.

Hi,

Thanks for your answer.

Is it not funny that the guy who writes this is also the guy who founded a label that releases High-Res recordings in 24/96 ?

 

[abdo123]

That test has been around for while & it's a good test, but only if you understand how audio works. You can pick the difference with the tracks that have a good DR, but the others you can't, because as far as your ears are concerned, a DR4 sounds the same as an mp3.

that’s not how this works.

 

[Sal1950]

Is it not funny that the guy who writes this is also the guy who founded a label that releases High-Res recordings in 24/96 ?

Yep it is, but Mark's an honorable guy. A few years back he got deeply involved in the discussions over what is or is not a high rez recording and then the actual audibility of high rez. After a couple large internet listening tests revealed that it really was true that Redbook is all that needed, he published the results and let the cards fall where they may. Bias controled listening tests have shown many audio myths to be just that, myths. Funny how science has a way of killing voodoo ideas.
Since many of his recordings are on BluRay and have 2ch and a few 5.1 channel versions, it would be silly to waste all that space so everything is still in 24/96, the same data rate it was recorded in.
I have a lot of respect for that guy.

 

[Katji]

Jay-Z the Tidal gangster.

Actually the point of the test is more relevant than ever - if some of us are still unable to reliably pick out the 128kbps mp3 from the lossless WAV, what is the point of chasing ever higher sampling rates and higher resolution playback gears?

I don't, because most of the time I listen to Soundcloud and I'm not going to change that. So there's no point. I know already anyway. Some mixes sound crap, some sound fine, some releases sound better than others, it depends more on the production.

 

[David Harper]

I entered two url's into my internet radio player. One for the radio paradise MP3 stream and the other for the radio paradise FLAC stream.
I switched back and forth between them listening carefully for a half hour. There was nothing else in the audio chain at all the only thing that changed was the streams and the volumes seemed the same. The result was mostly that I couldn't discern any important difference. Any difference I thought I heard could have been expectation bias on my part. I don't know what the bitrate/codec of the MP3 stream was my player won't tell me that. But my take away was I don't care which one I'm listening to since blindfolded I don't think I could tell which was which.
My system is a Yammy aventage AVR( used as a pre), a Schiit Vidar amp, maggie LRS speakers. I receive internet radio with an amazon firestick. I was able to switch between streams very quickly. I'm an old guy so my hearing may suck I don't know that. In any case the difference wasn't worth bothering with. After extended listening the FLAC stream did sound very good but who knows why.

 

[MaxBuck]

Jay-Z the Tidal gangster.

I don't, because most of the time I listen to Soundcloud and I'm not going to change that. So there's no point. I know already anyway. Some mixes sound crap, some sound fine, some releases sound better than others, it depends more on the production.

What's become more evident to me as I get back to listening is that the recording engineer has hundreds or thousands of times more influence over the sound coming out of my speakers than the digital technology employed in compressing/decompressing the signal.

I'd much rather listen to an mp3 of a superb recording than MQA of a poor one.

 

[Sal1950]

I'd much rather listen to an mp3 of a superb recording than MQA of a poor one.

Friends don't let friends listen to MQA.

 

[Maxicut]

that’s not how this works.

Trust me, I know how it works. Do the test... you won't be able to pick the low DR ones