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by nickb
6554 days ago
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There have been so many double blind tests of various codecs (just browse here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codec_listening_test ) and they all show that vast majority of people simply cannot tell the difference between 256kbps MP3 and a CD (certainly not within two standard deviations). Sure, some golden ear guys can tell but even they have hard time coming to two standard deviations. Also, some music actually sounds better as MP3s! Yes, strange... The fact that some of the 128 kbps samples were consistently judged to be better than their original CD counterparts by this skilled group – even by the best among them – stunned our editor (who participated in the test although his results were not included in the evaluation, and had to confess that he got only 15 points). It seems safe to declare that there is no musical genre that is especially well-suited or ill-suited to compression. It is apparent that there are quite other factors related to the technical aspects of recording that will later adversely affect the results at low bit rates. Finally, most of the people listen to their music on portable players and/or computers and speakers on those are so bad that you can't really tell the difference between 128kbps and 256kbps. Double blind tests show that there's no statistical significance when you listen on these devices. So yeah, NY's latest 'better than CD' ploy might work out with audiophiles... same people who buy $400 digital cables and $500 wooden knobs so their music sounds better. In the end, it all comes down to good mastering and not codecs and delivery medium. Modern music is heavily compressed and there's a lot of clipping and that has nothing to do with MP3s. |
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One extravagant audiophile investment that would make an actual difference is tapes from this company that sells copies of reel to reel master tapes. http://www.tapeproject.com/ Why bother with a delivery medium?