9 ms·
The 16-bit v/s 8-bit Blind Listening Test, Part 2
- anon4 11y agoThe hover text for the links gives it away unfortunately.
- dietrichepp 11y agoYes, that is a bit unfortunate.
- pieterr 11y agoYou are supposed to do the test "blind". :-)
- mattl 11y agoMy screenreader read them to me?
- raverbashing 11y agoInteresting concept (scored 4/10 on the first test, there's also a similar test with a different song) But to be honest I don't think the snippets are good candidates for the comparison
- Nadya 11y ago>Don't get me wrong, differences between 16-bit and 8-bit are clearly audible, and are demonstrated on my Dynamic Range, Dithering and Noise Shaping page. However, because contemporary popular music has such a limited dynamic range, these differences become subtle, if not inaudible, when tested on it. From the summary thing above the blind test. They're aware of this, this test was mostly done for irony (as also explained in the blurb.)
- aidenn0 11y agoUnfortunately for them (as others noted) they do fade-out at the end, which makes the noise audible on even a decent set of headphones.
- dietrichepp 11y agoOh boy, this test is going to ruffle some feathers. However, the choice of audio clip ensures that you can't tell the difference easily. It's known that the only difference between well-prepared files of different bit depths is the noise floor. Basically, in any PCM audio file, you can expect noise of about 1 ULP. So in a 16-bit file you get a noise floor of -90 dB, and in an 8-bit file it's at -42 dB. This is the ONLY DIFFERENCE. People who are here listening for distortion artifacts aren't going to find any, and they're going to be surprised. That's because you can always choose to introduce noise instead of distortion artifacts when you do the conversion. The noise is actually added on purpose, it's "dithering noise", and it's not there to mask the distortion, but to entirely replace it. The math works like this. Take a high-resolution input, say, 16-bit. You're converting it to 8-bit. If you just convert, you'll introduce a distortion signal of about 1ULP. However, if you introduce 1ULP of uncorrelated rectangular noise, the distortion signal is now also uncorrelated noise, which is less objectionable than correlated noise. It's also harder to hear. Then, how do you tell the difference between 16-bit and 8-bit audio files? You can only do it if there's a quiet part somewhere in there. As soon as there's a quiet part, you can hear a "hissing" sound in the 8-bit file at -42 dB. If you're listening to the middle of a rock song like this, the hissing sound is going to be buried in the mix. Heck, a typical guitar amp will already be putting out uncorrelated noise.
- audiosampling 11y agoAmen! (Disclaimer, I am the person running AudioCheck.net)
- arrrg 11y agoThe fade out at the end makes it possible to identify it. I couldn’t do it perfectly (also played over my laptop speakers because I’m lazy), but I still got 8/10. Even though, the difference is obviously small.
- mlindner 11y agoOh thanks for that. I can now pass the test with 10/10 correctness. There's a noticeably louder noise floor in the 8bit sample that is really clear between the samples.
- jonny_eh 11y agoI guessed randomly and got "8/10 definitely not a random guess". Someone needs to check their p values.
- dietrichepp 11y agoThat's p≈0.044. You got lucky.
- machrider 11y agoI think it's sarcastic. Elsewhere he says unless you get 9 or more correct, you probably can't tell.
- fla 11y ago"7/10 not significantly better than random" :(
- aurelian15 11y agoI scored 10/10 in the test, but only because I experimented with this myself after I read Christopher Montgomery's article in 2012: As explained there, with active dithering, bit-depth and signal-to-noise level are interchangeable -- a signal with a small bit depth has a small signal-to-noise ratio. So one can clearly hear a subtle noise in the 8-bit samples, especially in the fade-out at the end. In my experiments I found that for almost anything, that is not orchestral music, and that is newer than 1990, 8-bit sample depth are enough. That was really depressing. By the way, a nice jest is to tell some random bystander that you're going to present them "8-bit" music and then play the 8-bit version of a song that was a victim of the loudness war. Supposedly, the 8-bit times were better than most people think. ;-)
- nerd_stuff 11y agoThis article is bordering on pseudoscience. When you do experiments you must understand your experimental design enough to understand exactly what you're testing and what conclusions can be drawn from that. If you do A/B testing of 8-bit/16-bit (which is a good idea) you have to understand you're doing the test through your current audio hardware. The whole point of the Pono player is to have higher quality hardwhere everywhere, including pre-amps and DACs so you have a chance to hear subtle differences. If you do this test through your laptop speakers you really might not be able to tell the difference. If you'd like to "debunk" the Pono player then do this test through a Pono player pushing music through quality studio headphones. Making things worse they're using Neil Young's Rockin In The Free World which contains, get this, large amounts of harmonic distortion to begin with. The pre-existing harmonic distortion will only serve to mask any distortion and fidelity loss from truncating to 8-bits. If you don't own high-fidelity music equipment then this test is like proving high definition television is impossible because you can't tell the difference between a standard and high definition signals on your standard definition TV.
- aurelian15 11y ago> The whole point of the Pono player is to have higher quality hardwhere everywhere, including pre-amps and DACs so you have a chance to hear subtle differences. Yes, hardware quality might make a difference in fidelity. Still, 16 bit CD-quality audio is enough. The marketing of the Pono player with 24bit/196kHz is just nonsense. And of course any listening test requires quality hardware to make sure it can actually reproduce the test-signal correctly. > The pre-existing harmonic distortion will only serve to mask any distortion and fidelity loss from truncating to 8bit. With dithering, smaller sample depths only decrease the signal to noise ratio. There are no distortions. The sample is chosen "badly" (but that was by design) because it contains little to no dynamics.
- nerd_stuff 11y agoDithering basically raises the noise-floor by trading harmonic distortions for random noise at the cost of the last bit of information (for the uninitiated dithering means you randomly flip the last bit to create a soft truncation.) It's "noise" which isn't technically harmonic distortion but that's kind of splitting hairs isn't it? I have no patience for articles like this because instead of setting the record straight it just adds more pseudoscience to the mix. Their "experiment" doesn't prove what they claim it proves. Is 24-bit useful for playback? Yes it is. Do you need it for properly mastered audio? Absolutely not. But there are 10,000 home studios across the country who have music files at 24-bits and a large chunk of those engineers don't know how to master audio. Is a raw 24-bit track better than a poorly mastered 16-bit track? It is to me. Is 192kHz useful for anything? Probably not. Does it hurt anything? Maybe a little. I would expect a quality music player to go up to 96 anyhow so 192 isn't so bad. Similar reasons as before. Does this reflect badly on the Pono player? Not really. Over-engineering isn't a bad thing in my book.
- ubercore 11y ago10/10 using the fade-out at the end. Choice of clip is a poor example of the benefits of higher sample depth, because the dynamics are relatively constant and there are a lot of noisy overtones. Having $700 headphones helps, too.
- DiThi 11y ago10/10 too by listening to the fade-out, with a bluetooth headset.
- mod 11y ago10/10 using the fade out, with cheap ass gaming headphones, and not knowing the first goddamn thing about sound, bitrates, what to listen for, or anything in this thread, except seeing your comment first. The fade outs just seemed fuzzy. Edit: I also have no idea if this goes for or against audiophiles. Maybe both? I know they're largely ridiculed.
- ubercore 11y agoDepends on the kind of audiophile you're talking about I guess. I think the easily identified difference shows that 8bit just isn't enough, and audiophiles that say bit depth matters are validated. But 24bit just isn't necessary for consumer audio. Plenty of audiophiles will insist on it still, though. They're the crazy ones
- morsch 11y agoUsing the fade out makes it trivial to detect. Listening closely with headphones it's fairly easy (i.e. get 9+ right) to hear it in the first couple of seconds and throughout the song as well. I guess there's a reason we use 16 bits. Now I want to try it with 24 bits, maybe with a song that has more quiet parts in it. Edit: The other test using Gangnam Style is much harder to detect (for me), I scored 6/10 on my first attempt (and I won't try again, hearing that riff 10 times in a row is plenty): http://www.audiocheck.net/blindtests_16vs8bit.php http://www.audiocheck.net/blindtests_16vs8bit.php
- 11y ago
- SwellJoe 11y agoThis is a terrible source material for this kind of test. The biggest audible difference between 8 bit and 16 bit, assuming the same sample rate, is the noise floor. But, this source material is LOUD throughout, which masks the noise floor. It is in dynamic material that bit depth makes an audible difference. The prior listening test used Gangnam Style, which is also loud and lacking in dynamics that would reveal audible distortion due to low bit depth. The thing is that I agree with Monty on the (lack of) need for 24/196 audio for consumers. My degree is in audio, and I (mostly) understand the physics of the thing (and have done tons of blind listening experiments in controlled environments using professional equipment, as well as using high quality measurement tools for spectrum analysis, etc.). But, this particular test isn't really a useful proof that we don't need 24 bit and 196k. It only proves that loud material can mask noise, even at 8 bits. Using a more dynamic Neil Young song would have been a better choice. Maybe Old Man, or similar. Acoustic guitar is good for allowing one to discern audio equipment flaws. It is commonly the source material people use when trying to rate good pieces of equipment that have very small differences across a very broad price spectrum (microphones, preamps, etc.). Nonetheless, I got 8/10 right using crappy ear buds in a noisy place, which isn't much better than random chance. I'm pretty confident I'd be able to recognize 8 bit vs 16 bit on any reasonably dynamic source played on good equipment in a good listening environment. But, I also know I can't recognize 16 bit vs 24 bit (I've tested), and I know Neil Young can't either. Neil Young was around for the era when ADC/DAC quality was very poor; it actually was true that many early digital recordings were inferior to the very high end analog recordings of the time. And, it's even true that when recording, mixing, and mastering, it is useful to work at higher bit depths (because there's a lot of summing, raising the noise floor each time; though that may just mean you need to process at 24 or 32 bits, rather than actually record at higher depths). It seems obvious, to me, that the reason most music sounds like shit is because of the loudness wars (dynamics reduction), lossy compression (cramming a lot of music down tiny network pipes), and the low quality of most people's listening equipment and environment. Those factors utterly dwarf the noise floor of 16 bit audio, and completely nullify any frequency advantages of higher bit rates (even if we could hear them). In short: Pono is elitist bullshit, as most audiophile stuff is.
- massaman_yams 11y ago
- scelerat 11y agoI tested myself using my MacBook Pro's speakers. 7/10 correct. I'm a musician and have a large CD, vinyl record, and digital audio collection. Honestly the knots some people twist themselves into over formats amuse me. I tend to focus on the music and the rhythm rather than the recording quality, at least above a minimum quality level. I prefer vinyl just because I do. :-) [edit] the test page suggested my results were close to random, and I agree. I couldn't really tell a difference through the laptop speakers. It felt like I was guessing for each sample.
- mod 11y agoWait a couple of hours, to forget your responses, and try again.
- scelerat 11y agoI honestly couldn't tell. I'm guessing if I tried again I'd get anything between 4/10 and 7/10.
- ericfrederich 11y agoRead the "comprehensive article" linked to from the main story. It is worth the read.
- 4ad 11y agoI did 10/10, but that's because I knew exactly what to look for, and how to listen to it. I didn't use my expensive open headphones, but some cheaper closed headphones that passively block external noise, and I used a far louder volume than usual. Of course the source is specially selected to make the test hard. With music with real dynamics, that hasn't been compressed to death, the test becomes trivial. 8 bit gives you 48dB of SNR, that is lower than vinyl and tape.
- emn13 11y agoHowever lots of music is meant to play on the radio, and not to be too dynamic since that would just get lost. The clip is likely less compressed than a considerable portion of radio play, which in turn is likely how most recorded music is listened too, even today.
- kazinator 11y agoI didn't bother with the test, because the 16 bit version of the audio clip sounds bad. It has some of the qualities of a demo that had been recorded with a casette-based four-tracker. 16/44.1 can reproduce a shimmeringly deep, richly textured audio experience. A valid 16/8 test will take a sample of that sort: a great sounding 16 clip, converted down to 8. This article is a veiled ad hominem, which says that Neil Young is wrong about audio because he once recorded some music that sounds like shit. The underlying fallacy is the idea that whenever some artist promotes higher sample rates or wider sample sizes, we should arbitrarily criticize that claim based on some poor example of their own music, rather than using science.
- Pyxl101 11y agoCould you point to an example of an audio clip with the characteristics you're describing? Or an album with such sound? I'd love to experience it.
- semi-extrinsic 11y ago> a shimmeringly deep, richly textured audio experience ... not sure if trolling, or "audiophile".
- kazinator 11y agoMy guitar rig includes a 31 band EQ. Does that answer your question?
- jdalgetty 11y agoCould we have had 8-bit audio of that quality back in the Soundblaster days assuming the computer behind it was capable of processing it?
- boomlinde 11y agoThe original Soundblaster was a pretty noisy thing and was limited to 22.5 kHz, AFAIK. You could use noise dithering to improve the perceived quality, but it wouldn't be as effective at that sample rate.
- raverbashing 11y agoYeah, but later models (Sound Blaster Pro) added 44.1kHz (but only mono, stereo would be 22.5kHz, then it went 16-bit and that was it. Then of course it became obsolete for 99.9% of use cases
- wronskian 11y ago10/10 but perhaps my sensing method would be considered cheating : the underlying noise throughout the whole track was noticeably more dithery/glitchy in one set of clips than the others, so I presumed that identified the 8-bit clips. Speakers are tinny laptop speakers which I think probably overemphasised the effect.
- hatsunearu 11y agoRegardless of whether or not this test is bunk or not, this person's website has a lot of cool audio samples: Subwoofer Harmonic Distortion test: http://www.audiocheck.net/testtones_subwooferharmonicdistortion.php http://www.audiocheck.net/testtones_subwooferharmonicdistort... Polarity test: http://www.audiocheck.net/audiotests_polaritycheck.php http://www.audiocheck.net/audiotests_polaritycheck.php Practical effects of bit depth: http://www.audiocheck.net/audiotests_dithering.php http://www.audiocheck.net/audiotests_dithering.php Headphone Ultimate Test (the binaural audio one is pretty awesome): http://www.audiocheck.net/soundtests_headphones.php http://www.audiocheck.net/soundtests_headphones.php
- Eiriksmal 11y agoI linked to this from my comment on the "24-bit is overkill" article, some other peoples' results are mentioned there. > https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10522850 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10522850
- ericfrederich 11y agoI love this link (also linked in the main article). https://xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html https://xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html Whether a person prefers 8, 16, or 24 bit is besides the point and has to do with their tastes. That article clearly debunks any arguments saying that 24 bit is superior in re-creating reality. In fact he makes some points against it. I love the analogy about a television that can display UV rays.
- ericfrederich 11y agoWhy would you need a 4k video when your only display is 1080P? Same thing goes for audio. Your ears are only capable of hearing a subset of what is reproducible with 16 bit audio, no need for 24 bit. It is all well explained in this article: https://xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html https://xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html The only time you'd ever need more than 16 bits is if you're going to do more than just listen to the music. If you're mixing/mastering that is another story.
- mansr 11y agoMP3 files, seriously? A lossy audio encoder will remove much of a static noise floor (and sacrifice some of the signal in the process). That's the point.
- thanatropism 11y agoI had 6/10 on Neil Young and 5/10 on Gangnam Style. That said, he claims "less than 9 is not meaningful". But by my calculations an 8/10 is significantly different from chance alone; to some extent, 7/10 is as well. Suppose random guesses are drawn from a Binomial distribution -- each sample is an urn containing balls black and white (both equally likely) and we count how many white balls we can get. This is the CDF: people who get 1 answer right score better than only 1% of people. --- 1 0.0107422 2 0.0546875 3 0.171875 4 0.376953 5 0.623047 6 0.828125 7 0.945313 8 0.989258 9 0.999023 -- A "7" is almost at 95% significance.
- Zitrax 11y agoIn contrast to all the 10/10 posts I couldn't hear the slightest difference. Even after reading all the hints about what I should listen to in this thread.
- donlzx 11y agoSpeaking of listening test, I would recommended the following website for the interested: http://www.klippel.de/listeningtest/lt/ http://www.klippel.de/listeningtest/lt/ A couple of years ago, we asked our colleagues to do the tests and the results were quite interesting. (The tests require Microsoft Silverlight, which might be a little hard to setup these days.)