3 ms·
Often, when people say 'I couldn't (or cannot) hear the difference' they are not, or have not, been a/b'ing or making other technically meaningful comparisons.
by IndySun 5y ago
Often, when people say 'I couldn't (or cannot) hear the difference' they are not, or have not, been a/b'ing or making other technically meaningful comparisons. It is effectively saying, 'when I listened to the mp3 it sounded the same as when I listened to the lossless'. These are aesthetic remarks, which also count, but they may not be of value for everyone else.
- geon 5y agoWhile i did not do double blind tests, or even blind tests, I did play the problematic sections (like 1-2 seconds) over and over to be sure I could hear the artifacts. It was not some casual listening. And I could only hear the artifacts in specific places, like crash cymbals in rock music, which I never normally listen to.
- IndySun 5y agoGlad to hear it (pun intended, if puns are allowed). The practical difference in the listening experience is, as you infer, negligible, to almost everyone. Classical music, or other such audio with large dynamic ranges, suffer the most. And while those frequencies above 12-16kHz are often the most obviously hit, the entire range suffers in other ways, phase, low end smearing, transient loss. And while first generation lossless to lossy conversion really is an excellent trade off, lossy to lossy very quickly produces audibly worse sound, even 320 to 320 conversion. But you knew that.