[alanpage]

Test your system (and your room) with this audio quality quiz, comparing lossless audio with several compressed bit rate streams [1]. With my 50-year old ears, and an outboard DAC/amp and audiophile magnetic planar headphones, I could only score 50%.

That said, switching between Spotify and Tidal on the same track, I hear a pretty big difference. The lossless music has a depth that just isn't there on the compressed streams

[1] https://www.npr.org/sections/therecord/2015/06/02/411473508/...

[mlindner]

I think some of it is whether you're used to listening to the type of music. All those samples are types of music I don't normally listen to and thus scored 0%. They're also mostly low-information songs that are vocal-heavy. Vocal-heavy music is very easy to compress compared to say something like electronic or EDM type music which will easily create distortion with lower bitrates.

[nathan_f77]

I got 4 / 6 with some old Apple EarPods plugged into my laptop. I think it was probably just luck, because I picked the 128kbps MP3 for both of the ones that I got wrong.

It's fun to think that I might be able to distinguish between uncompressed audio and 320kbps MP3. I didn't think it was possible. I had a hearing test recently, and they did say that I have better than average hearing. But yeah it was probably just random.

[nathan_f77]

Whoa I just put on a nicer pair of headphones (Plantronics BackBeat Pro), and I think I might be able to tell the difference between uncompressed audio and 320kbps MP3.

I just did this test and got the first two right: https://www.theverge.com/2017/4/5/15168340/lossless-audio-mu...

The third one was really tricky so I had to guess. But the first two were a really clear difference. Uncompressed kind of sounds "fuller" and sharper, and MP3 is a bit flatter. It's a tiny difference but I think I can hear it.

[anotheryou]

too bad they don't randomize the sample order, makes the public % of people getting it right useless.

The first sample surprised me on how much of a difference it was, on the 2nd I was wrong, on the 3rd completely lost, but I guess that's by design.

[anotheryou]

I agree. counter-intuitively I heard the biggest difference in the base

[PSZD]

I got 2/6 right, the 4 wrong were 320kbps. Using the cheap-but-decent shp9500s and no dac, but quite good hearing. I'd chalk it up to having been listening to almost exclusively streamed 320kbps, it was interesting to note that the 4 I got wrong were because I discarded the more 'neutral' toned one which was actually lossless.

The 128kbps was of course very easy to pick out.

I'm of the opinion that 320 vs lossless is meaningless enough to not really bother, but I know for some tracks it was trivial for me to tell the different. Mostly it was the very complex/atmospheric tracks, Mind In A Box being a good example, where 320 lost a notable amount of quality. Probably others like Ne Obliviscaris as well.

The biggest problem with Spotify is that not all of their library is available at 320kbps.

[anotheryou]

it's 320kbps ogg btw.

Spotify uses 3 quality ratings for streaming, all in the Ogg Vorbis format.

• ~96 kbps • Normal quality on mobile.

• ~160 kbps • Desktop and web player standard quality. • High quality on mobile.

• ~320 kbps (only available to Premium subscribers) • Desktop high quality. • Extreme quality on mobile.

[jsjohnst]

I got 3/6 right using the iPhone XR built-in speakers (other three were 320k). I then tried it again with someone else clicking the buttons (in case they weren’t randomized order) using my DAC/amp and headphones and got 5/6.

The thing that gives it away for me is the extreme highs and lows, both are clipped when compressed usually. I should note, I wasn’t picking which “sounded better”, but rather which “sounded uncompressed”. Several of the tracks sounded better at 320k than they did uncompressed to me. Despite being rather close to 40, I am still able to easily hear sounds well over 20kHz.

[anotheryou]

I'd say it's nearly impossible to compare that way, because the volume hast to be precisely the same (louder always sounds better).