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Music Listeners Test 128kbps vs. 256kbps AAC
notthatwillsmith writes "Maximum PC did double-blind testing with ten listeners in order to determine whether or not normal people could discern the quality difference between the new 256kbps iTunes Plus files and the old, DRM-laden 128kbps tracks. But wait, there's more! To add an extra twist, they also tested Apple's default iPod earbuds vs. an expensive pair of Shure buds to see how much of an impact earbud quality had on the detection rate."
To the people who care about this, they'll have their minds set. To the people who don't, well they don't.
Apple's iTunes store--in partnership with EMI--is now hawking DRM-free music at twice the bit rate of its standard fare (256Kb/s vs. 128Kb/s) and charging a $0.30-per-track premium for it. We're all for DRM-free music, but 256Kb/s still seems like a pretty low bit rate--especially when you're using a lossy codec.
So we decided to test a random sample of our colleagues to see if they could detect any audible difference between a song ripped from a CD and encoded in Apple's lossy AAC format at 128K/s, and the same song ripped and encoded in lossy AAC at 256Kb/s.
Our 10 test subjects range in age from 23 to 56. Seven of the 10 are male. Eight are editors by trade; two art directors. Four participants have musical backgrounds (defined as having played an instrument and/or sung in a band). We asked each participant to provide us with a CD containing a track they considered themselves to be intimately familiar with. We used iTunes to rip the tracks and copied them to a fifth-generation 30GB iPod. We were hoping participants would choose a diverse collection of music, and they did: Classical, jazz, electronica, alternative, straight-ahead rock, and pop were all represented; in fact country was the only style not in the mix. (See the chart at the end of the story for details.)
We hypothesized that no one would be able to discern the difference using the inexpensive earbuds (MSRP: $29) that Apple provides with its product, so we also acquired a set of high-end Shure SE420 earphones (MSRP: $400). We were confident that the better phones would make the task much easier, since they would reveal more flaws in the songs encoded at lower bit rates.
METHODOLOGY
We asked each participant to listen with the Apple buds first and to choose between Track A, Track B, or to express no preference. We then tested using the SE420's and asked the participant to choose between Track C, Track D, or to express no preference. The tests were administered double-blind, meaning that neither the test subject nor the person conducting the test knew which tracks were encoded at which bit rates.
The biggest surprise of the test actually disproved our hypothesis: Eight of the 10 participants expressed a preference for the higher-bit rate songs while listening with the Apple buds, compared to only six who picked the higher-quality track while listening to the Shure's. Several of the test subjects went so far as to tell they felt more confident expressing a preference while listening to the Apple buds. We theorize that the Apple buds were less capable of reproducing high frequencies and that this weakness amplified the listeners' perception of aliasing in the compressed audio signal. But that's just a theory.
LEAVE IT TO THE OLD FOGEYS
Age also factored differently than we expected. Our hearing tends to deteriorate as we get older, but all three of our subjects who are over 40 years old (and the oldest listener in the next-oldest bracket) correctly identified the higher bit-rate tracks using both the Apple and the Shure earphones. Three of the four subjects aged between 31 and 40 correctly identified the higher bit-rate tracks with the Apple earbuds, but only two were successful with the Shures. Two of three under-30 subjects picked the higher-quality tracks with the Apples, but only one of them made the right choice with the Shures. All four musicians picked the higher-quality track while listening to the Apples, and three of the four were correct with the Shures.
Despite being less able to detect the bit rate of the songs while listening to the Shure SE420 earphones, eight of 10 subjects expressed a preference for them over the Apple buds. Several people commented on the Shure's ability to block extraneous noise. While listening to the SE420s, one person remarked "Wow, I'd forgotten that wood-block sound was even in this song." Another said "The difference between the Shure earphones and the Apple earbuds was more significant than the difference between the song encoded at 128Kb/s and the one recorded
8/10 Picked High Bit Rate with Apple Headphones
6/10 Picked High Bit Rate with Shure Headphones
100% certainty that 10 people sample-set is too little for a Yes-No experiement.
Test confirms the generally known (but debatable) points:
1. Not many can detect the improvement of higher kbps
2. Expensive earbuds are way better than the default ones.
But what do you do with this fanboi? "One of the two people who expressed a preference for Apple's product told us "It seemed like I got better kick from the bass."" I hope he was completely deaf.
I can tell the difference between 192 and 128 kbps. It's all in the treble which sounds less bright at 128 kbps. It's very easy to detect lower bit rates if you concentrate on the treble.
that article doesnt provide enough data to make any conclusions.
maybe they should go back to statistics 101
comment directly in my journal
"Eight of the 10 participants expressed a preference for the higher-bit rate songs while listening with the Apple buds, compared to only six who picked the higher-quality track while listening to the Shure's."
I don't buy this. I have a friend who claims to be an audiophile - and he is - with sound equipment worth well over $40,000. He states that the more expensive and professional your gear is, the easier it is to spot low quality music.
So the article contradicts with his statement, and I have to agree with him on this one. Logically speaking, professional speakers should produce results far closer to the source than the ones that aren't.
Full Tilt
Clearly these test are inadequate, or at least they haven't disclosed enough information on the testing conditions. As any true audiophile knows, headphone performance is strongly affected by atmospheric conditions; I'll bet that if they had bothered to maintain proper water vapor saturation levels in the test facility the complete the inadequacy of the ear buds would have been obvious to everyone involved, because sensory receptors (hair cells) in the human ear only achieve full sensitively under controlled conditions.
No doubt they also failed to account for magnetic field alignment; the flaws of low bit rate reproductions are much easier to perceive when the listener is not aligned with Earth's natural axial vectors. The solenoidal force lines ruin the high band pass attenuation of any digital audio and will make both low and high bit rate reproductions equally poor, so naturally there wasn't a strong correlation among the test subjects.
Idiots.
</sarcasm>
Lurking at the bottom of the gravity well, getting old
Or just read the post right before yours. Only 6/10 picked right with the $400 headphones. Thats only 1 better than guessing which track was which with no headphones at all.
We are all just people.
The Maximum PC staff listens to some crappy bands.
Hardly a conclusive or thorough study - were it really double-blind, some subjects should have heard two 128 Kb/s tracks, while others heard two 256 Kb/s tracks, and there should have been a "no difference" option. Also, some types of music, or some particular musicians, make it much easier to discern difference between bitrates, but every subject listened to a different song.
Personally, I can tell the difference between 128 and 256 versions of most Radiohead songs, where there are frequently numerous layers of instrumentation, while Coldplay songs, which are more simplistic, make it harder to discern. However, I can only tell the difference when I'm using my Etymotic ER-6i's - it's impossible for me to tell when using Apple buds, or my Sony MDR-XD2000 over the ear cans - even with my youthful teenage hearing.
Thee facts from a shure user (I've had 3 generations of shure's)
1> Th earbuds are weird, and I mean really weird, generally when you get a new set of shure's you spend around a week getting them right, and trust me, it's amazing, truly amazing for someone who had been using basic Ipod ear phones before hand, to hear the lovely difference. However it did take a week to get them right and without getting them right they were very poor. So if the test didn't give the users who probably were all used to apple earphones at least a week to acclimatise, the test between the ipod and shure earphones is invalid.
2> Shure have been known in previous generations for weak base, something which I haven't heard is bad on the ipod earphones (as I understand it they are poorer in quality in all areas it's just there is no specific weakness)
3> One of the primary uses of these type of earphones is noise isolation, but if the user isn't very careful they get crackling/fuzz in their ears from the wires rubbing on clothes- weird but true. For a new user they surely wouldn't be aware of this.
On another note, is this a reflection of how shure makes good quality out of both bitrates, bad quality out of bitrates, much less vary between bitrates or what? It doesn't really tell us much. I suggest they should have played a tune and said "what bitrate is this" rather than which one of these two tunes is the higher bitrate.
Read it: More people spotted the difference in bitrate with the Apple earbuds than with the $400 ones.
No sig today...
Judging by the comments from the six people who actually got to read the article I'm glad it got slashdotted before I wasted my time on it.
Three Squirrels
Despite what Apple charges for a set of its replacement buds, the earphones that come with 90 percent of the digital media players on the market are throw-away items--they're only in the box so you'll have something to listen to when you bring the player home.
I'm a musician. I've recorded and released an album (sorry for the shameless plug but it's only to put my post in context - honest). I own expensive studio earphones, have experience mixing and mastering etc.
I don't own a 5th generation iPod but I do own an iPod Shuffle that has since stopped playing MP3s. It still works as a storage device and I still have the headphones. I kept on to the headphones because I prefer them over all other ear buds I have. They don't beat the studio headphones, but I would not consider them "throw aways". I found they're pretty good quality and I began using them with all of my portable devices. I would generally agree that most ear buds that come with cd players and probably many other mp3 players are of relatively low quality, but I was very impressed with the ones that came with the iPod Shuffle. I will never throw them away.
Why did I imagine a room of blind people, with blind guide dogs, all trying to find the iPods they've dropped.
-- www.globaltics.net
Political discussion for a new world
Yup, got lucky
The fact I couldn't play the music on my (Nokia) phone's built-in music player was the reason I stopped buying from iTMS. I'll probably start again now. 256Kb/s AAC is the same quality as the music I've ripped from CD, and the convenience is a huge incentive.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
...can we get confirmation/rejection on whether these 256kbps AACs are indistinguishable from CDs (or better yet, the masters that produced them). They sure sound good enough for my ears and equipment anyway. I just hope more follow in EMIs footsteps.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
To our subjects ears, there wasnt a tremendous distinction between the tracks encoded at 128Kb/s and those encoded at 256Kb/s. None of them were absolutely sure about their choices with either set of earphones, even after an average of five back-to-back A/B listening tests... We'd be more excited if Apple increased the bit rate even further, or--even better--if they used a lossless format.
Ok, so by DOUBLING the bitrate, there was only a marginal increase in quality... to the point where on a good set of headphones, detection was only 10% above random and even then people weren't sure. And from this, it is determined that a higher bitrate or (Holy Grail!) lossless compression is needed.
Talk about ignoring your data for the desired conclusion.
The ______ Agenda
I may not be an audiophile(though I quite appreciate music), but in my opinion, 256 Kb/s is a fairly high bitrate. Personally, I find music encoded at about 192 Kb/s(I use Vorbis quality 6, which I believe is about equivalent to that at the moment with MP3—I admit that I know nothing about AAC) to be quite adequate. The only reasonable "standard" lossy bitrate above 256 Kb/s that I can think of is 320 Kb/s, and when you start to go that high, it'd start to seem as if disk space is not really a concern at all, in which you could save yourself all the hassle by just going with lossless music at source quality.
I have a sneaking suspicion that some of the people who use very high bitrates with lossy music do so either out of ignorance, or out of a desire to create an impression that they are "true aficionados" of quality sound.
Me, personally, what I find unsatisfying about compressed music is that the treble is the first thing to go, and even at high bit rates AAC and MP3 each seem to just make all cymbals, brushes, triangles, and synthetic tones in the high registers sound equally like white noise.
I found a tonality frequency setting in LAME that seemed to cure this problem, but neither iTunes nor ITMS seems to let you adjust or purchase based on this issue.
Perhaps not everyone is sensitive to this, but maybe there are other settings or aspects of compression that other people are sensitive to which I am not...leading one to the possible conclusion that compressed music might be made better by personalizing each rip to the hearing response of the listener rather than compromising on an average human hearing model.
Seems to be down for the count - 8:05pm CDT....
sigh
w00t
I mean there might be a difference between listening to the high quality first then low quality versus the other way around. I find it easier to detect the differences if I listen to the low quality version first. The differences are almost always discernible at the higher frequencies in the song.
And in large parts of the USA you won't be able to use that sports car remotely as intended (woo-hoo, that road up to Mount Sunflower has my Ferrari convinced it's back on the Stelvio Pass...). In that case, you may as well save your money on your sports car and buy the blow-your-house-down stereo.
I wouldn't buy either, myself, but different strokes for different folks...
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
These people couldn't even draw a reasonable conclusion employing logic, I fail to see how they could conduct a reliable test...
To our subjects' ears, there wasn't a tremendous distinction between the tracks encoded at 128Kb/s and those encoded at 256Kb/s. None of them were absolutely sure about their choices with either set of earphones, even after an average of five back-to-back A/B listening tests. That tells us the value in the Apple's and EMI's more expensive tracks lies solely in the fact that they're free of DRM restrictions.
Does this remind anyone else of the old story about the frog?
Scientist makes frog hop, frog jump four feet. Cuts one leg off, frog hops three feet. Researcher notes removing one leg makes the frog hop one foo less. Cuts another off, notes the frog hopes only 2 feet. Cuts another off, notes frog can hop only one foot when it has one leg. Cuts off remaining leg and when nothing he can do will incite he frog to hop, puts in notes "removing all legs from frog makes it deaf."
The DRM makes absoilutely no difference. In fact, I'd wager a DRM wrapped CD would still sound like a CD and a DRM wrapped 256kbps aac would still sound (and measure) exactly like an unprotected one. The difference in sound should have absolutely nothing to do with the absence or presence of DRM except under the most demanding (ie one of those uber high end systems with a golden ear where the most minute fluctuations in power supply coupling can aler the most minutely revealed parts of the sound... and probably not even then in a double blind abx).
DRM is simply a container, not a codec technology... but of course that doesn't suit the "cold, dead hands" anti DRM agenda so in fashion - so let's just make a completely insane conclusion and hope no one notices...
The unexpected age results (that older people were better at telling the difference for the bitrates) may well be a consequence of music choice. Each subject picked their own music, and it is very clear that these quality differences are more noticable in some types of music than in others. The first time I played an iTunes purchased classical piece on a cheap component stereo system, I thought something was broken. I hadn't noticed a problem with most popular music, but I find some jazz and most classical digitized at 128bps un-listenable on my low-end component stereo.
Prime numbers are exactly what Alan Greenspan says they are -S. Minsky
One of their key ideas was having the participants submit music they were intimately familiar with. Unfortunately, they should have taken the idea to its logical conclusion: having each participant tested only with songs they submit. Also, they could have at least published the statistics on how participants performed on the song they submitted.
I find it easy to tell the difference between say lossless or even 320 and 128/192 when listening to music I'm very familiar with. But give me a set of random songs I've never heard before and I'd have a much harder time. You don't have to be an audiophile - you just have to be paying attention.
My grievance with low bit rates and/or inferior sound equipment is simply that you won't know what you are missing. And I'm not one of those gold-plated cable audiophiles either -- my "serious" listening equipment is the Etymotics ER4s with a headphone amp. Used for lossless songs, of course.
The big difference that the 256 Kb/s + DRM-free option makes for me is that now I'll buy albums from iTunes Store. Previously I would use iTunes to buy one to three tracks if there was some artist I liked but didn't want a whole album from. But usually I order the CDs online for $8 to $14, rip them to AAC at 192 Kb/s, and put the disc away to collect dust on my overflowing CD rack. Now I can get higher quality cheaper and faster.
Yes, ideally I would rip all my music to a lossless format. And ideally everything would be available on SACD at 2822 KHz rather than 44.1 KHz CDs. But that's just not practical with my 500+ album collection. It'd fill up my laptop's hard drive real quick and allow me to put only a fraction onto my iPod.
I'm also disappointed that the article only tested the tracks on iPods with earbuds. Most of my listening is on a decent stereo system fed from my laptop. Ripping is about convenience, not portability. I only use my iPod when riding the Metro or an airplane. With all the outside noise the bitrate doesn't matter.
And being DRM-free isn't just a matter of idealism. I get frustrated when I go to burn an MP3 CD for my car and discover that one of the tracks I selected is DRMed. Sure there are ways to get around it, but it's just not worth the bother.
AlpineR
Most of my friends seem to have quite a bit of hearing loss (all under 25). I don't seem to have much, though, and I've worked in steam turbine and gas turbine power plants (exceedingly loud places). If these test subjects were anything like my friends they have to turn up music so loud that it is impossible to tell the difference between a cell phone speaker and an Imax theater.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
I Hate listening to mp3's in 128. Most sound terrible compared to higher rates. The treble has that digital hiss that floods the music. I go for 192 or 256 vbr and either sound great, cant even tell the difference from that and the original CD
I sometimes like to listen to classical on a cheapish low-end component stereo. At 128bps, the quality is so noticiably bad for me as to make it pretty awful. But I don't have that problem with many other types of music under other listening conditions (car, iPod, computer speakers). So when I get a chance (I'm travelling now), I'll see what 256k does for me under the conditions that matter. The results may mean that I'll buy more classical from iTunes.
But it really shouldn't matter to you what difference I hear. Run your own tests, with your own music under your own listening conditions. If the quality difference isn't big enough for you to clearly hear, stick with what has been working for you.
Prime numbers are exactly what Alan Greenspan says they are -S. Minsky
Extreme PC's results concerning the ear buds aren't that surprising. It's well known that junk gear with uneven frequency response can heighten compression artifacts.
The 'value' referred to by the original author is an answer to the question 'why buy the high speed version', NOT 'does the new version sound better'.
Idiot.
I figured the best thing to use for evaluation was some music I was already very familiar with: "Hunky Dory" by David Bowie (1971). A very well-recorded album featuring all styles from straight-forward rock to lush orchestrations.
(good deal too; the LP was just $9.99, though the individual tracks were $1.29)
Must admit I was not disappointed. Previously I've rarely bought any music from iTunes - just my own CDs ripped to MP3 at 192 or 256K. The 256K AAC sounded great on the big speakers. Very clean and well-defined high frequency.
Good for Apple; good for EMI.
sig has been sent away for a few small repairs...
We want an experiment designed to identify the codec that will make our music sound the best.
That's it. "best" Not "like the original", which is a poor substitute for "best".
If the original was tainted by phono record pops and clicks, and the codec made that go away, great! We really don't care about "like original". We care about the best.
Your experiment measures something that, while mildly interesting, isn't what we need to determine.
It seems obvious to me they do NOT know what they were doing.
RTFA or not. ( Guess which I chose? )
10 subjects is hardly enough to prove ANYTHING, other than that they
have no idea how to perform a remotely rigorous scientific analysis.
You can expect 2 idiots, 3 to be biased, 4 to be honest, and 1 to lie.
I think 100 would begin to scratch the surface. I'm not trying to be
a snarky science dick, this is self evident. This is epinion.com bullshit.
Show me 10 people who have ipods and I'll show you 5 aol users. (lol)
"...but 256Kb/s still seems like a pretty low bit rate--especially when you're using a lossy codec..."
oh give me a break. a 0 Kb/s rate's too high for the lousy content.
Anyone else think 256kbps MP3s sound like poop?
I've got MP3s recorded in all sorts of different bitrates, 128, 256, 192, and 320. 128 seems to really give the best bang for your buck in terms of file size. 192 sounds better, and 320 sounds great, as good to my non-audiophile ears as a CD. However, I've always thought 256kbps songs just sound like absolute crap. For some reason I can really detect the loss of quality at that bitrate.
If you spend a huge amount of money in a particular thing, you have a vested interest in that thing. Much of the audiophile world falls into this category. One example of this is audiophiles who buy expensive power cords for their amps etc, which plug in to the wall. I'm not sure what they think is behind the wall...
The bit that I completely agree with?
"In the end, Apple's move doesn't change our opinion that the best way to acquire digital music remains buying the CD: You can rip and encode it at any bit rate you want, you can transfer it to any device you want, you know you won't have any DRM issues to worry about, and you won't have to pay anything extra for it."
Done.
I have NO accurate speakers. Instead I cut even more costs and just have a few separate stereos with different speakers hooked up. I use my high-quality Shure studio headphones for recording, then when I'm done, I play it back on all three systems, and I note just how it sounds on each system, so I know over a wide range of speakers/amplifiers (from car amp to hosue speakers, car speakers to house amp, etc.) what I can expect to hear. I listen to it as if I'm hearing it out of Joe Sixpack's home stereo rig, so I know what the average consumer is likely to hear. Saves me money (pawn shops serve my purposes VERY well,) and works out pretty damned well in the end. Also, one thing I don't do is compress the fuck out of my music either. No compressors, thank you. If my meter clips red, I lower the main until everything pans out. I hate metal music nowdays that SOUNDS LIKE IT'S IN ALL CAPS due to the compressors used to sustain a louder volume level without clipping the meter.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
With the way the wrap up reads -
* As for buying high-end earphones, eight of our 10 test subjects enjoyed listening to the Shure SE420's more than they did Apple's stock buds...
* We suspect that the performance of the Shures masked the flaws in the tracks encoded at lower bit rates...
* Despite what Apple charges for a set of its replacement buds, the earphones that come with 90 percent of the digital media players on the market are throw-away items...
I suspect this article is less about 128k vs. 256k and more about advertisement. The results were not impressive -- and that person was trying to notice -- but anyway you just gotta have these expensive ear buds.
after all, you only get one set of ears in life
It goes from God, to Jerry, to me.
This test, to a large extent, tells us about the output of the codecs, rather than tell us about the differences between 128k/256k encoding. For a really meaningful test, we must ensure that each song was encoded using the exact same settings.
I can create 256k MP3's which sound worse than 128k MP3's, both from the same WAV. There are a large number of customizations you can use in the encoding process which can really affect the output.
Studio monitors are usually thought of as "the most accurate" but again, isn't that what 95% of hifi speakers try to do? The bottom line is there no such thing as perfect frequency or transients in the real world. Its just not possible. Take into consideration room shape, wall reflections, let alone the characteristics of crossovers, drivers, etc and you'll quickly figure out that "ruler flat response" doesn't exist. That overly crisp, sharp sound some monitors have alot of times is a bit of a hump in the upper ranges which is definately not perfect.
And I'll quote a Mr. Jay_WJ from an audio speaker forum:
Here's a sort of mathematical description of this situation: Suppose that we have a certain loss function f(x), which measures the discrepancy between ideal flat FR and real system FR, given all possible design choices that are represented by x (possibly a vector of variables). As we know, the f(x) cannot attain 0 discrepancy. It is plausible (actually almost always occurs in real-world optimization problems) that we can have similarly close-to-zero values at different x points. In this case, different disign choices result in similar losses. But suppose that an empirical study with real listeners finds that a particular x satisfies more people than another x point. This means that even if multiple design choices lead to a similarly low loss (i.e., in this case similarly "flat response"), a particular one can satisfy more people than another.Here is a link actually comparing 2 monitors and 2 hifi speakers. There is not as much difference as you think. Mostly one is built for near-field use, the other for farther out. http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/Jun02/articles/mon itors.asp
We can conclude that since there's no such as perfect accuracy, it doesn't matter which gear you use as long as its designed well. Now room treatments on the other hand will definately improve things.
Both kinds of music were missing: They had neither Country nor Western music in the test.
What is America coming to?
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
Hydrogen audio forums provide a lot of very good information including well designed double blind comparisons between codecs and bits rates. See this page for details and the links to other testing sites. http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?title=List ening_Tests
All in all an excellent resource for any serious listener.
They look just like white noise after the initial hit.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Lossless would be more useful in the future—I might want to archive the recordings in a format I know I'll be able to play/transcode to something else later on (FLAC is ideal for this).
You're not just paying more for something you might not hear, you're also paying more for embedding personal data in the track. According to ArsTechnica Apple embeds customer information in the DRM-free tracks too. Customers didn't get that when they bought wax cylinders, records, or tapes, nor do customers get that when they buy CDs. Customers can easily resell all of the older media without divulging personal information (theirs or anyone else's). I doubt most people leveraging their first-sale right by selling their iTunes tracks want to distribute anyone's personal information along with it. But maybe Apple has this covered: as George Hotelling learned, it's harder to sell one's iTunes tracks than it needs to be.
And now it appears that the new iTunes version will not let you "convert the music you've bought -- even "DRM-free" songs sold at a 30 percent premium -- into MP3s that will play on your iPod" when you rip the CD with iTunes. I believe most MacOS X users manage their audio tracks exclusively with iTunes from ripping and uploading to a portable digital audio device, to searching and playback. I could do the same thing with Rhythmbox on a free software OS (minus the digital restrictions management and personal data embedding, of course) if I weren't so finicky about processing the ripped WAV file with other programs before I encode with FLAC.
Digital Citizen
I figured that out a month ago.
Actually, I notice a huge difference between 128K and 192K when listening to classical music. For music that doesn't contain the brashness of percussion or brass instruments, the distortion at lower encoding levels is fairly good; however, brass instruments (including brass cymbals) in particular are unbearably distorted when 128K is used but come across rather cleanly when >192K is used. I've finally accepted that a variable rate between 224K and 320K is where I need to encode my tracks in order to make them as close to the original CDs as I can tolerate without using the actual CDs.
The Overrated mod is for reversing inappropriate, positive mods, not for voicing disagreement with a post.
I feel dumb by asking this, but is AAC just a format that lives in the Mac world like AIFF, MacWrite, or Stuffit, or is it a standard that is multiplatform and extends beyond iPods, the Zune (the Zune can play AAC oddly enough), and the occasional car player?
I just never see AAC anywhere but in the Apple sphere, so if I wanted to use iTunes songs with anything non iPod, I will have to transcode it to MP3.
I have seen posts claiming AAC is a standard, but what separates AAC from other music storage formats I see pop from time to time such as WMA or Sony's audio format which forces a user who has a library of files in that format to be locked into a definite subset of players compared to a generic MP3 library which is playable anywhere?
I wouldn't mind if it were a definite standard where all players supported AAC... its a definite improvement over MP3, but it seems that AAC means iPod.
Did they randomize which track was played first? If not they can throw out the whole thing. It's a well-established phenomenon than given a choice between two roughly equivalent items people will overwhelmingly choose the second one. That's how, for instance, Pepsi always did so well in the "Pepsi Challenge."
Using terms like hypothesis, double blind, and test subjects doesn't mean you've suddenly uncovered something about anything. Your audio system is only as strong as its weakest link, and if you're listening to cheap earphones, you're missing out on what your MP3 player is capable of delivering. The SE420's fit tight inside your ear canal, so they isolate your ears from extraneous noise. Meryl: Why don't I make you some of this new Mococoa Drink? All natural cocoa beans from the upper slopes of Mount Nicaragua. No artificial sweeteners...
Truman: What the hell are you talking about?!
Meryl: I've tasted other cocoas. This is the best.
Truman: What the hell has that got to do with anything? Tell me what's happening?!
the ear can hear from a deep cave a tear drop into the sand on the dark side of the moon, what do you mean with digital recordings against human nature?
?
At 192k I start not to be less annoyed.
I don't think that means what you think it means.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
I encode my MP3's (mostly rock/pop) and try to download stuff at 192 because the cymbals sound warbly at 128, even with lower-end speakers....
If you read some of the older tube-audio engineering books from the WW-II era {the Radio Designer's Handbook by Terman and the Radiotron book for two} in the chapters on sound reproduction, they go into how circuits of the era were designed and tested--usually not by simply revealing technical specs of the circuit's performance (that most people wouldn't have understood anyway) but by simple listening tests at large public functions like World's Fairs and so on. The radio makers wanted to use the simplest, cheapest circuits they could--but to sell they had to sound nice.
What's interesting is that the amplifier circuits that were most-preferred were often not the most technically accurate or complex, and the sound source didn't even have to cover the full-range of human hearing, or even the full-range of radio transmission at the time. People were generally very sensitive to some ranges of frequencies and far less so to others.
~
Comparing a professional analogue audio format to a digital consumer format?
Nice.
I don't always use unix-like operating systems; but when I do, I prefer FreeBSD.
Thank you for summarizing the results in a more standard fashion.
Although something seems fishy about their conclusion that people can identify the difference between the two bitrates with the Apple headphones because they are inferior headphones. I've never tried either of these headphones, but generally it takes higher quality headphones to differentiate bitrates, and it's the inferior headphones for which bitrate is irrelevant.
I like having a CD, but I don't like paying for a CD.
I don't want to spend $10 for one song, and saving $9 a track is almost worth the DRM.
DATABASE WOW WOW
First, to those who made comments about 128k encoding, you may be thinking of mp3. (Or maybe not, who knows...) From what I've heard, AAC, Vorbis, and AC3 all sound better than mp3 at similar bitrates.
Second, I remember there was a comment on Slashdot awhile back, before they actually came out with these, and I want to confirm... Apparently, CDs are recorded at a certain physical bitrate/frequency, and there are digital masters which are at a higher rate... it's late, so I'm not entirely coherent, but think of it as somewhat equivalent to resolution of a DVD (quality of video is proportional to resolution (HD vs normal) and bitrate). The point was that 256k may actually sound better than a CD, since it comes from a better source than a CD.
If so, this whole test is BS, since they did not do a comparison of CD vs 128k (either iTunes-DRM'd or custom-ripped) vs 256k (un-DRM'd, from the iTunes store). Specifically, I'd want to hear 256k vs CD. But at the same time, I don't know if any iPod, or specifically the one they are using, would be able to handle the higher resolution. If not, you'd have to specifically check your soundcard, too.
And finally, again vaguely remembering this from a Slashdot comment (so correct me if I'm wrong), but there was some comment about "The 30c may seem small, but imagine buying a whole album at these prices..." And I seem to remember that a full album is always $9.99. Still high compared to, for example, the minimum you'd pay for a FLAC-encoded album at MagnaTune, but if you're buying a whole album (and if that's accurate), you may as well just opt for un-DRM'd -- especially if it sounds better than a CD (which would probably cost more anyway.)
But then, of course, I'd like to hear a much bigger study, with more rigorous controls in place. 10 people is just not enough, no matter how you set it up.
And personally, if I had any money to spend on music, I'd be buying un-DRM'd stuff. But probably not from iTunes -- not till there's a web interface (or at least an API) that doesn't require me to download their client software. After all, if I'm buying a single file, the point of the client software is to implement the DRM, and if I buy the un-DRM'd version... Not that it shouldn't also work in the iTunes client, but it'd be nice for it to work natively in AmaroK, or just in a browser.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Ehh.. They shouldn't be "surprised" if they have "just" 2 people in an age category as opposed to 3, or even if 8 were right with the Apple buds compared to 6 on the higher quality Shure's. The sample size is so small that both cases here could be neglibly different, heck it could even be that with say 100 users, it would turn out the age stuff was a fluke.
Too bad because I've been interested in seeing something like this done, but they really can't just have only 10 participants unless the result will be something like 2:8.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
I'm new at Slashdot (just pointing it out so don't shoot me). I've been a fan of music all of my life. Sometimes it's just obligatory to own a lost track from some obscure dance album and all you find is some lousy MP3 that's chewed up and spat back out. But then again, you've got the track what's to complain about? Sure, it could've been better quality, but you still have it and that's the point. If I rip my own cds I use lame with -V2 because I like the quality, it sounds better do me than -V4, but sometimes you're just happy to hear the song, even if it's on the radio. And what shitty quality is that? (no DAB)
"And as much as we dislike DRM, we just don't think DRM-free tracks alone are worth paying an extra 30 cents a track for.. It would be crazy to pay that premium if you're going to buy the entire album. We'd be more excited if Apple increased the bit rate even further, or--even better--if they used a lossless format."
First off, I've yet to see a lossless formula that WORKS. And by works I mean is easily convertible into mp3/aac so I can use it on a portable player I already own, able to be used. I've seen APE and FLAC, both are too much hassle, and the APE files I got were in japanese. Here's a little fact, Ape doesn't necessarily know how to correctly encode Japanese into ID3, end result? Buffer overflow, bad data. Oh and if they work? They are larger than mp3s and AAC. Lossless codec means all the data has to remain, trust me, that's not a good thing when coupled with all the other little hassles it has.
Second. It'd be crazy to spend 99 cents just to license your files so that you can only use as Apple approves. Paying money to crack the music so I can use it as I want is illegal according to them so why am I paying the money to get locked into their plan. However DRM free music is easily worth 1 dollar and 30 cents because it's mine (It AAC but I can live with that). I don't have to ask permission to use it in another player, I don't have to ask permission to convert it to a data format I choose. Personally I'm fine with 192 for most recordings, I'm not an audiophile, I'm just a listener. If you want the highest grade data, or are an audiophile you'll be buying CDs or fully lossless data, you're not going to fuck with iTunes anyways.
Btw their other idea is to get rid of the apple iBuds and get quality recievers. Hint, This is what got the less interchangable results? I don't exactly see why getting a "higher quality" headset would be desirable if it creates less of a difference instead of more of a difference between two bit rates. Higher quality means I should hear everything. If you are asking people "can you hear the difference" they already should be listening as hard as they can. The theory they try to explain it with doesn't make much sense. They are telling us 30 cents doesn't make a difference but they are trying to sell us on dropping 400 bucks on noise reducing headsets you can get for around 100 if you're clever. Hell they are EARBUDS!!! So far I've notice two things about earbuds. They are uncomfortable, and they are worthless compared to my headphones. If you're talking about noise reducing earbuds just be smart buy a good set of headphones.
Overall a throw away article, I'm still only going to buy DRM less music (I expect you out there to do the same, I'm assuming 30 cents won't kill you, but that's your choice) and hope to soon if Apple ever put the DRMless music out, and had the music I listen to (so far not really). I'm assuming you all are STILL buying music like you are going to. The only mind's this article changes is the cavemen hiding under the rock who still scream "ahhh cds bad", and he's still trying to figure out our compooters, so showing him the internet might not be smart just yet.
I am not a lamer, so I've never bought any iTunes music. I had no idea it was encoded at 128 kb/s! (I guess it's something other than MP3 so my experience is not entirely relevant, but it's got to be comparable.) The recent Apple products I've used have all been of impressive quality, so I'm surprised they of all people are peddling such crappy audio. I don't exactly have golden ears, and going above 192 kb/s in an MP3 never makes any difference to me, but if it's a 128, I can spot that within seconds and throw it away. If it's got cymbals in it, ugh!
Back when the great audiophile debate was between CD and vinyl, New Scientist magazine put a load of audiophiles to the test by playing them the same piece of music from CD and then from Vinyl and asked them to identify which version was from which media and describe the differences between them.
What they didn't tell them was that they simply played the same CD track twice so any differences they thought they heard were purely a result of their own perception fantasies; it didn't stop them from describing in some detail how the two tracks varied though.
Input error. Replace user and press any key to continue.
This "test" is nothing more than a joke. "Choose the one you prefer"? The results are not statistically valid, and are probably just guesswork. Do a real ABX-test, or leave it to the guys that know what they are doing (Hydrogenaudio.org). And by the way, an 128kbps AAC-encoding done by iTunes is completely transparent to most people, including audio-geeks.
There's a big problem with tests like this in their perceived outcome. The results were 8/10 picking the right song. That looks like a majority. But is it? If all of them were simply guessing, the expected result would be 5/10. I don't feel like pulling out my old stats book, but the I have to believe that the confidence interval on this allows a wide variance. In fact, I wonder if a ten person sample is even capable of achieving anything better than an 80% certainty.
Bias? Do you even know what double blind listening tests are for?
A pleasure-giving well-made functional product combined with an iconic design is perfect brand marketing.
Those white headphones--everywhere--outswoosh Nike.
Damn those pesky terrorists
Perhaps bias against the fact it is an Apple product, or AAC...
You may be the first poster in Slashdot history to actually have a reasonable motivation for rejecting a study based on sample size. I need to remember the math for this.
is all about how much fidelity of the original wave can be reproduced by digital sampling at constant rate. A wave at half the frequency of sampling will have at most two samples going up and two going down. This is enough to get fairly close. However, if you're not sampling at exactly the right place wrt the peak of that wave, you may have a cluster at the top or bottom of the wave, making the amplitude and frequency a little less accurage. Above 1/2 the sampling rate, you're likely to be unable to tell the difference between a wave going up and a wave going down (it is impossible AT the sample frequency: you just have the current amplitude).
However, quantisation also makes a difference. At the Nyquist limit, if you only have 8 discrete levels of amplitude (because it is quiet or your quantisation level at that frequency is low) then you are unlikely to get the amplitude right near the Nyquist limit, despite having the frequency right. This can be countered if the earbuds cannot reproduce that frequency at all (like -40dB or less) because your error in amplitude still doesn't bring it up to the audible level (when compared to the rest of the audio spectrum reproduced). However, a better earbud will be able to manage this frequency somewhat better, so the errors in determining the amplitude are noticeable now.
So for good reproduction of frequency AND amplitude, you need to either up the bitrate (increasing the quantisation fidelity at low amplitudes, where a lower rate would remove more information) or limit yourself to, say 1/3 the nyquist limit, by applying a low bandpass filter first.
Seeing as how I can't seem to get any info from Apple's site about iTunes, without installing it, could someone answer a few questions please?
1. Are the non-DRM files just Apple's broken AAC "MP4", or can we chose MP3 (or FLAC/Ogg)?
2. If #1 is not possible, is re-converting to Ogg/MP3 from a 256k AAC going to sound worse than a 128k MP3 encoded from a CD directly?
3. How much are they per track (I'm not interested in buying albums, most of it is cruft) and compared to DRM'd versions, in the UK are they more expensive than the US - Apple's usual policy. This would be a big selling point - with the poor Dollar, tracks could be very cheap if they sell for the same price in the UK.
4. How do you use the iTunes store on Linux without using the iTunes software (I'd prefer just a website with download links instead of resorting to WINE).
OK, so that's four, not two.
#include <sig.h>
Since apps and mp3 players don't support ACC they should have re-encoded the files to 128k mp3 format first and then done the double blind test.
The higher quality ACC files will re-encode better than the lower quality ones.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
I've often suggested this. Why do we obsess about stereo anyway? My ears didn't click to a stereo sound stage until I was 20 , before then when listening to headphones I just had noise in two ears.
Right... Except that the question is which one of these sounds better.
100... so that by your reckoning they can have 20 idiots, 30 biased, 40 honest, and 10 liars? (Not exactly, of course.)
Nobody's trying to produce a result like "60 out of 100 subjects chose the higher bit rate, showing with p > 0.95 that there is a correlation." The question was, "These tracks cost 30% more, is the difference in bitrate going to make that worthwhile?" So they assembled a group of 10 and ran a test - crucially, a double-blind test - that gave them enough information to say, "Maybe not, sometimes we're not even sure which is which."
To be sure, there are other things I'd like to have seen in the article, but don't blame someone for doing some investigation and drawing conclusions at a level justified by their sample size.
I know it doesn't make any sense in the context of trying AAC files, but honestly I haven't been impressed by the sound quality out of iPods. What they measured here is not necessarily the quality of the tracks, but rather how good those tracks sound when played on an iPod.
It'd be interesting if they pushed the files back into WAV files on a good decoder, then played them back on a decent machine with a nice sound card into Sennheiser headphones or something. That would better judge the actual quality of the tracks, rather than just how well an iPod can render the tracks.
Of course, if someone only ever listens to music on an iPod, I guess that's a pointless exercise, they're never going to hear the music properly anyway so the cheaper track is just as good. Perhaps that's the result of this test (if any, given the small sample).
Spending 5 1/2 hours in a plane sitting between two earbud-style headphone wearing music listeners made it painfuly clear those things fail miserably in one of their primary purposes: Provide a private listening experience for the user so as not to disturb others as would be the case with speakers.
I'd rather have people user speakers, at least that way I could hear all of their music, instead of what I hear now - which is just enough to annoy me.
Error:
I will not claim to be an audio pro, but I knew I had seen devices that sample at much more than 16 bits/44.1 kHz (CDs), so I googled and found this device http://www.echoaudio.com/Products/FireWire/AudioFi re12/index.php , which is a product that samples 24 bits/192 kHz, which leads me to believe that masters probably are recorded with higher fidelity.
Certainly, I now use the MOTU 192KHz system but it hasn't been available until the last few years. Mastering to DAT was standard for many productions during the 90s which threw away a lot of the data. During this period engineers preferred hi-end analog systems for fidelity (30ips, 1/2") but it is more costly and therefore not always used.
spoonerize "magic trackpad"
So, is it much, some, or a few?
A bullshit detecting pro.
Just like they said about shopping for expensive audio equipment or HDTV's, if you can't the difference between 720p and 1080p, don't waste your money, some people can see the additional details, some can't. That being said, I listen mostly to classical music, bit rates and a good pair of headphones make a big difference.
Enjoy seeing someone pull some statistics to the study. When I read TFA, it made me remember the old rule of thumb of n=30 for our old processes optimization expiriments...not always necessary but worth while doing if you can.
I love the sound of distortion in the morning -- webcommando
... missing from the /. summary. What kind of summary is this, an appetizer?
So, the result is: The test persons could not really find a difference between the different encodings, but were please to use the high-end earphones. The test itself is absolutely not representative (only 10 testers, favorite pop music only, etc.).
I wonder how many would have read TFA if this has been known from the summary?
One of the things I'd like to have seen is a distinction between "failed to distinguish" and "distinguished incorrectly". They've only told us "distinguished correctly" vs. "other", which were not the options given the subjects.
You save only 59 seconds over 8 miles by going 75 instead of 65. Do you really have to pass that guy? Do the Math!
I could not even get to page two.
I will not claim to be an audio pro, but I knew I had seen devices that sample at much more than 16 bits/44.1 kHz (CDs), so I googled and found this device http://www.echoaudio.com/Products/FireWire/AudioFi re12/index.php , which is a product that samples 24 bits/192 kHz, which leads me to believe that masters probably are recorded with higher fidelity.
I *will* claim to be an audio pro. Yes, certainly, albums are recorded, mixed, and mastered at higher sample and bit rates than CD. The vast majority of recordings don't see 44.1kHz or 16 bit until the step right before they're put onto a CD. The question, however, is do these higher quality masters get used by ITMS to create the tracks that they sell, or do they just work from a 44.1kZHz/16bit master CD that is of the same quality as the CDs the rest of us have. I have a hunch it's the latter, not only because it's easier, but because it's likely to be preferable. Converting from high sample and bit rates to low sample and bit rates is a lossy process that is affected by the quality of lowpass filter and dithering algorithms used (respectively). Since the compressed ITMS tracks are likely uncompressed to 44.1kHz/16bit (on the fly) when played back, I'm guessing they convert to 44.1kHz/16bit when encoding, if the files aren't that already. The quality of filter and dither algorithms built into iTunes are very likely to be worse than those at a mastering studio, so it's probable that it's preferable to have Apple working from 44.1kHz/16bit masters, rather than the higher quality masters that the studio has.
ZuluPad, the wiki notepad on crack
... but I sure want a pair or Shure earbuds after reading it.
"If you want a vision of the future, Winston, imagine a boot stamping on a human face forever." - George Orwell, 1984
Hmm. I've got a 3rg generation 15GB Ipod that I've had since 2001. MY CD collection is ripped at 320k. You can really tell the
difference especially with the highs. Music does not sound so compressed at that level. The mpegs I bought on Itunes do no sound
as clear as well as my own CDs I ripped at 320k. To the point where If I like a song, and there's several good songs on the new album... like the new Buckcherry album.. well I will by the album and rip it myself at 320k. There's a major difference even
between 256k to 320k. 256k sounds a little bit better than FM stereo and better than XM. 320k sounds ALMOST as good as a CD.
On cheap earbuds.. 192k is fine, at 128k you hear compression in the highs.
I can't RTFM because their website is down, but in theory this is what double-blind is supposed to address.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double-blind
The observers don't know where the source is coming from. It could very well be the same thing twice in a row. If they're recording a difference, that's noted and is part of the experimental data.
There were arguments in the audio rags years ago, and probably still are, that doing double-blind testing was not worthwhile, because to truly enjoy the sound you had to see which piece of equipment was being used. (See The Absolute Sound, Stereophile, etc) Those tests you can take with a pinch of salt.
If 256 kbps reveals more of the good music then clearly bad music should be encoded using 128 kbps.
+1 for confirmation bias. It's my favourite bias!
I wasn't trying to put across that iTunes uses these high quality masters (though it is possible I suppose), I was just trying to say that higher than CD quality masters likely exist.
Nearly all music is recorded and processed at 48kHz. The Red Book standard unfortunately went with 44.1 (for some esoteric reason having to do with syncing with an analog video standard or something back in the 80s). So, there's at least a down-conversion from 48 to 44.1, which isn't the end of the world but you lose some fidelity in the process since its really hard to do that "right" (and its only been recently that people have stopped using langrangian techniques and used truncated sinc functions or polyphase filters to do a decent job without it taking 50 forevers)
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
Remind me to archive this for those times when I need a good example of irony.
The Etymotics are really great! Even the lower end version... The ear insert is most definitely an acquired taste however.
Most of my music is encoded at 128 but I am in the process of taking may favorites and recoding at 256. Lossless is great but the space savings are pretty helpful.
Why would you choose MP3 over MP4?
Referring to MPEG-4 audio (which isn't Apple's format) as "Apple's broken AAC" makes me think you've already decided that because it's what Apple uses it must be broken. I suggest you do a wee bit of research and check out what professional classical musicians prefer to use for distribution. For example:
-- Dmitri Garanin at pianoworld.com, on why he chose MP4 format for Elena Kuschnerova's website in December 2003.
Between lossy and non-lossy, wouldn't the same bit rate usually be worse for the non-lossy? Isn't the reason for lossy compression in the first place to able to use a lower bit rate to come close to what it takes takes non-lossy compression to do with a higher bit rate?
This article is rubbish. Why? Here you go:
1. They only asked 10 people
2. Out of those 10 people I bet you none of them had any clue of what to listen for, or how compressing the sounds affects the music.
3. Anyone who knows about high quality audio knows that you would not use Apple's earbuds or ANY earbuds of ANY kind to distinguish the differences in music.
Here's my test. One person. Sony Studio professional headphones, files encoded at all bitrates AAC and MP3 from 128kbps on.
I wanted to see which fared better-- MP3 or AAC. My conclusion was that AAC is a FAR BETTER compression format for music, and that a 128kbps AAC file was FAR SUPERIOR to a 128kbps MP3.
That said, I could tell the difference between a 256kbps MP3 recording and a 320kbps recording. It sounded a bit muffled in comparison. Therefore making 320kbps the only option if you don't want "audible loss" of quality, or at least the kind my ears are able to perceive with professional equipment.
As far as AAC goes, I found 160kbps to be the optimum bitrate for a good balance of audio quality without any perceivable degredation in sound quality (again, my ears). 128kbps AAC was comparable to 256kbps MP3 compression.
All my tests were performed by using iTunes as the program to do the sound compression/conversion so I am sure that is an accurate representation of what Apple does, since they wrote iTunes.
I think it's great that they're offering DRM-free 256kbps AAC files! The only thing that could make it better is if they made them to be MP3s, but then they'd have to be 320kbps.
The problem with non-standard formats like AAC is that popular music software like Native Instruments Traktor is as yet unable to read them, and thus you cannot "DJ" or mix your music collection like you would with anything MP3s.
Needs more cowbell!
-- Boycott Shell
Who on earth would spend that much on in-ear headphones? it's well known that closed headphones sound worse than open back. The sort of places you are likely to use these will negate any sound benefit. Ambient noise will add a noise level and that will mean you may as well get some cheaper buds.
Of course, the sample set is way too small to really tell, but did anybody else notice that it seemed like people were better at discerning bitrates with older recordings? Possibly the brick-wall limiting / volume maximization issue has a part in this as well.
Of course people can tell the difference between 128 and 256 kbps. I want the option of downloading uncompressed audio for the extra price. I'm just buying a license anyway, so I'll do with it what I please!
so mod the AC parent up. Once you've clipped below the sampling rate, you've already clipped.
I like listening to songs I wouldn't normally hear, either because they need "time to grow on you" or don't make the top 100 or aren't aired on the radio or whatever.
But, music appreciation is expensive, and I'm a poor soon-to-be college student. If I spent $10 on every artist in my playlist instead of $1, I'd be broke.
Hopefully the album won't die before I can buy one ^.^
DATABASE WOW WOW
I am a live audio engineer who mixes at some large concerts (10,000+ people). Humidity absolutely makes a difference in how the audience hears the sound elmininating from the speakers. It can change speed, and direction, it can also refract and reflect the sound pressure waves.
Yes I realize you are joking, but in the real world on a large scale, humidity and atmospheric conditions DO matter!
Libertas in infinitum
I like how people were more easily able to distinguish between 128kbps and 256 kbps AAC files using Apple ear buds than the Shure ear buds. This forced the writers to come up with an excuse for this anomaly by claiming that the Apple ear buds' inability to produce high frequencies masked the sounds that would make it easy to hear the difference between the 128 kbps and 256 kbps tracks. They were so embarrassed by this result they had to add superfluous comments like how one listeners was amazed to hear a wood block sound in a song when listening to the Shures and how the Shures will allow you to lower the volume and thus save you from hearing loss. How about an alternate, perhaps more straightforward explanation: the sound quality of the Apple ear buds is better than the sound quality of the Shure ear buds? I know that may seem ridiculous, but maybe it's not. Maybe it's really hard to produce great sound out of ear buds, making ear bud quality a crap shoot.