A while ago, I decided to switch to MP3 music instead of CD’s, so I painstakingly ripped all my CD’s (500+) onto my computer. It’s much easier finding albums on a computer than it is sifting through piles of CD’s only to find out that I put the wrong CD in the case that I was looking for. Plus, I really love “super random” play.
Anyways, I did all my encoding at 128kbps. After I finished (a week later!), I was talking to a friend of mine who had just finished doing the same thing with all of his CD’s, except he did then at 320kbps.
He and everyone I spoke with told me that at 128kbps the audio is pretty much garbage and that I needed to do it all over again.
I thought to myself: Why didn’t I rip them at 320kbps? Now I have to deal with inferior quality music or go through the entire ripping process again!”.
Can you hear the difference?
In any case, I have a fun test for everyone: Listen to these 2 clips. One is encoded at 128kbps and the other is encoded at 320kbps (over twice the bit rate). Can you tell the difference?
Clip 1:
Clip 2:
Listen carefully
If you liked this post, you should also try our online hearing test.
When I listen to clip #1, I’m getting a richer and fuller sound. It just feels like everything opens up and becomes vivid. When I listen to clip #2, I feel none of that. The music just lies there flat and dead. Nothing to explore at 128kbps.
i don’t really think if they’re any different…!
I have to say you cant tell a difference at all With a good speakers or headphones now listen to tracks with bad speakers or cheap headphones and you can tell somewhat of a difference but who is going to know unless your testing it on the same track like now NOBODY! point taken here just get a good speaker and headphones and you should be fine!
After listening to the samples of 1 and 2 I got it wrong; I picked choice 2. And I was surprised because I couldn’t hear the difference of the music because I used to play music so I thought I could tell. After I listened to the different samples again I can hear the symbols from the drum set is from sample 1 is more sharper and longer than in sample 2. In sample 2 it’s sounds a bit shorter and machine made rather than being authentic. While in sample 1 the symbols sounds more metallic.
Especially very clear can hear artifacts in the left ear on seconds 5-6 in clip 2
For me the main difference is in the hats.
It was an easy task, but I accidentally found this page with good headphones on. 128 versus 320 difference is obvious. 192 kbs would be much more challenging. I’ve never tested myself comparing 256 versus 320.
My left ear is more sensitive to sound than my right ear.
Listen the song with my left air while covering my right air, I hear clip 1 sounds better than clip 2.
My right ear can’t tell the difference.
Darned interesting test, BUT a test needs more complex music types. Percussion sounds good no matter what–that why some stereo dealers demo with it–but test with a large chorus and a full orchestra. Perhaps also try a pipe organ, and all at various volumes. I would be interested in results, as I am copying (more a slave than the 500 guy) a 1000-plus CDs onto MP3.
Complete aside: I discovered that a tube amp (Audio Research model still used by reviewers albeit circa 1980s) let me understand the words a chorus sang…”So THAT’S what they were saying!” Regular gear did not. That was a few years ago; dunno if modern gear has picked up enough.
This is a flawed test. Why? Well, if the recording isn’t very good, it is going to sound THE SAME at both 128kbps and 320kbps, as long as the spectrum of the music doesn’t test the upper ranges. Take a more dynamic song and a top quality mastering, THEN try two versions ripped at 128kbps and 320kbps. I’d bet anything you’d be able to hear a difference.
Can tell within a few seconds on my (and I’m not bragging, it could be better for sure as it’s on the lower end of “hi-fi”), on my approximately $1500 computer stereo monitor setup clip 1 is 320 kbps and clips 2 is 128 kbps. I then proceeded to download the files to confirm…
I did notice you encoded them in “true stereo” as opposed to joint stereo, which can really make the difference between a 128K mp3 sounding downright awful or fairly decent as joint stereo improves the efficiency of the encoding by detecting similarities/shared information in the left and right channels. I also noticed you are using a Fraunhofer codec though, and they don’t always provide the best joint stereo results, at least at lower bitrates…
This song doesn’t have the night-and-day difference that some files would have between these two bitrates, it just depends on the individual characteristics of a song – but all kinds of problems can be heard, even in 320 kbps mp3s made with the most careful settings if you have good enough ears and a good enough playback system.
I won’t go into detail as I went crazy trying to figure out “optimum mp3 settings” in the late ’90s, but I will pass along this really obvious suggestion. Considering how super cheap and plentiful storage is, why not just save the stress and use a lossless codec like FLAC? It’s 100% the quality of the source CD and almost half the size of an uncompressed WAV file (depends on source material). I started doing this in 2005 and space was still much more precious back then, although at least doable as most hard drives from the ’90s maxed out around 10 GB or so.
So even though an “average” FLAC might run 800 kbps, the argument of storage space holds very little weight here in 2017 and will be even less important next year and so on…
Even if you don’t always want to use FLAC, you can re-convert to mp3 or whatever you choose directly from the FLACs you have stored digitally, and NEVER have to rip the source CD again (make backups of all your FLACS if you never want to rip the CD again, of course). I wish I would have done this many years ago, as I went through several phases of incrementally “upgrading my mp3s”… And it really was all a waste as I just kept marginally upping the bitrate until I realized how pointless lossy files are in general this day in age (compatibility with all devices being the one exception).
If for whatever reason you don’t think a lossless codec is right for you, there is absolutely no reason to think 320 kbps is “wasteful” somehow as it’s still pretty lossy!
Only way to prove you can tell differences is to compare the lossy file(MP3/AAC etc) to the lossless file(FLAC(assuming you have a genuine FLAC made from the actual AUDIO CD)) using a ABX test in Foobar2000 as this removes any biases you have as you have to, purely by listening, tell whether sample A matches X or Y and whether B matches X or Y. comparing a 320kbps MP3 to a 128kbps MP3 is not the proper way to test things. trust me, read up on ‘Hydrogenaudio Forums’ as they are experts at this stuff and will cut through all of the BS real fast which is pretty much what i am saying here.
from what i have heard, which i think is likely true is that many people (maybe even most) will have transparency (i.e. can’t tell the difference between the lossless file and the lossy file) between LAME v4(165kbps average) and v2 (190kbps average). testing on myself (i am nearly 38 years old so someone a bit younger may still notice things that i cannot due to age as the younger you are the more likely you can hear little details) i seem to find transparency at LAME v4 basically as i can correctly detect some song i was testing below that setting like with LAME v5 which has a 130kbps average. but this is a test each person has to do for themselves to find the point where they can no longer tell the difference between the FLAC and MP3 file as it’s safe for me to say some people will be able to go beyond LAME v4 when they hit the point of transparency. but with that said i think as a general rule, and this is only my opinion here, is that using MP3 (LAME v3.99.5 encoder) at v2 setting (i.e. 190kbps average) is a pretty safe choice for long term MP3 archiving as your not going to have any obvious sound quality issues at that bit rate and still keeps file sizes within a reasonable range. i say safe for long term now because the LAME MP3 encoder has matured and likely won’t have any sound quality improvements at this point (as there has not been any for years with the LAME encoder which seems to be the standard for MP3 encoding) and i generally stick to MP3 simply because everything that supports lossy audio files is just about guaranteed to work with it unlike other formats which may or may not have support. but obviously, outside of MP3 you got AAC and that’s about it as after those two lossy audio formats (i.e. MP3/AAC) support starts to get more of a crap shoot.
for the record… 320kbps is a waste of space. LAME v0 (i.e. 245kbps average) (which is LAME’s highest quality variable bit rate setting) is the max anyone should be using when it comes to MP3 simply because any higher is definitely overkill and a waste of space. but in my opinion LAME v2 (i.e. 190kbps average) is the sweet spot between sound quality/file size as i am willing to bet the vast majority of people won’t be able to tell the difference between the lossless file(FLAC) and the lossy file (LAME v2) doing a ABX test and do that say 16 times or so to eliminate the chances of guessing. even those who can tell the difference in a ABX test, the difference is minimal. basically if you use anything higher than LAME v0 (245kbps average file) your better off switching to FLAC if possible.
also, from what it seems… once you get into the higher bit rates, MP3/AAC etc are largely the same-ish (i.e. no clear quality gaps between MP3/AAC and other lossy audio formats) as it’s only at lower bit rates (say roughly around 128kbps (or especially more around 96kbps) and less) that AAC and other lossy codecs tend to out perform MP3 for similar bit rates.
Im 19 years old, i think being able to hear higher frequency tunes has somewhat to do with ones age. it literally only took me twice to guess which clip sounded better to me, i choose clip 1 as it sounded like it had some minor difference, wasn’t sure if it was the right choice as i was guessing from what i heard. guess i was right
@David ; while your basically right that someone around your age will generally have better hearing then someone noticeably older, the OP is not doing a proper test which a proper test compares the lossless file(i.e. FLAC) against the lossy file(i.e. MP3 etc) in a ABX test (which can be done using Foobar2000) as this removes any biases one might have and one has to tell, purely by listening, whether sample A matches X or Y and whether sample B matches X or Y and do that say 16 times as this removes the chances of someone randomly guessing and basically proves whether someone is actually hearing a difference. but testing on myself, using Klipsch Pro-Media speakers (which are solid quality speakers for my computer(definitely not crap)), i notice transparency at the LAME v4 (165kbps average) setting as that’s the point where i no longer could tell the difference between the FLAC file and the MP3 file (i could notice it on LAME v5 which has a 130kbps average. but even hear is not easy for me to detect as i got to focus etc.). but being your basically at that optimal age for hearing pretty much you may even be able to go higher than LAME v4 and might even be need LAME v2 (190kbps average) etc before you hit transparency. but like i was saying… LAME v2 (190kbps average) is likely the sweet spot for a lot of people as even if someone can actually notice a difference at that bit rate it’s going to be minimal and still gives you decent storage space savings. 320kbps MP3 is a waste of space as your better off switching to FLAC if you go any higher than LAME v0 (245kbps average), which is the LAME encoders highest variable bit rate setting.
but to run a ABX test in Foobar2000 you simply add in the FLAC file and your MP3 file and then highlight both and right click and select ‘Utilities > ABX Tracks’ to run the ABX test. NOTE: ABX test does not come with Foobar2000 by default as it’s a extension for the Foobar2000 program. all of that stuff is free. you also need to install the ‘Foobar2000 Encoder Pack’. so basically install Foobar2000 and then installed the Foobar Encoder Pack (allows you to convert from FLAC to MP3/AAC/Opus etc) and then you can install the ABX extension.
I’m 27 years old, I’m no audiophile, I’ve never been one and I was listening to this on my 30$ Koss porta pro headphones.
I dont know what exactly was I supposed to look for, but #1 felt more full and ear-pleasing.
Age is only one factor, for some people for hearing higher or lower frequencies … and we don’t all start off in the same place it’s not an equal opportunity. It doesn’t correlate with being able to distinguish the detail of sound and make meaning from it. That is an entirely separate capability to hearing loudness and that often comes with experience. And again, listening experience is not correlated with age rather frequency of exposure to sound coupled with critical listening.
Really it’s so hard for me to find out any difference ….but only file size differences visible… lol 🙂 may be bad quality of my headphone.
With cheaper headphones or a nice speaker system you may not hear the difference. My wife can hear more of the higher notes and can really tell the difference. It makes a huge difference when listening to things that have a lot treble and bass. On my $25 headphones it doesn’t really make a difference. With my Bose headphones or home speakers it makes a HUGE difference. The same thing goes when you play a BluRay movie on a sound system with good speakers. You can really hear airplanes fly over you or the sound of bullets whiz by.
lul the amount of triggered audiophiles in here astounds me. they probably make up like 1% of music listeners that care so much about “muh flac” or “muh lossless music”.
You can try if you have a decent headphones. Besides, the first clip has a more surround and crispier(Very clear sound) feel than clip 2.
I meant tell not *try*
I’m listening with £1K headphones and a £5K amp and I picked the wrong track ;o)
You, sir, just made my day 😀
Real men rip lossless FLACs!
Now there is a HUGE difference there.
@Jim ; only way you can prove that is by a ABX test (using Foobar2000) as while FLAC is technically the best, since it’s a lossless audio format, i think you will find a MP3 (with LAME v3.99.5 encoder) around v2 (190kbps average), possibly even lower bit rates, is transparent.
bottom line… there is NO huge difference (as in perceivable difference) between a moderate-to-higher bit rate MP3/AAC etc file and the FLAC file.
but with that said… i always want music in FLAC format as this way i can rip my own MP3/AAC etc files for portable use and if i ever need to re-rip to a newer audio format (i.e. Opus etc) for any reason i can do it as, obviously, you don’t want to be converting between lossy formats (i.e. from MP3 to AAC to Opus etc) as you lose sound quality that way.
There is a difference, yes, but it depends also on what recordings you’re listening to (e.g. I’m listening mostly to 20’s-50’s jazz and the FLAC makes little (if any) difference even with a high end system, and the FLAC still doesn’t sound like the actual vinyl or shellac. Most 60’s- late 80’s music, with the exception perhaps of Dire Straits and Pink Floyd is shittily recorded also (fast, cheap productions). Now if you’re listening to good productions, like big classical projects with shitloads of microphones and good mastering, then yes it does make a difference.
Given that 192 kbps sounds almost like a CD already, you would need a very good system and a super good recording to tell a HUGE difference. The good thing with the FLACs now is that there’s no reason to do 320 anymore, either you do 192 to save space, or you do FLAC.
I find I can tell the difference up to 192kbps. It does vary from song to song tho.
The standard on the internet is 128kbps, which is good enough; although I wish 192kbps will become standardized in the future, as we have much higher bandwidth and exponential more storage since dial-up days.
I just saw this website and give it a try. I chose the clip 2 because i couldnt tell the difference. Maybe because i am using the cheap $300 earphone, Bose QC20. Maybe i could tell the difference if i use an expensive headphone, like headphones over $500.
$300?dude i use an $142 sennheiser and i could tell the difference immediately, you should get your ears checked before you waste more money on the earphones.
I use $20 sony headphones and you’re saying $300 is cheap.
Music has to be ripped at 320 kbps to be heard properly played back at 320 kbps You can not improve a 128kbps file by converting it. Your converting rubbish to worse rubbish
You need to rip Cd which in the UK is now illegal (According to What Hi fi Sound and vision magazine) as from last month Date of writing this is 10 October 2015 . in dBpower amp Flac default level 5. Why I say dBpower amp is because the songs and albums will be tagged and placed in folders with cover art
I listened to both files. I picked the 320 file but I had to listen twice. the first file had more detail or reverb trail around the harmony partss. more detail.but 128 is not bad for casual listening. I think 192kbps is still the best compromise.
When I listen with my computer speakers they sounded pretty much the same, with head phones on the 2nd clip seamed a little harsher (made my ears hurt a little), but I think unless you have a good set of headphones or speakers it won’t make a real difference.
Its easy to tell, don’t try to pick out instruments, just listen to the overall open feeling of track 1 compared to track 2. It took me a few seconds to hear it. Flac or Lossless is the only way to go. Why settle for low quality music when you can get a 6tb hard drive for a hundred bucks?
The song is Cymande – Brothers On The Slide
Most people will be doing this test using their computer or phone speakers, and won’t be able to hear much of a difference.
With high quality speakers at high volumes the differences would be obvious.
Is this some kind of joke? I agree with Matt. I just listened to the difference on my site between 128 kbps and the original, uncompressed wav files I uploaded to the site with my Beyerdynamics DT 880 Pro cans and a head phone amp. Though the A/B samples above showed a very slight difference in dynamics, almost unnoticeable to my ears, the program material on my site revealed huge differences in dynamics and all other details on both ends of the frequency spectrum. The average person listening on any system, regardless of weather you’re using hi-end systems, amped cans, or whatever, would have a hard time convincing me they knew the difference between 128 kbps and 320 kbps.
Track one is clearly better. Track 2 sounds like someone put a towel over the speaker.
Agreed
the 320 one is absolutely better than the 128.
YAY “brothers on the slide”, great pick 🙂
Thank you for the test : it keeps people talking since 2011 so this question must have struck an important note!
To those who wrote that this song was cr*p, I don’t know what to say… not sure if that made me want to laugh or cry…
To the person who asked what track was used for the test : you are the reason why I still have faith in the human race. If you find Patchworks live near you, go to his gig and you will be a happy man.
And thank you to our audiophile friends for arguing about car sound systems, laptops with “studio mode” engaged and earbuds as monitoring benchmarks : you made my day… just when I needed a break from serious things, that was just perfect timing!
When I concentrate on the highs on a high volume I hear the difference. The 320 is much more clear, not that sharp like an 128
I easily noticed the difference, but I was curious to see what the spectrums actually looked like, so I actually downloaded both clips and looked at the spectrum with Spek.
Clip 1 > http://i.imgur.com/v9NwY8i.png
Clip 2 > http://i.imgur.com/635egE1.png
As you can see in clip one, there is something fishy about the spectrum, it doesn’t look like real 320 to me.
I will reiterate that this demonstration doesn’t reflect the differences I’ve heard between encoding in this two rather distinct bitrates and I suspect a bad encoding program was used or something else “fishy” as you mentioned happened .
In response to other comments, 128 kbps was the “standard” when mp3s hit the scene in the mid-90s when hard drives were often under 1 GB. Unfortunately it has kind of stuck as the so-called standard even though average storage capacity of a common hard drive has grown by well over 2000x…
Again, 320 kbps is still ridiculously low for 2017… FLAC/Wavepak/Monkey’s Audio all the way… Heck, even storing raw WAV files would not be so crazy anymore, although things like FLAC have their advantages like built-in checksums and tags, etc….
(I don’t think the number of “people who can hear well enough to care” is quite as low as 1%, but it’s certainly not that high either, unfortunately…)
I thought the difference was when you download it from itunes at higher quality they can charge you more for data?
Yeah, definitely there is a big difference. I am not saying everyone will be able to tell the difference. However it’s clear when listening carefully that the one encoded at 320 has better quality and wider range of different sounds, if that’s the correct way of saying that. Nice post by the way.
I can hear the difference. I have a cheap mp3 Gogear Mix and with the stock headphones couldn´t hear much difference, i switched to better headphones and i can´t tolerate the 128 kb tracks, 320 kb tracks sound really good, near cd quality. I tested the same tracks in a mini hi fy system and it did a much better job than the Gogear Mix with the 128 kb files but still the sound wasn´t rich and alive like in the 320 kb tracks. Plus the 128 kb tracks have funny distortions in the background. The difference is enormous between 128 kb and 320 kb in favor of the last one. If i compare 320 kb mp3 files with flac files i can only tell the difference in very few songs and is minimal.
I made a mistake in the comment, it´s hi-fi, not hi fy. I¨m sure i made many more mistakes, my apologies, i´m still learning english.
I just want to know what the name of the sample song is. lol….
Cymande Brothers On The Slide. Too funky!
Hahaha you must be joking! 128 kb/s ofcourse you can hear it unless you have damaged your brain or ears in some way. Always rip 320 or lossless
Both sound the same, not to mention i picked the 128 kbps version over the 320 kbps version so theres that.
The difference is night and day AND you don’t need high end audiophile gear to tell the difference. The reason why most people can’t tell the difference is because they are not trained to hear what they are listening for.
E.g. Most people are probably listening and seeing which song is louder. It’s not how loud it gets. It’s the sound underneath the notes that gets ruined (the pauses) when you compress a song or a video the remove information or this case the acoustics. However 128k is the human range. Most people can’t tell what is removed but you can definitely tell what is overlapped.
So listen again, and turn up the volume. There is a soft static hum/buzz in the background that is constant for the 128k and even less for the 320 and there is no distortion at all with flac.
Once you do hear it you can never go back. Maybe its best not to notice and still appreciate it? Because once you do it’s an itch that needs to be scratched.
I could hear it, the cymbal bit is really obvious one. For the guy above in music industry for 10 years, you should already give up music.
Fun stuff….As a great and legendary audio pioneer said “people listen with their eyes”.
So many entertaining and foolish comments. Comparing apples and colostomy bags!
Without a known quality high integrity reproduction system and environment in which
all variables are accounted for, “comparisons” are just guesses. Double blind comparisons
have to be done repeatedly switching “A” and “B” to reliably produce a result. As people
have an instinctual bias to “go with” the first or second choice.
The depth, soundstage width and “presence” were all better on the first clip. This is on a cheap but good amp with a TI chip, driving an old pair of ESS speakers with a Heil system.
you will not be able to tell if the bitrate was originally recorded at stereo less than stereo quality!
Example; song originally recorded in tape quality (96-128kbps) upscaled to MP3 320kbps will just give you a larger file size and more detailed “White NOISE”; song recorded in Dolby 5.1 Digital 620kbps; downscaled to 320 MP3 Stereo and you are losing Crazy Effects and sub sounds.
Songs originally recorded FOR a CD should do well at 256 – 320 kbps. Your convert software codecs also play a role in what gets processed.
Even Pandora Free only broadcasts at 128kbps until you upgrade…can you hear a difference?
Not until you try to process it with an equalizer !!!
Then you hear where and what tones you are missing. No pun intended but when you open pandora’s box you never go back.
I know the writer will laugh and think nobody call tell since more than half the votes went for the wrong one. Nobody can prove that wrong from this test, but that conclusion would in fact be wrong. The right conclusion apparently is that most people cannot tell (cannot given their equipment and or disposition to take notice). One might think that for those who can tell they have just trained themselves to look for some miniscule signs instead of to enjoy the sound. This would be wrong. Or one might think that nobody can tell. This would also be wrong, but I won’t go into that. Apparently fewer people can tell than the statistical significance of the test though.
This is a lousy piece to test the subtleties that high resolution sound gives, especially the ambiance and imaging. The imaging in this piece is pretty flat and it has very little ambiance. So, because of this I was initially almost a little surprised how little the overall sound stage changed. I was expecting a more obvious difference, as is usually the case. Still the drums were unmistakably more clear on the 320, and the compression artifacts at 5s and 14s are just… well if you really pay attention to those and go back and forth and still cannot hear it, you are officially deaf. Being that these artifacts actually added a bit of a sense of slightly off beat pulse, and that this is a funk piece, I’d guess maybe somebody actually found that to be an improvement, especially on some cheap speakers, but the difference, even at low volume is just unmistakably obvious. Setup: cheap as dirt laptop and a pair of beyer DT 660 cans, no amp.
I watched a rip of a movie at my neighbors house on his really lousy computer speaker sound system with him and the movie seemed fine and we enjoyed it. I then tried to watch the same rip at my home and couldn’t stand the loud and obvious compression noise. Any 5 year old would have noticed it easily. Really bad equipment can mask a BUNCH.
I can distinctly hear a hiss (noise) on sample two. By the way this test is misleading, firstly you need a decent sound card, secondly, you have to have your playback settings set to Studio Quality in the windows sound setting, thirdly you need a decent head/ear phones which have a wide frequency range. Laptop speakers are terrible for this including sound cards unless you have laptop card with REALTEK HD sound Dolby HD and updated drivers and settings set to Studio Quality output.
I don’t consider my myself an “audiophile” and I’m certainly not using high end sound equipment (I’m using the built in speakers of my $300 32″ Vizio TV) and I found it fairly obvious which clip it was. It wasnt major, but it was noticeable.
That said, I would like to see a comparison of 192 kb/s .AAC (my preferred bitrate/format for ripping CD’s) and 320 kb/s .AAC so I could see the difference there.
To be honest, I did not notice the difference (and I have been in the music business for more than 10 years).
I play both the guitar and the piano (plenty of songs by ear, so I thought it would be easy for me to distinguish them).
I couldn’t, and I don’t want to sound arrogant but I have the feeling that most of the ppl just guessed.
bro sorry tell you, yes there is a big difference I can distinguish which low bit rate and high bit rate…
As an amatuer I prefer FLAC, it’s easier to listen to on low-end sound systems, sounds better on high-end devices and you can do your appropriate conversions to your smaller MP3’s for your smaller devices
Disk space is not so much an issue these days
Personally I enjoy listening to FLAC’s because it makes those cheap speakers sound that little bit better, and as for those high end devices, and as for those high-end devices, you do notice the difference, buy yourself a cheap oscilloscope and look at the difference yourself, your ears may only be able to hear a select range of frequencies but the definition of the tones you hear are something else, you will notice an improvement after a while of listening to higher quality audio files, and as for those guys with high end car stereos who want to get the most out of their music, listening to their beats as loud as they can, try comparing the difference between the qualities after compressing your audio for extra loudness, does make a difference
This is a horrible idea. Most of the people who take this challenge are listening to the clip on average (at best) computer speakers. You’re right. On equipment like that, it isn’t going to matter. If that’s how you listen to music, you may as well go down to 96 kbps for that matter, and save your hard drive space.
The original song recording is lousy as well. It lacks crispness and highs, which are the first things that will jump right out at you with a higher bitrate.
That’s the reason that the responses are running about 50/50 (with the poorer recording actually a little ahead). Given the sound source and the equipment being used to evaluate the clips, there is no difference.
But that doesn’t mean there is no significant difference between 128kbps and 320kbps.
There sure is.
If you really want to see how the digital age of music has robbed you of good audio, go find a friend who still has their analog LP equipment from the 1970s, with really good amplification and speakers. Play a CD against a vinyl record of the same album, and you’ll see how we’ve all traded our artistic souls to the Devil in exchange for music that you can carry in your pocket.
I disagree about the cd vs. vinyl. A few years back, a friend and I did our own test. He has a super high end analog system, amazing speakers, and everything sounded great. We borrowed four high end cd players from a local audio store. He thought analog would win, I thought digital. We had cd’s and lp’s of the same albums, about 10 of them. In the end, analog won half the time and digital won half the time. The difference? The mixing and mastering. Some lp’s are mixed and mastered really well, some sound dull. Correspondingly, some cd’s sounded brittle, others sounded absolutely beautiful. These differences were far more than the difference between analog and digital, at least in our test.
As for why half of the people picked wrong, I think that proves there really is not that much difference. Although it is probable that many people are listening on computer speakers or cheap headphones, we don’t know how many, and accounting for the surprising results by guessing about the listening systems seems like post hoc reasoning. I listened to the samples through high end headphones, and found they both sounded very pleasant, and about the same. It’s possible that if I listened through high end speakers, the result would have been different. But since I mainly listen to music through these headphones, and the 128 sounded really nice, there’s no reason for me to discard the many 128 mp3s I have on the computer. I probably don’t have the best hearing in the world, as I’m not so young anymore. I certainly agree that for those who hear huge differences in the files, they should go with the higher bitrate wherever possible
If you’re young, you might hear that hihats on the left channel have higher frequencies on the 320kbps version. They are cut at 15kHz on the 128kbps version. I don’t hear that. I am 35 years old.
There are at least two extremely easy to spot moments. Try from 5,5 seconds and from 13,5 seconds. The maracas on the right are completely destroyed on the 128kbps version. If you listen to those, it’s not about hearing the subtle differencies; it’s more like there is a big mistake in editing (bad cuts).
It doesn’t matter what bit rate you rip to. CD audio is only as good as 192 kbps, period. You could rip to 320, but the source audio was not encoded to 320 upon creation. Therefore, the quality will never be better than the 192 kbps CD audio. IT would be like recording at a sample rate of 48,000 Hz then re-recording, in an editor, the SAME stream of audio it to 96,000 Hz. The new file may say “96”, but its true sample rate would only be “48”. The same goes for bit rate. You cannot create resolution out of mid air.
What are you talking about?
CD quality is 1024kbps not 192
Okay, Guys….. Maybe it’s because I don’t have golden ears or anything, with my JDS O2 Amp.. with… the fiio X3 as dac… and the ER4S I could tell the difference BUT to be seriously honest it was kinda hard to figure out which was higher in terms of quality but I focused on the last 3 seconds…
If you noticed the pitch change there I think it’s obvious what 320 vs 128 is really all about….. After being in this audiophile thingy for a while…. I feel that sometimes it’s just our minds playing tricks on us…. by turning up the volume I managed to hear more noise in the background of the 128 but I don’t think a normal person will crank up the volume to that amount I did with 6.5 gain on my O2 amp…… nearly killed my ears there >.<
My last point is everyone hears things differently like how I hear the lower frequency hell alot louder on
my left ear instead of my right WHEN I ACTUALLY DAMAGED MY LEFT EAR INSTEAD……. &…. the worst part I hear the higher frequencies better on my right ear so that makes me a strange guy I guess…. sucks to have my ears trust me……..
I visited a ENT and realized that everybody is just different and we have to learn deal with it…….
I think this argument should be on whether that amount of sound quality difference that a average joe can tell is worth the 'extra' amount of space the 320 file is going to take.
I personally find anything below 256 abit 'nosier' and sometimes slightly muffled….. I
Depends what you listen on – I tried this with two sets of headphones; Beyer DT100 and Sennheiser HD433. On the latter it was much more apparent – they are brighter sounding generally. With 192, for example, the complex sounds of the shaker were slightly ‘out of focus’ compared to the higher rate. You can only hear the difference with a direct comparison like this though – something you would never do otherwise, so why bother about it? I’d suggest that if you’re worried by minute differences like this, you’re listening to the wrong thing i.e. the system, and not the music.
The lower quilty was crisper to my ears, whereas the higher sounded a bit muffled. Probably too much bass, perhaps the bass guitar player should stand further back. 😉
A few more sound clips would help, of different styles of music.