In article , Serge Auckland
wrote:

"Michael Chare" wrote in message
...
I have been struggling to hear much (any) difference between flac and
320kbps mp3 files pulled from the free downloads on the Naim website.
but then I also found that the max frequency I can here is more like
11,000 Hz compared with the 15,500 Hz I could hear in the 60s.

It would appear that I am not alone in not being able to tell the
difference:
http://www.trustedreviews.com/mp3/re...-Good-To-Me/p1

Can anyone hear the difference?


-- Michael Chare
Flac is a lossless codec, and 320kbps MP3 is generally considered to be
transparent, so I'm not surprised there isn't an audible difference.

There are a few snags with the 'test' reported above.

One obvious one (not being DB ) has been mentioned in the follow-on
discussions on their website. However IIUC they also asked listeners which
version they 'preferred'. Not if they could tell if they were 'different'.
Hence it is quite possible in principle that people did hear differences,
but some preferred the 'lossy' version in some cases.

If the test was to see what was 'preferred' then that is different to a
test designed to see if they could reliably detect a 'difference'. This
confusion seems sadly common when hifi buffs/reviewers try to assess things
like this.

Similarly, the results may well depend on the options used for the
encoding, not just the bitrate. And the optimum may vary with the type of
music, how much is at low levels, etc.

So I can't say I find the result they got surprising. But I would not take
that as meaning too much for anyone else using other music. :-)

Shame that someone was willing to do such a test, but then made a poor job
of how it was done.

Slainte,

Jim

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