RaynorWolfcastle's Audio Face-off

[Gurck]

Originally posted by: Dubb
Like I said in the other thread, I don't think the Biggie, and maybe the talent & wagner (depending) are recorded well enough to tell the difference at 320. I've only DL'ed the gabriel so far, and I think I've got that, but I'm going to give it a second round in a bit, just to be sure.

I'll post a best guess for all four, but I may have to do a fair bit of guessing in some places. I'd be highly surprised if somebody using even the best system could nail all four, just due to the sources.

Good point, not all studios are the same. For future reference (in case you decide to do this again), the Dave Matthews Band has some of the cleanest recordings I've come across, especially on the Crash CD.

Originally posted by: RaynorWolfcastle
So is anyone here brave enough to post their results yet?

Sure. As I've said, 320bit is a very good approximation of CD quality, I'm not an audiophile and my setup is very modest, about as cheap as a beginning/moderate enthusiast can go. Further, I think it would help to do this with music I know well and love. Keeping all that in mind, I'm probably wrong on at least two counts, and very likely 4 Again, I'm kernel streaming an envy24 -> Sennheiser hd280s. Anyway, here goes:

Biggie - 3
Billy Talent - 4
Wagner - 3
Peter Gabriel - I honestly have no idea. I'll say 3

I'm most confident in my guess on Billy Talent, closely followed by Wagner. Biggie is very iffy, and I'm doing little more than guessing on Peter Gabriel.

 

[RaynorWolfcastle]

I ran some quick probablilities to give you an idea of predicted results based on random numbers. If no one can tell a difference and they are just guessing:
- There's approximately 68% chance that they get at least one correct response out of four
- There's approximately 42% chance that they have exactly one answer right
- There's approximately 21% chance that they have exactly two answers right
- There's approximately 4.7% chance that they have exactly three answers right
- There's approximately 0.4% chance that they guess all four correctly

So anyone getting 3 or 4 right is almost certainly telling the truth, getting two right is a little iffy, getting one or zero right means they're probably guessing.

 

[Amused]

I was expecting audio of the Simpson's character.

I'm very disappointed.

 

[mugs]

Originally posted by: RaynorWolfcastle
I ran some quick probablilities to give you an idea of predicted results based on random numbers. If no one can tell a difference and they are just guessing:
- There's approximately 68% chance that they get at least one correct response out of four
- There's approximately 42% chance that they have exactly one answer right
- There's approximately 21% chance that they have exactly two answers right
- There's approximately 4.7% chance that they have exactly three answers right
- There's approximately 0.4% chance that they guess all four correctly

So anyone getting 3 or 4 right is almost certainly telling the truth, getting two right is a little iffy, getting one or zero right means they're probably guessing.

Fixed

 

[BigToque]

My answers are as follows:

Big: #1
Billy: #4
Wagner: #3
Gabriel: #2

 

[brigden]

If you're all having to listen and re-listen to make an educated guess, what's the point of touting one format over the other?

 

[Gurck]

Originally posted by: brigden
If you're all having to listen and re-listen to make an educated guess, what's the point of touting one format over the other?

The benefits of lossless were gone over in the other thread; sound quality is only one of them.

 

[brigden]

Originally posted by: Gurck

Originally posted by: brigden
If you're all having to listen and re-listen to make an educated guess, what's the point of touting one format over the other?

The benefits of lossless were gone over in the other thread; sound quality is only one of them.

But if one can't tell the difference, how does one claim the sound quality is better?

 

[Acanthus]

Originally posted by: Amused
I was expecting audio of the Simpson's character.

I'm very disappointed.

me too

 

[Gurck]

Originally posted by: brigden

Originally posted by: Gurck

Originally posted by: brigden
If you're all having to listen and re-listen to make an educated guess, what's the point of touting one format over the other?

The benefits of lossless were gone over in the other thread; sound quality is only one of them.

But if one can't tell the difference, how does one claim the sound quality is better?

Like I said, almost everyone reading this thread is using low to low/mid grade equipment. The difference is there, it's just not as apparent without mid-high end gear. This thread is also comparing 320bit lossy to lossless, when the average lossy encode is at 128bit. Lastly, a lossless copy allows you to reencode freely as your interest and equipment change; it gives you more options.

 

[brigden]

Originally posted by: Gurck

Originally posted by: brigden

Originally posted by: Gurck

Originally posted by: brigden
If you're all having to listen and re-listen to make an educated guess, what's the point of touting one format over the other?

The benefits of lossless were gone over in the other thread; sound quality is only one of them.

But if one can't tell the difference, how does one claim the sound quality is better?

Like I said, almost everyone reading this thread is using low to low/mid grade equipment. The difference is there, it's just not as apparent without mid-high end gear. This thread is also comparing 320bit lossy to lossless, when the average lossy encode is at 128bit. Lastly, a lossless copy allows you to reencode freely as your interest and equipment change; it gives you more options.

All very valid reasons for using the lossless format. I'd be interested to know how many people who swear by lossless listen to the music on average equipment for simple entertainment purposes.

 

[Gurck]

Originally posted by: brigden

Originally posted by: Gurck

Originally posted by: brigden

Originally posted by: Gurck

Originally posted by: brigden
If you're all having to listen and re-listen to make an educated guess, what's the point of touting one format over the other?

The benefits of lossless were gone over in the other thread; sound quality is only one of them.

But if one can't tell the difference, how does one claim the sound quality is better?

Like I said, almost everyone reading this thread is using low to low/mid grade equipment. The difference is there, it's just not as apparent without mid-high end gear. This thread is also comparing 320bit lossy to lossless, when the average lossy encode is at 128bit. Lastly, a lossless copy allows you to reencode freely as your interest and equipment change; it gives you more options.

All very valid reasons for using the lossless format. I'd be interested to know how many people who swear by lossless listen to the music on average equipment for simple entertainment purposes.

I encode my favorite CDs to it (about 8 or so), the other ~400 are in mostly 192bit ogg.

 

[RaynorWolfcastle]

A little more info, for the engineers and the mathematically inclined:
I had a little time to kill so I ran the original and the worst compressor through a little matlab code. The mean SNR of aprox. 35 dB, so the compression noise is on average about 60 times smaller than the music itself. Obviously this is a mean SNR so there are portions where the difference is much more significant.

The maximum difference between the compressed and the uncompressed is about 10% as big as the peak signal level, so in some areas it is very signficant. Realistically though, this large difference is probably in areas where the codec is taking masking effects into the account and you probably won't hear it anyway.

I also compressed tested the same track using LAME and --alt-preset standard. This yields an SNR of 26.7dB, which is still pretty large.

Here are the SNR graphs, for those interested:
The original track is in blue, the compressed track is in red and the green is the absolute difference between the two.
LAME @ insane
LAME @ standard

 

[RaynorWolfcastle]

Bump for the morning crowd

 

[Dubb]

Can you wait till this evening to post the answers? The female who allows me to associate with her zonked out early yesterday evening, so I haven't had a chance to run through all these yet. (didn't want the stereo to wake her)

 

[HonkeyDonk]

Originally posted by: Gurck

Originally posted by: HonkeyDonk

Originally posted by: Kyteland
The problem with your poll is that you wanted to do the doubleblind thing on audiophiles. Most of the people voting here won't fit that bill. I know I sure don't. All your poll is going to prove is that your average computer user can't tell the difference. The "audiophile" result will just be lost in the mix.

You really need a way to restrict who is voting.

that's why audiophiles like yourself should make a post as well as vote so that we the OP can see what you guys got right or wrong.

...

me thinks my reading comprehension has gone down a few notches.

 

[Dubb]

Ok, got some listening in during lunch.

System is:

Flac>winamp> RME Hammerfall DSP> Hammerfall Multiface > Linn Majik > Linn LK140 > Sonus Faber Grand piano home.

My take:

Biggie

I didn't spend much time with this one - it's not really my kind of music. The "cymbals" on 1 and 4 sound a little off of the master, I can't hear anything off on 2 or 3. For the poll I put 2

Talent

This one has alot of the usual "mastered for radio" problems, it's pretty overblown and crappily mixed/recorded all around. the opening guitar is probably the best spot, but it's still damn hard to find anything off. Best guess I have is 3, and that's a real longshot guess. I'm pretty sure it's not 1.

Wagner

I've heard better recorded classical albums, I've heard worse. Based on the opening strings, I'm going to say 1 is the lossless. 4 maybe. But again it's all very close, and I very well expect to be wrong here.

Gabriel

I better get this one right, I know the music very well. 2 and 3 sound identical to the master, so I'm going to go out on a limb, be resolute and say 2 and 3 are both lossless. And just for kicks, since in my experience AAC sounds slightly cleaner than MP3 at the same bitrate, I'm calling 1 the MP3 and 4 the AAC. if that's all correct, i'll be stoked.


Well?

 

[RaynorWolfcastle]

Very nice setup Dubb!
I'll post the answer key at 7:00pm or so, to give anyone else that wants to try this out a chance to listen in.

I'm glad that you picked up on the percussions in the Biggie track, I figured that would give the codecs some difficulty especially since they are quite sharp and come up very often. The guitar on the Talent track, I also thought might give listeners a chance, though I can't personally hear the difference.

I picked up some "problem samples" from Hydrogen Audio forum for my next shootout which will be regarding AAC and Vorbis transparency.

 

[RaynorWolfcastle]

Answer key is up

 

[Gurck]

Ouch, 1/4 and it was the one I was guessing on *eyeballs a pair of Senn 650s*

 

[MrBond]

Someone did a (much simpler) version of this test a couple years ago. Most people were wrong then too .

 

[MikeMike]

Originally posted by: RaynorWolfcastle
Answer key is up

i got one out of two. i skipped over the third and fourth answers though. im gunna go listen after i shower and figure out if i can guess and then look at the keys.

MIKE

 

[Dubb]

About what I expected. In a couple places I guessed that the 320 AAC was lossless, and I got the talent wrong (but that source sucked ass, so...)

With the exception of the talent, I was able to discount the MP3 and MP3-2 in all cases, soo...

320 AAC = transparent on my system to my ears
320 MP3 is not

 

[RaynorWolfcastle]

Well this thread was really to show that there is no need for lossless in the context of a portable player or a car and I think that was pretty well shown. Your excellent setup is much better than what anyone could hope to have in a car, let alone having a car quiet enough to tell the difference. I think this was shown pretty clearly.

For what it's worth, at 320kbps the lossy compressors yielded files between 1/2 and 1/4 the size of the FLAC files.

 

[Gurck]

Originally posted by: RaynorWolfcastle
Well this thread was really to show that there is no need for lossless in the context of a portable player or a car and I think that was pretty well shown. Your excellent setup is much better than what anyone could hope to have in a car, let alone having a car quiet enough to tell the difference. I think this was shown pretty clearly.

For what it's worth, at 320kbps the lossy compressors yielded files between 1/2 and 1/4 the size of the FLAC files.

There's a bigger difference between 128 and 320 than there is between 320 and lossless though, and most people go with 128 (ie. ITMS shoppers). Anyway, really cool thread, now I want new headphones