For those who can hear a difference between Wav/AIFF/FLAC

[Rothchild]

Science needs you!

Please enroll for this simple 10 minute test to demonstrate that it's actually possible:

http://www.trustmeimascientist.com/2...ist-challenge/

They've made it really easy for you as you'll 'only' be spotting the difference between a 320kbs Mp3 and a 16bit 44.1 wav (or higher resolution) which for anyone capable of hearing the difference between wav and aiff (for instance) should be a freaking doddle. They'll help out by supplying the files (of music of your choosing) you can use your own prefered system and you can practice as much as you like. You can use Foobar's ABX tool or there's a neat open source tool here: http://abx-comparator.berlios.de/

Now is the chance to put all those terrible, cynical neighsayers in their place and prove once and for all that it really does matter and that it's clearly audible.

There's a nice follow up piece here: http://www.trustmeimascientist.com/2...mount-everest/ which you'll also have the opportunity to prove wrong.

NB: I appreciate that they've used an 'offensive' term in the title of their article but I beg that you don't let it distract you from the chance to settle this debate once and for all and prove that there is a difference that you can repeatably hear.

I'm not sure that I will hear a difference but in the spirit of investigation I'm going to take the test and see how I do, I urge you to also. The greater the body of research the better the quality of the claims it's able to make.

[Ali Tait]

I doubt anyone can tell the difference reliably TBH.

[SteveTheShadow]

TBH my CD collection lies idle as I have no CD player. I have ripped the ones I want, including a 20th Anniversary edition of Floyd's DSOTM. This is a CD I had forgotten all about. I only found it after I had bought the download from iTunes.
I have tried a few times to A/B the two recordings.
There is no difference whatsoever, between 256K AAC and 16/44.1 that I can hear.

I used to believe I could hear big differences. I was fooling myself and am no longer ashamed to admit it. There are far greater audible differences between digital music server/software, amps, DACs and speakers than there are between format resolutions. The recording is the least of our worries, when it comes to high quality audio. Of course vinyl is reckoned to be the ultimate high resolution format, but I continue to loathe and despise it and have never been afraid to say so.

My listening these days is almost exclusively 256K AAC iTunes plus a number of 320K Mp3 downloads and I don't feel I am missing anything.

JRiver Media Center for Mac reports over 17,000 songs in my library, and a large number of my jazz, blues and classical, recordings have stunning sound quality, whilst the rest are perfectly good.

There go all my hi-fi credentials and therefore anything I might say can now be considered unworthy of even cursory attention.

But I couldn't give a monkeys TBH.

[struth]

I believe I can tell the difference, but who knows, I could be fooling myself.....dont need to prove it though.I will stick to flac thanks.....

[Yomanze]

I am definitely missing enough between lossless / WAV / AIFF and 320kbps as I found during my 100% confidence tests using Foobar2000's ABX plugin. However I did also find that I could spot the difference between FLAC and WAV using the same plugin, but I quickly 'fatigued' and I repeatedly found that I could spot the differences at first, but then started drawing blanks. ABX tests often have too poor conditions to cater for our extremely poor and rapidly fading auditory memory, but if you can instantly switch it makes things a whole lot more meaningful a test.

[Reffc]

[StanleyB]

You can use Foobar's ABX tool or there's a neat open source tool here: http://abx-comparator.berlios.de/

Is Foobar the only option as far as the decoding medium is concerned, and how accurate is it? A chain is after all only as good as its weakest link, and the quality of decoding and playback is of the utmost importance in such a test. Messing around with ASIO and WASAPI for different audio players is the stuff of legends. No two people can agree which driver, decoder, or audio player is more accurate. That in turn will impact on the accuracy of any set of files that is run through them.
I don't use Foobar myself. I think it is lousy. But if there is a Media monkey ABX plug-in I am up for the challenge.

[Rothchild]

A chain is after all only as good as its weakest link, and the quality of decoding and playback is of the utmost importance in such a test..... That in turn will impact on the accuracy of any set of files that is run through them.

Sorry for clipping your quote, I hope I'm not changing your sense too much, but I have to ask if you're seriously suggesting that you'll only be able to hear the difference between a 320Kbs Mp3 and a Redbook Wav using a particular player? Or that Foobar is so poorly/well implemented that it makes a wav sound like an Mp3 (of visa versa)?

It seems that many who have an interest in this arena are moving to citing differences in ever increasingly esoteric places. Yet people have claimed on these very boards that there is a repeatably recognisable difference between Wav/FLAC/AIFF yet there's a dearth of takers when presented with an opportunity to shut up every single neighsayer on the internet (and have a flattering article written about you) with what must to these folk be a comparatively easy test; to spot the difference between an Mp3 and a straight PCM Wav. The people who publicly make the claims should have no problem publicly proving them, surely?

It's such a great chance to put this stupid debate to bed once and for all, why can't we find amongst our hallowed ranks even just one person to put the cat out in to the pigeon field?

[Macca]

I'll have a go at the weekend. I reckon I can tell the difference even through my cheap little powered PC speakers. Of course I could be disasterously wrong about that and I'll be happy to admit it if I am.

[Clive]

The difference between 320kbps pretty small it has to be said. If someone knows what to listen for then it should be possible to hear a difference to the tails of hf sounds but this would be much easier with lower bit rate mp3.

If the challenge had been about different versions of the experimental MQn player, this would have been a far easier test. It's a bind test I have taken and have run with 4 individuals.