Go here http://mp3ornot.com/ and see if you can tell the difference between 128kbps and 320kbps audio. I think 10 tries is enough to see if you can tell the difference consistently.
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Can you tell the difference between 128kbps and 320kbps audio?
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Total Posts
13
What were your results?
Total votes: 14
Topic Starter
I guessed on basically all my tries because I couldn't hear a difference.
I absolutely cannot tell. Without cheating.
I really don't care about audio quality when it comes to personal use. I'll gladly choose the mp3 over the flac any day. I only use lossless audio when I need it for archival purposes (e.g. I'm recording something and I want it to be lossless).
A good analogy is how I always download my anime in HEVC and 1080p for archival purposes, but then spend time, energy, and processing power re-encoding it to H264 baseline and 720p (otherwise my phone won't play it).
Also the site doesn't seem to be working for me, and I have JavaScript enabled.
Nevermind, my internet is just dumb.
I really don't care about audio quality when it comes to personal use. I'll gladly choose the mp3 over the flac any day. I only use lossless audio when I need it for archival purposes (e.g. I'm recording something and I want it to be lossless).
A good analogy is how I always download my anime in HEVC and 1080p for archival purposes, but then spend time, energy, and processing power re-encoding it to H264 baseline and 720p (otherwise my phone won't play it).
Nevermind, my internet is just dumb.
Personally I got 8/10. It'd definitely be more accurate if it wasn't the same 2 songs over and over. Hearing similar audio every single time just confuses the brain to the point where it gets harder to distinguish the more you go through the test, whereas in the beginning it's dirt easy.
My earphones are garbage, but let's see.
I got 6/10, it's hard to notice it but everything sound cleaner in 320 kbps. It's comparabe to differencing JPG and PNG, the difference is small on plain sight, but whenever you look for details PNG is clearly better.
Now you got me obsessed with 320 kbps music. I'm gonna check the quality of all my songs now.
I got 6/10, it's hard to notice it but everything sound cleaner in 320 kbps. It's comparabe to differencing JPG and PNG, the difference is small on plain sight, but whenever you look for details PNG is clearly better.
Now you got me obsessed with 320 kbps music. I'm gonna check the quality of all my songs now.
Unless I'm paying much attention and switch between the samples a few times at least, I can't tell them apart.
If I do it's very possible though. Listening on a stereo. 7/10, did the last two without switching around and they both ended up being wrong.
If I do it's very possible though. Listening on a stereo. 7/10, did the last two without switching around and they both ended up being wrong.
I did tell the difference but it is extremely subtle. If you aren't listening to both and trying to find the difference you probably won't notice.
Topic Starter
Some audio can actually say 320 kbps but actually be lower. You will need to open it up in audacity or some other audio editor where there is a spectrum feature and see what's the highest frequencies. See this for more relevant info: community/forums/posts/7119279eblf2013 wrote:
Now you got me obsessed with 320 kbps music. I'm gonna check the quality of all my songs now.
Got 40%.
I don't think I can tell at all tbh.
I don't think I can tell at all tbh.
Okay, first of all, sorry for bringing up after a month but:
Out of my typical nocturnal boredom I started experimenting with the same song at different qualities to see if there is any difference.
The song I used was converted to 320kbps, 192kbps, and 128kbps.
The thing I did is to compare the highest frequency the song could reach, in 320 it was around 22KHz, in 192 around 19KHz and in 128 it capped at 15 KHz. Basically, the high frequencies are deleted in order to save space.
This is basically what the link abraker sent but simplified and edited to make it fit to the topic
A normal human being is capable to hear up to 20KHz (some sources might set the upper limit as low as 18KHz), but the ability to hear higher frequencies begins to decline when one reaches 20-30 years of age aka presbyscusis I also have registers of abraker complaining about it too. An older person could barely notice a difference between 128 and 320 because of that.
The particular song I used doesn't have many differences, but, when I looked the song at an spectrogram I noticed this in a specific part of the song:
It results that there are parts of the song in which a very high pitched bell rings, most of that sound is played over 15KHz, making it barely audible when it's heard at 128kbps. There are a pair of audio samples, the first is played at 320kbps and the other is played at 128kbps:
As the 128kbps audio is capped at 15KHz, the bell can hardly be heard compared to the 320kbps version.
I don't know if there are other songs with instruments or parts that cannot be heard when compressed at 128kbps.
This is also the most elaborate post I have made
Out of my typical nocturnal boredom I started experimenting with the same song at different qualities to see if there is any difference.
The song I used was converted to 320kbps, 192kbps, and 128kbps.
The thing I did is to compare the highest frequency the song could reach, in 320 it was around 22KHz, in 192 around 19KHz and in 128 it capped at 15 KHz. Basically, the high frequencies are deleted in order to save space.
This is basically what the link abraker sent but simplified and edited to make it fit to the topic
A normal human being is capable to hear up to 20KHz (some sources might set the upper limit as low as 18KHz), but the ability to hear higher frequencies begins to decline when one reaches 20-30 years of age aka presbyscusis I also have registers of abraker complaining about it too. An older person could barely notice a difference between 128 and 320 because of that.
The particular song I used doesn't have many differences, but, when I looked the song at an spectrogram I noticed this in a specific part of the song:
It results that there are parts of the song in which a very high pitched bell rings, most of that sound is played over 15KHz, making it barely audible when it's heard at 128kbps. There are a pair of audio samples, the first is played at 320kbps and the other is played at 128kbps:
As the 128kbps audio is capped at 15KHz, the bell can hardly be heard compared to the 320kbps version.
I don't know if there are other songs with instruments or parts that cannot be heard when compressed at 128kbps.
This is also the most elaborate post I have made
Topic Starter
Either I hear the bells in both equally same, or I don't hear them in either. I can hear up 16.5 Khz last I checked, but that's an isolated tone with volume cranked up. Thanks, you just made me realize how shit my hearing is becoming :\