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1/3 of People Can't Tell 48Kbps Audio From 160Kbps
An anonymous reader writes "Results of a blind listening test show that a third of people can't tell the difference between music encoded at 48Kbps and the same music encoded at 160Kbps. The test was conducted by CNet to find out whether streaming music service Spotify sounded better than new rival Sky Songs. Spotify uses 160Kbps OGG compression for its free service, whereas Sky Songs uses 48Kbps AAC+ compression. Over a third of participants thought the lower bit rate sounded better."
You better bet I can hear the difference.
This is why I laughed at the Sirius rep who tried to get me to sign up for the Satellite radio in my Ford Fusion a couple years back. The sound quality is TERRIBLE. Why have a decent sound system and a tingy-slingy crap sound source?
I can't even stand 128kbps mp3. Now that's a little apples-to-oranges for this article (different codecs), but still.
Some people have no eye, or ear, for quality.
Except that most of the compression gained from mp3 is gained by removing frequencies we can't hear anyway
False. All you need to know to know that this is bullshit is to consider what happens if you have two point sources radiating the same signal. At some points the signal is doubled. At some point the signal is cancelled. Those frequencies you can't hear overlap with other frequencies you can't hear and with frequencies that you can hear and the sound is changed. That's why analog will always sound better than digital... for one generation, anyway. Obviously there are drawbacks to analog which have pushed us to digital. It doesn't mean you can just forget about the analog world, where we live.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I can EASILY tell the difference between some random electronic music and the godliness of recording that is an Infected Mushroom album (even if you don't like the music).
Please. I just listened to five tracks of theirs, and to me they are indistinguishable from every other four-on-the-floor snore out there. No amount of fidelity is going to change the fact that this kind of music can be made very quickly with very little effort. It's trash.