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Do you hear the difference between a 128 and 320 kbps mp3? (test yourself inside!)

heh, cool test! I got it right first go too, with my crappy old sony headphones (tried the macbook speakers on clip A but it woke everyone and I had to hastily pull out the headphones lol)

It was easy, I got it right from the beginning where he says a couple of syllables before that long note. Nice clip too, is it Pavarotti or something? Anyone care to confirm if you recognize the voice at all? It sounds like it's him but it would be nice to know if I got that one right as well lol!

Thanks, wish there was more, I love these things, all stuff to amuse the simple minded like me!!
 
I could tell it almost instantly using the crappy onboard Macbook Pro speakers... when I plugged in my speakers it was like two different songs.

I really can't fathom how people can't tell the difference.
 
Well, the better your speakers are the more precisely they can play music. I have a pair of quite nice audio editing headphones and I could tell. Then again, I am a nerd about this stuff and I know what I am looking for. To the untrained ear on less than incredible listening devices, 320 kbps and 128 kbps bit rates are almost identical sounding.
 
i got it right! i'd of been pretty annoyed if i hadn't ive studied music technology for a while!

But as everyone else said, pop/rock music would be so much easier to distinguish the difference, especially with decent headphones on.. (anyone tried the test with headphones on?)

all my music is 256kb im happy with that
 
The moment the instruments kick in it becomes obvious. One has much less punch than the other.
 
the top end gave it away for me, A just sounds overall much brighter, especially when the instruments kick in
 
Sitting in bed listening off my MBP through Airfoil + B&W speakers.

The difference isn't as obvious as it often is with other kinds of music, but it's still quite large.

The soundstage seems flatter, and there's excessive warbling in the high end on the 128k version. The 320k version has much more 'depth' to the sound...


Mind you though, I did this test the other night and couldn't hear any difference. Seems strikingly obvious now.

They have chosen the wrong music though. With some of my soul recordings, the difference between 224k and 256k AAC is obvious...
 
I saw this on digg and i could not tell the difference, even thou thats the case i always rip my music in 320kbs.
 
Couldn't discern a difference using my macbook speakers or ipod headphones however when I hooked up a pair of *very* good speakers it was easy.
 
I thought it was easy to tell, even on my cheapy Lacie Firewire speakers attached to my Mac.

Truth be told, however, they shouldn't have used a sound clip with such limited sonic quality in its original source.
 
netdog said:
I thought it was easy to tell, even on my cheapy Lacie Firewire speakers attached to my Mac.

Truth be told, however, they shouldn't have used a sound clip with such limited sonic quality in its original source.
Click to expand...

Agreed.

They also need to make the difference in bit rates larger, or add a third option of something with a higher bit rate to the mix.
 
I could not tell the difference. Mainly that's because the site was awful. It only gave you ONE type of music, the type that compresses best, and wasn't helpful to compare because you couldn't match up the timelines of the song. Pretty lame overall. :*( But thanks for showing the site. Maybe our criticism will make them fix it up a little :eek:
 
Useless site -

Which is the higher quality? The one which took longer to load! Unbelievably bad design.
 
KingYaba said:
It helps to have a decent pair of headphones. :eek:
Click to expand...

Well - honestly, any reasonable >$20 phone, even with the even-crappier-than-many-PC's-built-in audio that Macs have should be able to highlight the difference, including the Apple buds. It was a while back I peeked in this thread but I think I did this test on a low-end Sennheiser closed phone that I happened to have on hand without a discrete soundcard involved, and the change was crystal clear.

The only variable isn't your gear, especially as the difference between bitrates like this is pretty clearly reproduced with almost anything you might come across: It's also you. I can hear outside the range of most teenagers, let alone most people my age - my current audiologist was quite surprised - and some of the artifacting lies outside the hearing range of older people.

It's an intriguing thing I notice about audiophiles in general. They'll spend thousands on their gear, but if you mention "have you had a hearing test?" they'll go "huh?" - and many I've met IRL who have sunk as much, or far more into audio than me were - relatively speaking - clearly as deaf as a post.
 
Couldn't tell the difference, but I have pretty poor hearing to begin with. Most of my stuff is ripped at 192 and it's good enough for me. I don't enjoy the music any less if it's ripped at a lower bitrate.
 
I had to listen to each one twice before guessing and got it right. Now if I was driving and listening to it, I wouldn't be able to tell which one was which.
 
raggedjimmi said:
Useless site -

Which is the higher quality? The one which took longer to load! Unbelievably bad design.
Click to expand...

isn't that cheating?

using higher quality headphones/speakers you can easily tell the difference all the way through, although initially i noticed the end, like everyone else
 
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