Quote:
Originally Posted by toretorden
Again, people who claim they can hear a difference - that's not really the question. So you can hear a difference between 192 and 256 - given 10 songs ripped in 192 and 256, could you tell which was which for the different songs with significance beyond the 50% chance you'll be correct for each attempt?
I mean that's what you have to ask yourself - not whether or not you can hear a difference. You could even play the same file to someone twice, tell them the BR is different when it's not and they'll come up with differences when there are none. Such is the human error.
When testing yourself, you have to know :
1. What are you after? You wanna be able to identify the higher quality file.
2. Your own weaknesses/error/bias as a human being. That's what blind tests are for, removing that error.
Sitting down listening to two files knowing the BR of both is likely not a reliable way to test this.
edit :
It's like my GF claimed she preferred Pepsi Max to Coke Zero .. I made her do a blind test. Know which one she preferred? Coka Cola Zero  Sometimes, people trust themselves too much. |
Well I've done that before with a friend, trying to find out how high quality we really needed to rip cds. I could hear the difference between 192 and 256 every time, but after that point couldn't tell. So it's definitely identifiable, the thing is it's not a big enough difference that I actually care. I rip cds at 256, and download whatever I can find but preferrably 192 or better.
And noise, it definitely doesn't make you an idiot. I'm not arguing that a digital recording of a record will or should sound any better than an mp3 file. What I meant is that it's no longer an analog recording if you rip it to mp3. At that point, the music is digital. I was talking a comparison of an actual record played through speakers from a turntable versus an mp3 compressed file played through the same speakers on an mp3 player or computer or whatever. I definitely think the vinyl sounds a lot better.