Matt here again. I took an mp3 listening test here a while ago. The audio test was between an MP3 of 320kb/s vs. MP3 of 128kb/s. A number of people commented that a test between a pure wav. file against a 320kb/s mp3 would be more useful.
So I went into my vault and pulled out a 24bit wav file with plenty of harmonic content – all sorts of broadband sound just begging to be handled with kid gloves. Then I shot it through my iTunes mp3 encoder and yanked out a 320kb/s version. The mp3 is only 25% the size as the wav, but is there a sonic trade off?
Which file is the mp3, and which is the wav?
It’s hard to disguise the files using this format.
In order that you don’t cheat (by looking at the file names or file load times),
have a friend play these for you in random and see if you can hear a difference.
*** DO NO READ BELOW UNTIL AFTER YOU TRY THE TEST ***
I’ve attached a frequency chart and a null test.
The frequency charts are identical, but as you can see the 2nd frequency chart (representing the mp3) has a steeper roll off after 16khz. The null test reveals the sonic difference between the two files. Not all of this represents loss of sound – it represents change in sound. The mp3 quantizes differently, which is not a loss of sound – just a micro-auditory restructuring of sound. The loss is broadband information which is harder to perceive than designated frequency information. However, if you notice the biggest difference exists where the snare drum is hitting – and it’s no coincidence that snare drums contain the highest content of broadband sound.
Frequency Chart for .WAV file
Frequency Chart for .MP3 file
Like the song in the sample?
It’s called Memorabilia by Mechanical Minds
Nice comparison. I never thought I’d even notice the difference.
The soundstage and detail is much better in the WAV.
The MP3 sounds more compressed, less holographic, harder to locate individual elements in the mix, and as-if there were a layer of acousta-stuf between you and the performers.
Govind Kumar
Come on people, stop this bias [removed]… There is certainly and ABSOLUTELY a difference if u compare a 1536kbps WAV file between a 320kbps MP3 file of the same music. How can a 320kbps MP3 has more details and richness compared to a massive 1536kbps of sound being spill out from a WAV file. Even if you use a spectrum analyzer, you can certainly see the WAV holds a better spectrum compared to the MP3. In order to detect this difference, you will need to use a very good Studio Monitor headphones and a headphone AMP will be desirable as well and not by using some ordinary crappy headphones for goodness sake. From there on, I am sure you can tell the difference so clearly already especially when u try to compare music like Techno Trance with all the ambiance and beats in it. Through the 320kbps MP3, all the richness in the music is tone down slightly. In fact there is also a noticeable difference if u compare WAV with FLAC, don’t believe me? well try it for yourself then. But again, you can only hear such difference with a good Studio Monitor headphone and not through the speakers please with all the environment noises.. for goodness sake! I hope I do justice for this topic once and for all.
FLAC and WAV are absolute (each single bit) the same – it’s impossible to hear some difference (except placebo effect).
Both the tracks sound pretty bad. I don’t think the original track was recorded well. It lacks dynamics and sounds compressed. Having said that, the mp3 sounds slightly worse than the wav. Wish you would have done this test with a well recorded track.
Couldnt agree more. I listened both files with a studio quality headphone and both files have noose in the background especially in the high frequencies. I hoped to really hear some music woth lossles quality but both are terrible. Mp3 by the way is indeed the worst of the two.
The file type is noticeable in the address– I accidentally looked
With cheap headphones the diff is clear; with mid-range headphones they sound almost identical
I heard the difference. Took me about 3-4 seconds in…what the hell are you guys listening through? (and do I win a cookie now?) yay!
mp3 was created because HD space was limited and expensive.
As that is no longer an issue the case for mp3s is mute.
Going down from the 96/32 studio master (or tape) to 44.1/16 .wav or .aiff is loss enough.
Why settle for even less?
Yes, I definitely heard the difference between the samples. The higher-frequency portion of the vocals is muddied and as someone else pointed out some loss of dynamics. I’ve also noted these differences before on 320kb/s rips from CD’s (specifically Josh Groban’s vocals). Then there is the difference in the quality of the audio reproduction circuitry in the computers themselves (not all audio chipsets are equal). To say the least, I am quite the purist when it comes to my music, however I have discovered that not all people can hear the difference or else they just don’t notice. I noticed this phenomenon when working in a high-end audio shop back in the 80’s. For a better test, try samples from a DDD recorded CD such as some produced by Telarc or ‘Brothers in Arms’ by Dire Straits.
I was alone, so I ended up with spoilers, but the wav seemed louder and more detailed than the mp3 no doubt. I guess I have good ears?
i make music for people, not bats (and neither one of them buys it!)
Lets be honest, Everyone is playing MP3’s so eventually your ears will train themselves to phase the ultra highs out in WAV, just like when you was young, you would hear ringing and high pitched noises which you can hear anymore.
I will clear all this :
– If you listen to modern [low quality] music, WAV files can’t help, MP3 are more than enough, because studios master with mp3 in mind : LOUDER [low quality music].
-if you listen to old music or a music to feel ( except modern music ) : WAV files can blow your mind.
MP3 is mathematical operations on your favourite MUSIC. max 30% of WAV quality.
FLAC does only ZIP wav files + removing silent parts. 80% of WAV quality.
WAV is full untouched music.
but bear in mind, with loudness war, wav sound [just as bad] too ! be careful never buy remastered albums.
FLAC is 100% of WAV quality – it’s lossless format !
I can tell that the .WAV was #1 and the .MP3 and I was using monoprice 8323 cans on my desk top computer with out an amp or a speashal sound card. The singer in the backgroud was clearer and just about every thing else but if I was not just sitting still and listenig hard I don’t think that if I was doing something else it wold matter.
If that’s all i’m losing for £1 extra .wav (+storage space costs) I’d rather not pay for that. I can’t really hear the difference. MP3 320 might actually end up sounding smoother because of the high end roll off 🙂
FLAC, or WAV -everything else, especially “lossy ones” like mp3,… are just plain cr*p.
My wife refuses to listen to anything but “CD Audio”, and she always managed to pick out my (320 kbs)”mp3’s”, as sounding worse, against any of her Audio-CD’s.
mp3’s simply do NOT have the dynamic-range audio quality to handle extremely wide operatic, or classical tympanic swicngs, especially with “drums” invloved ?
However, Led Zep would probably be fine for mp3’s on your iPod.
We have a nice stereo, and she has a Marantz-CD6004, one of the BEST Audio-CD players for “Hi-Fi”, in the world. In fact, it ONLY plays Audio-CD’s, and does it extremely well. And yes, there is a big difference between the source quality of this, versus the myriad of el-cheapo (plastic) cd/dvd/bd combo players out there.
I finally converted her fav CD’s to flac, unfortunately, flac only brought the ripped wav down to slightly more than half of the original wav size, but she could NOT tell the difference this time:
Marantz-CD6004 Onkyo TX-8050 recv.(with latest firmware, and all settings”FLAT”/”Pure Direct”).
In fact, when I randomly selected Audio-CD-track, against the same flac-track-(via Onkyo’s USB port), she picked the flac file 3 times outta 5. !!!
This was a one hour test done twice on 2 different mornings, just to be sure.
So “flac”, is the plain winner !!! <- .
The problem is, there still isn’t enough “flac” supported hardware/players out there, for the “true” music buffs, but that’s also probably why “flac” is so good.
MP3 introduces difference which are generaly out of audible band. Higher end of the audible band (above 20KHz) is anyway cut-off by reconstruction filters after DACs. Lower end band will be affected in such a way that it is unnoticeable in speaker system. One can get subtle clues in good earphones.
It is my belief that his might be due to joint-stereo in MP3 which selectively eliminates ambient information by merging two tracks as a single channel info to compress the size further.
Thats why I prefer to listen original music in FLAC VOG or WAV formats when they are available.
If I try to pick individual things out, then I cannot tell the difference. IE: listening to specific instruments, they sound the same on both clips.
However if I STOP trying to discern the music and just sit back and let it roll over my ears, the first one sounds slightly… moreish. You have to try and listen to the track as a whole, and let it subconsciously roll over you, and the first one just has a slightly cosier feel to me.
This article and test are interesting for sure. However, there is only one way to actually A/B two or more comparative tracks: You MUST be able to psychoacoustically perceive these tracks without silence in between. Any silence in between playing the tracks will “reset” the ear and more importantly, the mind. It is my opinion that the people who commented on perceived differences between the two tracks, if given the test in this way, would no way be able to tell ANY difference. Here’s how I would administer this test: First of all I would edit EVERY OTHER BAR of the music in an alternating pattern of WAV/mp3/WAV/mp3/WAV/mp3 – WITHOUT letting the listener know which one I started with. After 3 bars I would place the edited bars in a RANDOM pattern of WAV/mp3 files. But again, the comparison would be done without silence in between the comparative files – edited together in one smooth streaming song.
I would then NOT give the answer away just below the samples in the article. THAT’S HOW (in my opinion) these people got it “right.”
I TEACH audio engineering and have for years and I won’t jump on the “Emporer’s New Clothes” bandwagon here and try to impress anyone with how I can hear the difference between the guitars strumming (no difference) or the snare drum (no difference) — because there is no psychoaucoustic difference when processed through a Human Being!
The test should simply say choose which one is the mp3 and which is the wav and there should be a submit button to find out if you are right or wrong. Believe me, you’ll get a lot less people taking the test at all because many people, again in my opinion, would be afraid of losing status or value in case they were wrong!(Unthinkable!)
Though people love to talk about these type of things — some more than others; I even consider it a Sport I call “Talk About.” A certain amount of communication on the subject is useful, but mostly, it’s a waste of time and it doesn’t parallel reality.
I’m developing a plug-in that actually automatically sets up random order seemlessly edited A/B’ing. I call it “Checkerboard A/B” because it’s the way I’ve A/B’d for years – creating a “checkerboard” sort of visual set up by muting every other segment on two tracks in a D.A.W. It gives a checkerboard visual by doing so.
Remember, psychoacoustically, NO silence can exist between two or more comparative tracks, or you’ve lost your Scientific controlled experiment. You’ve entered in an infinite number of possible variables into the MIND of the listener each time silence occurs. In fact each time an ACTION occurs, the Mind will adjust – an ACTION such as clicking off one track and then clicking on another.
Bottom line is, I think it’s better to spend our time as Audio Professionals on doing everything we can to help Songwriters and Composers create Masterpiece Songs and Compositions, and on ensuring the musical arrangements of those creations are also masterpieces. THAT is where we have lost our focus and our priority. Let’s get it back!!!
I don’t know how accurate this test is, first of all I don’t think the song had enough variants of sound for it to an accurate test or a good representation of spectrum of sound available. I am no musician or audio expert by any means but I notice that in some songs, in particular dubstep that quality matter. Take a youtube vid of a dubstep song for instance,there is a marked difference between a 480p version and a 780HD (or 1080HD) version of a clip. In the 480p there is a noticeable muffle to the sound quality plus there is a lack of depth and clarity that can be found in the pitch of certain beats and the amount of “drop” the song experiences. The 780/1080HD vers. experiences a much heavier drop, having much more base and giving the listener that boom factor. Try playing “The Glitch Mobs Seven Nation Army Remix” in 480p and HD to see what I mean.
I all honesty I don’t think this article has answered the question – is WAV better then MP3?
Very interesting comments out here,
I think from my personal listening that wav files (especialy in Discos and Clubs) sound mouch “warmer” than mp3 files. There are some Hi and low frequencies that Producers create in tracks that are important in a track. Those noises are all dissapaer in mp3 formats and you hear only the main frequency spectrums.
Also there are those clicks and “picks” of Bass sounds and reverbs that makes you feel “good” . All these when comparing to mp3 are lost.
But thats only my opinion and some other opinions of producers. I think it is obiously that 24bit / 96KHz productions are the standard these days. At the end of the production the tracks are shrinked to 44,1 KHz 16Bit to fit the standards for CDs.
If there are not such big differences , why should producers go on to produce with those settings and not go and produce just mp3 sound ?
I noticed a few people here posting different quality between the two tracks, To really test this properly (at least at home) you would need some high quality speakers; a high quality sound card; and of course an acoustically sound room.
Headphones work well but aren’t the same as speakers. I have some decent mid range Audio Technica headphones (Open type) and they really don’t compare to the quality of my KRK Rokit RP8G2 studio monitors.
I personally cannot tell a difference on this computer (on board sound D:) the two tracks sound the same… In my own tests I do notice an absolutely huge difference between MP3 @ 128k to MP3 @ 320k (with almost all sources), and then another improvement to lossless FLAC (however not as large) I would imagine that WAV would be better, and then Vinyl on top 😀
there is noticable differance between the two, but the sound is so bad on both its not easy to tell. but the second has far less resolution.the strumming of the guitar is mostly gone in the mp3 and the bass is alot thicker.In the first the vocals are far more in your face.But as I said the recording is so bad I really dont care for either.
MP3 is inferior to WAV. It may not be that noticeable to some but it is still noticeable. Yet the consumers would rather go for the inferior product, that is downloads, over the quality product, the CD. Yes to play your tunes on a portable unit, the CD must be converted to MP3 (Please do not get me started on AIFF and Apple)but at least the consumer would still own a far better copy too. In all other aspects of consumerism, no one settles for an inferior product when you can afford the higher spec product. Why do so many do it with music. It cannot be just technology, surely not?
I have had personal experiences with the wav versus mp3 question. I have noticed on recordings such as country music (George Strait, Tim McGraw) or pop (The Police, U2) that there isn’t much difference in perceived sound, however, classical music or music that has a very wide bandwidth (Bachbusters) the recordings loose quite a bit of the information. For instance, many of the tracks on the Bachbusters CD loose some very high and very low notes as well as some overtones that are present in the original Recording and the subsequent Wav file. I have used various rippers and all of them seem to exhibit the same “lossyness” to various degrees when converting to mp3 (at 320kbs).The ripper that exhibited the worst problems was Itunes (go figure). I can’t remember what was the best one I’ve used since an unfortunate Windows accident (crash) forced a harddrive wipe :(. I know it was a free one since I am a cheapskate.
I wanted to post a hint for people that are feeling that the difference between the two tracks is minor. Don’t listen with your attention on the center. Mentally swivel your attention to either left or right perception. It can help to close your eyes and rotate your eyballs as a physical mnemonic, like peering around a corner. What you will find is that the ends of the soundstage are solid, almost hovering, particularly to the right side in the .WAV, whereas the .MP3 has it pump in and out, like it is a ghostly shadow. The assumptions of Adaptive Sideband Compression are inherently flawed. There is the belief that since testing average possibly hearing damaged people from industrial settings in an anechoic sound isolation booth did indicated twin tones of differing level to be heard as a single tone, that those lower tones could simply be eliminated. The reason this does not work out in practice, is that in any acoustic environment during playback, reflections within the space will alter the TIME ARRIVAL information in a spectrally divergent way. A simple way of saying this, is that the dominant tones you can hear now may come first, and the softer tones could be reflected at a later time and not be masked. But if the compression algorithm has discarded those tones, the soundfield richness is diminished. There is more: a structure in the brain named the “medial superior olives” is like a string tied to a hair trigger on a shutgun. A very minor difference in signal arrival timing (in some cases as short as 1uS, one MILLIONTH of a second, from sources other than WIKI which has it at 10uS), causes a chemical cascade like the shotty going off, and creates what I like to described as a mental location flash. It is far more sensitive to time arrival differences in the musical signal, and operates in parallel to the FFT-like frequency recognition we have based on discrete hair cell signals. It is looking for L-R, L–R, L—R time delays for transients, and the amazing human mind assigns sets for arrivals to fabricate individual archetypal sonic “objects” within our perceptual reconstruction of what we think is the source of a particular sound. It lets us LIVE if something is hunting us in dense jungle undergrowth(if we react accordingly). Some of the time, the mangled .MP3 file will leave us with L-x, or x–L, or even x—x, (x represents missing information) and the azimuth soundfield collapses, essentially resulting in an amplitude panned mono version of the original recording. Unfortunately, the ear-brain system still struggles to recover the missing information, and this could lead to listener fatigue. Your brain gets confused and either tunes out the potential realness of the recording, or tries to find what is not there and makes it up, or tries to. I like to joke that it could go as far as brain damage, because if you listen to thousands of hours of music that way, you may stunt your ability to hear the effect in real life! Under the right conditions, music can uplift and relax you, or energize you. Getting distracted by the “flatness” of aspect once important spatial location cues are butchered takes away from the pleasure of being transported. It is my belief that certain musical prodution styles at the professional level already damage spatial cues, or are processed in such a ham fisted manner that .MP3 will not make it much worse. I suggest instead using low microphone count acoustical recordings of guitar, string quartets, woodwinds, orchestra, human voice, massed choir in a real hall setting, or any of your favorite “rock” artists UNPLUGGED as a better comparison rather than big-board or DAW multichannel mastered tracks. If you aren’t horrified by the collapse, you are likely partially deaf and I feel compassion for you as an invalid. I laugh out loud at “bandwagon” claims! Perhaps your favorite music is the Beastie Boys; I love their music, but they and many other acts of recent decades flatten their sound with a sledge hammer for artistic effect. After that, it MAY BE harder to tell between lossless and compressed. Widen your musical horizons, and you won’t find .MP3 versions as acceptable on naturally recorded music.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superior_olivary_complex