wow.

[CrawlingEye]

Originally posted by PinchyCM
i ripped a copy of that song off my CDs this time, and i still think i can tell at specific points, maybe the placebo effect . i asked my roommate, and he says he can tell a difference, and i didn't tell him which was which. i used a frew tracks off the evanescence cd btw, a great selection to show off the range in the klipschs. but whoever says they can't hear the diff between 160 between 320 is deaf. if you know anything about sampling, even if encoded right, you lose quality. i mean, you take a continious signal x(t), you take points from it discretly -> x(k),from a fixed interval T, and you lose parts of it. oh, and i have fantastic hearing.

The point that was made was this:

Yes the format is lossy; however, there shouldn't be any audible distortion as a by-product of this. At certain bitrates, the differences between the reference source and the mp3 become inaudible. Having good hearing and hearing things that aren't physically possible are two different things.

Some people have noticed differences between songs ripped at 192 kbps and the reference, but not anyone that I've heard of has noticed any audible differences between any 200+ kbps bitrate mp3's that are properly encoded and the reference source. This is people using headphone systems like HD 600's with meta 42 amps.

Unless you have freakishly accurate hearing, you shouldn't be able to hear this. Even 'freakishly accurate' is an understatement.

[PinchyCM]

Originally posted by CrawlingEye
The point that was made was this:

Yes the format is lossy; however, there shouldn't be any audible distortion as a by-product of this. At certain bitrates, the differences between the reference source and the mp3 become inaudible. Having good hearing and hearing things that aren't physically possible are two different things.

Some people have noticed differences between songs ripped at 192 kbps and the reference, but not anyone that I've heard of has noticed any audible differences between any 200+ kbps bitrate mp3's that are properly encoded and the reference source. This is people using headphone systems like HD 600's with meta 42 amps.

Unless you have freakishly accurate hearing, you shouldn't be able to hear this. Even 'freakishly accurate' is an understatement.

i think i really used the wrong word. by distortion, i mean i can hear things i never herad before in higher bitrates, the sound isn't scratchy at higher volumes (which could be a result of hardware limitations), and the bass is muddier.

[PinchyCM]

haha. freak hearing. score.

[coolqf]

Originally posted by PinchyCM
i ripped a copy of that song off my CDs this time, and i still think i can tell at specific points, maybe the placebo effect . i asked my roommate, and he says he can tell a difference, and i didn't tell him which was which. i used a frew tracks off the evanescence cd btw, a great selection to show off the range in the klipschs. but whoever says they can't hear the diff between 160 between 320 is deaf. if you know anything about sampling, even if encoded right, you lose quality. i mean, you take a continious signal x(t), you take points from it discretly -> x(k),from a fixed interval T, and you lose parts of it. oh, and i have fantastic hearing.

I happen to know quite a beat about sampling. Although if we change the argument to what you want it to be, which is 'whether quality is lost or not' then it's a pointless argument. Of course quality is lost. The argument is if you can really tell the difference between a well ripped CD song to 320 or is it more of a bias. Taking your route of learning this is simply to abstract because we never really put the individual to the test. Why not truly experiment with this and do a quasi-experimental study to truly find out. This way we'll find out to what degree you can tell the different between a well encoded 320 and the original CD. Again, my argument is to what degree you truly tell the difference between a well encoded 320 and the original CD.

Come on Pinchy, give me a true argumentative challenge, stop limiting yourself to what the core classes in your major/school are teaching you.

[PinchyCM]

Originally posted by coolqf
Again, my argument is to what degree you truly tell the difference between a well encoded 320 and the original CD.

answer to that is yea, but it's minimal, but i was just trying to prove that there is quite some difference between a say, a 192 to 320. i can definitely hear the difference between a 192 and a 320. some people are saying that you can't tell the difference.

[Swerv]

" but i was just trying to prove that there is quite some difference between a say, a 192 to 320. i can definitely hear the difference between a 192 and a 320. some people are saying that you can't tell the difference."

sorry pinchy thats ********. there is not quite some difference, ask anyone whos properly recorded at 192 and at 320 the difference is so slight its BARELY noticeable.

[CrawlingEye]

Originally posted by Swerv
" but i was just trying to prove that there is quite some difference between a say, a 192 to 320. i can definitely hear the difference between a 192 and a 320. some people are saying that you can't tell the difference."

sorry pinchy thats ********. there is not quite some difference, ask anyone whos properly recorded at 192 and at 320 the difference is so slight its BARELY noticeable.

In some songs I have there is a noticable difference in quality between 128kbps and 192kbps (you can tell that the 'energy of the song' is lacking. Essentially just like dynamic compression.) however with that high of quality mp3's, I agree that it could be noticable but the extent of it would be like hearing one mishap in a fretless bass player. It's hardly noiticable and with most any source, you're not going to hear it.

[PinchyCM]

some and barley noticable is relative. that, and we can factor in bad rips. you guys are like stubborn mules!

[Isezumi]

Yeah, so here I am listening to 2 different versions of A Perfect Circle-Noose.

Wav. ripped via EAC
192 bps MP3 via dB PowerAMP Lame (encoded from the Afore mentioned Wav file)
320 bps MP3 via dB PowerAMP Lame (encoded from the Afore mentioend Wav file)

Through Audigy 2 and Senneheiser HD 535's and the Latest Version of Cool Player.

After just one play through I can tell differences between the 192 and 320 rip vs. the Wav mostly from characteristic nuiances in instraments like guitar string twang and snare drum rattle and some minor differences in voice undulations.

Some parts of Maynard vocals in the chorus are harsher on the entry (when he produces hard accentuation in charactrts like the "A" in halo or "S" in slipping) with the 320 rip...some of it disappears in the 192 rip. I am assuming this is from just having less data on the sample. However at 192 there are times when Maynards voice is given an uncharacteristic ceiling or a flatness, this is mostly when he is singing on top of a lot of additional instaramentation so I am going to attribute it to simply not having a high enough sample rate to cover ALL the data (relatively minor occurence at this bit rate). As a wav the intro seems more airy and rolling, something that was lacking in varying degrees in both the encoded rips. Also some minor difference in instrament tone between the MP3's and the Wav and white noise is a little more pronounced in the MP3's.

99% of the differences that I noticed would go utterly un-noticed if I was using my Polks and not the Sennes. God only knows what I would hear had I a more precise set of cans (good or bad).

[coolqf]

Originally posted by PinchyCM
i can still hear distortion in songs that are ripped in 320. just a thought.

Good call Isezumi, Although I must say that the above 'thought' is where the argument lies. Hence the comparison between a song ripped to 320 and the original wav file.
The key isn't so much. The better way to test it is to put at least 5 different songs into the play list, in both t the 320 MP3 and the WAV file. Set it to play in random and listen to it repeatedly. If by the end you can't tell the difference.... Well, that's an interesting conclusion to reach....

Knowing and not knowing which is which is of great importance....

[Isezumi]

Well,

I tried to abuse the system as best I could to not make it easily subjectifiable...for gave all three files the same name, this is only really helps to blur the MP3's from each other, since the list shows file extensions I had no way to "hide" the wave file. I then hand scrambled the play list for about 3 minutes. I sent cool player to the task bar so it was showing no titles or quality information, started the play list, then left and took a long drive to Jack in the Box to get a late night snack, Since I couldn't keep a truely randomized playlist with only three songs I would just enter listening to the play list at a random point in time.

Of course i had to test listen to each song after I encoded it just to make sure that the encode was clean and free from any unecessary artifacts.