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Do you hear the diference between a 128 and 320 kbps mp3?

mp3ornot.com — Test yourself! On my B&W 685 speakers I could only hear a little difference between the two clips, never knew that 128 kbps mp3's where so good!

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  • richman241, on 03/25/2008, -76/+713I thought it was easy. I noticed a pretty big deterioration in sound quality.
    • cstyles1200, on 03/25/2008, -33/+224are you a german shepard by any chance?
      • johnsmallberies, on 03/25/2008, -8/+115I noticed it also, its pretty obvious if you have decent speakers
        • alexforcefive, on 03/25/2008, -73/+19It's really obvious if you A/B it like that site, but in real life I don't think there's much difference. Very few people could listen to a single mp3 and tell you the bitrate, and only a massive douche would have a problem with 128kbps.
          • alexforcefive, on 03/25/2008, -59/+14Who's digging me down? The douchebags? I don't get it. Was I supposed to detail my audio setup and complain about the iPod generation?
          • KMartSheriff, on 03/25/2008, -4/+25Calling us douchebags now are we?
          • omjeremy, on 03/25/2008, -2/+29You're getting dugg down because people don't think you have to be a douchbag to have a problem with 128kbps.
          • alexforcefive, on 03/25/2008, -33/+5Gotcha. Well, I didn't mean it like that. I just meant if you were sitting playing a 128kbps mp3, no-one would come along and go OMG WTF U PLAYIN |o/
          • monkeyvoodoo, on 03/25/2008, -4/+31I'm digging you down for a mix of: 1.) douche comment 2.) making a statement like, "very few people can [do something]" without backing it up. You stated your personal opinion on something, yet presented it as fact. That's misleading, closed-minded and made you sound kinda' silly.
          • Dunadan, on 03/25/2008, -1/+16The people who prefer at least a bit more than 128 kbps but aren't douches and therefore don't appreciate the stereotype are probably who is digging you down.

            Just because you can't tell the difference doesn't mean others can't. Not everyone is an audiophile and there's nothing wrong with that, but some people are and there's nothing wrong with that either. Those audiophiles have nicer speakers/headphones that make more apparent the quality disparity between 128 kbps and other, higher bitrates. There's nothing wrong with just listening to your music, but wanting to hear that little bit more doesn't make one a douche.
          • alexforcefive, on 03/25/2008, -18/+3@Dunadan: yes, that's what I said. I can tell the DIFFERENCE, when I hear it A/B-ed. But I couldn't listen to a single mp3 and tell you what bitrate it is, and like I said I don't think many people could.
          • yogiincork, on 03/25/2008, -3/+13this ain't a chat room, is it?
          • HonoredMule, on 03/25/2008, -0/+16You don't need to be an audiophile to be dissatisfied with 128kbps. Even with half-decent headphones or speakers, and without doing pedantic sound comparisons, it's not that hard to detect the muffled tone and loss of overall clarity--or more to the point, fail to hear clear, full-bodied sound--in 128kbps.

            In a pedantic sense, I can detect difference between any two bitrates up to 320kbps, if using a good sound system. But to me, 192kbps is "good enough." Lower values produce a casually noticeable drop in quality, while higher ones go unappreciated, at least by my ears (and take up way too much space).
          • GawtMilk, on 03/25/2008, -0/+9The second I clicked "B" I knew it was the lower-quality file; and I'm $29.99 "Shockwave" speakers I got at a street market here in Hong Kong. I listen to a lot of music and I'm a lot happier with the clairty when it's 192kbs or higher. After listening to "What a Wonderful World" in FLAC I thought it sounded much better than my 192kbs version.

            It's especially pronounced if you use headphones, where you often hear parts of the song you didn't over speakers.

            And, what if you need to compress the file to a 1MB low-quality sample? The fidelity would be better going from the highest data rate as the software would have more information to work with.
          • jlmillstein, on 03/25/2008, -3/+2german shepherd*
          • Spuy767, on 03/25/2008, -1/+8I'm no douche, but the difference between 128k and 320k is pretty ***** huge. On the ***** pair of free airline ear buds, I can hear the difference between 128 and 320. Try listening to a sung that uses real instruments where you don't expect to hear and digital noise, listen when a snare or a hi-hat hits. It's pretty ***** obvious that the audio his highly compressed. 256 and 320 are nearly indistinguishable, but with the right music, on really good equipment, you can still hear a peep of digital noise at the very top end.
          • ryansmith18, on 03/25/2008, -1/+6Maybe you have hearing problems or something. I can't stand to listen to 128k. I rip all my music at 256, and I don't feel like a douche bag for it.

            If you can listen to 128 and 320 and not hear a difference, well then good for you. You can save a lot of disk space. The rest of us, on the other hand, will opt for 320 over 128 every single time.
          • LocalDocal, on 03/25/2008, -6/+2I'm going to have to call ***** on most of these people.

            Everybody here says the difference between 128kbps and 320kbps version is huge. I'm listening on a Sennheiser HD-555 (a headphone most audiophiles would call an audiophile headphone) and I can barely tell the difference between the two. It was only at a high volume that I could and, even then, there was a only a slight difference with the 128kbps version having the music muffled a bit (the vocals were completely the same to me, however).

            I do agree that the difference between 128kbps and 320kbps may be huge on *certain* songs (there are some MP3s which I can't stand having at 128kbps either), but I don't think this difference is naturally apparent in even most of them.
          • Ultramagnus0001, on 03/25/2008, -1/+1I hate to be a douche, but i can tell the difference without knowing what bitrate it is. I maybe can't tell the difference between 160 and 320 but I can tell the difference.
          • artisresistance, on 03/25/2008, -1/+2It's easy to tell. If you compare any recording at the two bit rates and listen to the cymbals, or any sound in that frequency range, the 128's typically sound muddy. The crispness in hi-hats are especially lost.
          • pilzburybizkit, on 03/25/2008, -1/+1I gotta say even through decent D/A converters and KRK Rokit 5 monitors they still sound pretty close but the hats and cymbals are the giveaway.
          • alexforcefive, on 03/26/2008, -0/+1Christ almighty. This thread is dead now, but I still want to register my utter disbelief that so many people can have such poor reading comprehension skills. As I keep saying, if you COMPARE the two bitrates side by side, OF COURSE you can hear the massive difference. Anyone ***** can. Stop waving your e-penises about it.

            My point was that you can't walk into a room and know whether a song is playing at 128 or 320kbps. 128kbps is basically cd quality, to put this whole thing into perspective. I don't give a ***** what half of the people in this thread say, you'd have to look at the file information or do an A/B test to tell which is which.

            And lastly, my original point still stands. You'd have to be a MASSIVE DOUCHEBAG to care. And most of you are. So there.
        • sarixe, on 03/25/2008, -4/+40i guess i'm a massive douche... i walk by (not in) Ruehl in the mall, and i can tell they're playing mp3's...
          • alexforcefive, on 03/25/2008, -8/+6At what bitrate?
          • defectDS, on 03/25/2008, -0/+33127.560004 kbps, duh.
          • AlphaPrime, on 03/25/2008, -0/+11Wait, VBR or CBR?
          • Fordi, on 03/25/2008, -2/+27It would be funnier if this test would, half the time, have A *AND* B both at 128k.
          • sarixe, on 03/26/2008, -0/+1i have no idea the bitrate... but i can tell it's mp3, no question.
        • thtroyer, on 03/25/2008, -1/+35For the most part, yes.

          One specific area I notice distortion in lower-bitrate stuff is in the cymbals. Vocals, guitar... I notice no/little difference.
          • pandaro, on 03/25/2008, -0/+24I absolutely agree with the cymbals comment. With simpler sounding music, in general, it's not so bad - but as the complexity increases, I find low-rate MP3s much more fatiguing to listen to. Having said that, I find XM/Sirius absolutely unlistenable.

            Personally I couldn't be happier that the choice is mine.
          • Cerebral, on 03/25/2008, -0/+2At first I actually thought the vocals in the 2nd clip were better... am I strange that I heard that? You can easily hear the washed-out sound of the cymbals in clip B.
            They should have done something where you put on headphones and one ear is 128 and the other ear is 320 and see what people think then.
          • pilzburybizkit, on 03/25/2008, -0/+1Totally agree on the Sirius SQ. The satellites suck and the standard internet radio is horrible. The 128k internet stream is so much better.
        • pintomp3, on 03/25/2008, -10/+8or if you are 14. the ability to hear high frequencies diminishes greatly with age.
          • capiCrimm, on 03/25/2008, -4/+15not always, though. I can hear up to 23hz-24hz and I can find young people who can't hear 19hz. It depends on how much hard music or noise pollution you listen too, really.
          • capiCrimm, on 03/25/2008, -1/+26those should be KHz
          • mykalimba, on 03/25/2008, -21/+7@capiCrimm - 19, 23, and 24hz are LOW frequencies, BTW.
          • pandaro, on 03/25/2008, -18/+1fools! mykalimba is correct.
          • JNPDonovan, on 03/25/2008, -17/+2Who the ***** buried mykalimba's comment? You're ***** retarded.
          • capiCrimm, on 03/25/2008, -0/+18JNPDonovan, probably the same people who saw I corrected myself.
          • ThE0eNiGmA, on 03/25/2008, -0/+1Unfortuantely for me, it wasn't age that greatly decreased my ability to hear higher frequencies. Hearing impaired in both ears all my life, and I still found it easy to tell which was better.
          • amadeusdemarzi, on 03/25/2008, -1/+7***** motorcycles ruined my ability to hear anything above 17khz :/


            But it was worth it! :)
          • smurfsahoy, on 03/25/2008, -0/+3One of the worst things for you hearing is playing the piccolo.
          • ayeroxor, on 03/25/2008, -1/+2With your eardrum...
          • ozydingo, on 03/25/2008, -0/+223-24 kHz? I find that hard to believe! (But not impossible).
            Even without significant acoustic trauma, age is believed to be a factor in high frequency hearing loss. They're even finding now that levels of acoustic trauma that were thought to be not harmful actaully may cause long-term nerve degeneration; although it is still questionable how much of an effect this has on perception. Of course for the guy sitting at the other end of the train who's playing music through his earphones loud enough that you can make out the vocals, long-term nerve degeneration is the least of his hearing troubles.
          • giid, on 03/25/2008, -0/+4I remember there was an article awhile ago about a special ringtone only kids could hear, I think it was on slashdot or something. I downloaded it and could hear it just fine, along with a good portion of slashdot. Even thought I'm 32, I can still hear pretty high pitches although I haven't tested myself lately. I can still hear the high pitched whine of a CRT a few rooms away--something about that sound and how it carries.
          • smurfsahoy, on 03/25/2008, -0/+4normal upper range is 20k, roughly. There should be plenty of people able to hear 24k. I don't hang out with audiophiles a lot, but know a couple of people who can see color at more (relatively) extreme wavelengths than that.
        • Nerys, on 03/25/2008, -2/+38Hmmm this is a question that is improperly asked and presented. Can I hear the difference. Yes is my answer without question. NOW my 128kbps or YOUR 128kbps? Also what kind of music. Listen to some BOND music (the 4 string quartet) the difference between even 160kbps mp3 even 192kbps and the CD is massive if you have heard the CD. If you have never heard the CD ?? depends on your ears. Depends on the Music. Depends on the Encoder. I have listened to some 128kbps that are quite simply painful to listen to and I have listened to 96kbps mp3's that would almost be hard to tell they were compressed that low. There is just too many factors here.

          Example a 96kbps mono mp3 has the same technical quality as a a 192kbps Stereo mp3. The 192 track is after all just TWO 96kbps tracks together. Then you have joint stereo etc..

          It really comes down to 3 things in this priority order. Listener Ears, Encode Quality, Type and Complexity of Music.

          Hard Metal is going to survive heavy compression a lot better than a Full Orchestra really going at it. See what I mean?

          In the case of this example I could not really tell a difference (though it was a cheap set of headphones) but I do not think I would have gotten it with good headphones (I guessed and got it wrong I thought they were identical except for the hurumph at the end sounded deeper in B)

          My guess it is was VERY well encoded at 128kbps OR the 320 was very POORLY encoded. I would need to hear the CD version. Its very hard to tell MP3 apart until you compare them to the CD. (hence why I like encoding my own stuff and downloads suck for the most part :-)
        • sovietninja, on 03/25/2008, -0/+12The dynamic range on the track they used was the problem. I agree Bond with multiple instruments playing at the same time would have more sounds to compare at any one time.

          For example, some keyboards have 8 key polyphony and others have 32 polyphony. That means you can press 8 different sounds at one time or 32 different sounds at one time. Translate those sounds to a sound file and yeah it makes a huge difference 8 sounds at once versus 32. But if your only playing one note on each keyboard and compare the sound files there is almost no difference.

          This sound file that was used barely layers on the sound where 320 or 128 would really show a difference. I could only tell the difference in the middle part of the song where on the 320kpbs file i noticed the background instruments sounded a lil bit more separated from the vocals where on B they sound muted and meshed with his voice. The ending flourish was further compressed in the second file 128kbps which made it sound louder which can be misleading and is what the loudness wars is all about.

          Someone should do the same thing but with the pod race sequence from Star Wars the Phantom Menace and re-encode the AC-3 stream into a 320 kpbs file and a 128 kpbs file.

          Its sort of like the DDL vs DTS interactive argument, one is 768kpbs the other 1.5. Its only when things get super complicated that its nice to have fat pipes.
        • SpyDerMann, on 03/25/2008, -0/+2The posters above are right. But in the first place, the track was carefully chosen because it had little content of high harmonics. I could only tell the difference when the cymbals started.

          If you really want to compare 128kbps vs 320kbps, use a piano track, like the beginning of Coldplay's clocks.

          128kbps = sucked big time
          160kbps = better, but still sucked a lot
          192kbps = better, doesn't suck so much but the sound still feels dull.
          320kbps = Finally, something decent!
      • eddie72, on 03/25/2008, -12/+33Most people can tell the difference, it's obvious.
        • sarixe, on 03/25/2008, -13/+2nah, you have to know about these things beforehand, which most people don't.
          • monkeyvoodoo, on 03/25/2008, -1/+8Most of the people I know who aren't technically minded can tell low bitrate music sounds like crap, they just don't know why, and so can't explain what's wrong, or why it sounds bad - just that it does.
          • HonoredMule, on 03/25/2008, -0/+2Luckily, someone told me that opera singers aren't supposed to sound like they're shouting into a foam pillow.
          • senatorpjt, on 03/25/2008, -0/+2I burned some mix CD's for my car from mp3's. Some of the MP3's were 128kbps, it was glaringly obvious, and I went home and checked and sure enough I knew exactly which ones they were. The biggest difference was the range, they sounded very "hollow".
        • capitocapito, on 03/25/2008, -0/+3I don't know if most people can, but having worked with sound compression a bit, I thought it was pretty obvious...
        • applemachome, on 03/25/2008, -2/+3If you have a live song it makes it all that much easier. Listen to the tish of the symbols and high pitched percussion, or listen to the audience's applause. It sounds blurry as heck.
        • smurfsahoy, on 03/25/2008, -0/+5Fun fact: A human in his auditory prime can perceive a sound that only deflects his eardrum by a distance LESS than the width of a single hydrogen atom. If our hearing was just a little bit better, we could potentially perceive the hiss of air molecules randomly colliding with us (might be too high of a frequency, but the amplitude is almost in range)

          That's a hell of a lot more impressive than telling the difference between these things.
          • ozydingo, on 03/25/2008, -0/+2Actually, the molecules colliding with our eardrum due to thermal energy do so with magnitudes more energy than acoustic waves at the threshold for human hearing. We don't hear it because our eardrum has a (relatively) large surface area, and the average random movement of individual air particles received by the eardrum is zero. Acoustic energy, on the other hand, affects the eardrum uniformly (for most frequencies anyway, at higher frequencies the wavelength is on the order of the width of the eardrum and we can no longer make that approximation)--this is how we can perceive acoustic energy without interference from random particle motion.
          • smurfsahoy, on 03/25/2008, -0/+1With brownian motion, the molecules do not all hit at the same time. Thus, it shouldn't matter if the air pressure on both sides is equal or not. Imagine a swinging door, and you and I are on either side of it. If we both kick it at exactly the same time and place, then yeah, it cancels out and there is zero movement. But if you kick it and I kick it a fraction of a second afterward, it will deflect and THEN stop again. Or if we kick in different places, it will pivot. Molecules hardly ever hit right across from one another at the same time. So even though overall energy over time equalizes, the eardrum still deflects and moves and vibrates a tiny bit from random air collisions. It wouldn't produce any uniform tones, but it would come across as static fuzz (although perhaps perceived as very very high frequency mixes that we couldn't hear for other reasons having to do with our cochleas) if your hearing were sensitive enough.
          • ozydingo, on 03/25/2008, -0/+1Agreed with your reasoning. But in addition to averaging over time, look at the sum over space (i.e. area). Movement of the eardrum has to go through the ossicles, so it doesn't so much matter what's happening at any one point on the tympanic membrane so much as how that translates to motion of the ossicles. Though now I'm questioning what happens with motion of endolymph inside the cochlea, since those molecules are moving too and hitting the hair cell stereocilia. I don't know fluid mechanics well enough to really think this through...

            But yeah, there would be in a small scale some movement if we get more specific than the "everything sums to 0" approximation, and some of this may translate into motion on the ossicular chain--so point taken.
          • smurfsahoy, on 03/25/2008, -0/+2You're saying it would probably drown out through all of the other bones and such if it wasn't uniform or slower? If so, that makes sense, yeah. (The fluid should work about the same as the air, since it is amplified in like 15 different ways)

            Anyway, the point is just that our ears are really frickin' sensitive. :)
      • raytibbitts, on 03/25/2008, -4/+12I have little, $30 (20€), Sony brand, in-the-ear headphones, as well as the built-in speakers on my powerbook.
        You can actually hear the degradation in the tambourine sound and the lack of harmonics in the strings.
        By harmonics, I mean that it sounds like there are more notes, or more musicians, playing a richer, fuller chord when the strings come in.
        • GeckoSlayer, on 03/25/2008, -3/+3I have pretty expensive speaker system in my room and could clearly tell the difference :S
    • ralphthemagi, on 03/25/2008, -5/+201It's going to depend on the song. You have to remember that compression removes certain frequencies. With some songs pretty much anyone can tell the difference, with others it can be damn near impossible.

      It also matters on how the CD or song is mastered. Poorly mastered tracks where the volume is enhanced end up with much less perceived quality loss when compressed.

      That being said, 320Kbps is overkill for pretty much everything but complex classical scores. And you really need good speakers to drive that. 192-256Kbps is all most tracks need. And that's just for MP3. If you move to something like AAC, now you start to get into the realm where even the most hardcore audiophile can't tell in a blind test.
      • sparql, on 03/25/2008, -0/+36Stuff like Mastodon sounds horrible at 128k. Sounds like you're listening to it through a tin can.
        Really, IMO, anything that uses a lot of cymbals really suffers from low bit-rates.
        • lordsandwich, on 03/25/2008, -0/+19Live recordings as well--the sounds made by an audience turn warbly at anything less than 192kbps.
        • Karzyn, on 03/25/2008, -7/+30Mastodon sounds horrible at any kbps.
          Sorry, you left that one wide open. To each his own, no hard feelings ok?
        • whereiseljefe, on 03/25/2008, -0/+13Agreed, cymbals sound like you are listening to them through a tin can at 128. At 192 no such problems.,
        • catch-22, on 03/25/2008, -2/+2Mastodon sounds especially bad at low bit-rates because their mastering is a victim of the loudness war. Pre-loudness war, the difference between bit-rates was as pronounced.
      • maexus, on 03/25/2008, -1/+18V0 is much better than a solid 192-256
      • KMartSheriff, on 03/25/2008, -3/+11Forgive my ignorance, but I had no idea AAC was so much better than MP3. Good thing I've been ripping my CD's in AAC.
        • ralphthemagi, on 03/25/2008, -1/+6IIRC, it actually takes longer to encode AAC than MP3. However, a 128Kbps AAC encoded MP4 is about on par with a 192Kbps MP3.

          You can encode at something like 256Kbps VBR using AAC and get a file that is damn near indistinguishable from FLAC or some other lossless codec. I'd be damn impressed if you could find someone who could hear the difference. Then again, I'd even be impressed if you could tell the difference with an MP3.
        • Abatrour, on 03/25/2008, -3/+11I prefer Vorbis q6
          • polywaffle, on 03/25/2008, -0/+6I would too, but the hardware that supports it is almost non existent..unless you like listening to music on your pocket pc.
        • Kornstalx, on 03/25/2008, -4/+1Why use *any* lossy compression?

          http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flac
        • MasterDave, on 03/29/2008, -1/+0Apple had to finally admit AAC is worse than MP3. But, MP3 is standard, AAC is not. This is hardly surprising, since AAC was a big secret (and still is). Apple uses AAC because AAC includes copy-prevention and MP3 does not.
          • bbatsell, on 04/09/2008, -0/+2Wow, that's...

            That has to set some sort of record for "how many things can one person get completely, utterly wrong in 3 lines."
      • koosh, on 03/25/2008, -1/+7It defiantly depends on the song. Try listening to the first 30 seconds of Barracuda by Heart encoded at 128. It hurts my ears to even listen to that. If you can not tell the difference in that you probably have a hearing problem. Maybe I just kept getting a bad rip but I tried a couple of times before updating to a higher bitrate. I used to think that 128 was good enough for anything, until that song. Personally I prefer VBR. Get the extra bit rate only where it is needed.
        • Barbrady, on 03/25/2008, -0/+8Since you mentioned Barracuda...make sure you listen to the original cd version, not the expanded edition/remaster. The remaster sounds like ***** compared to the old original cd! The remaster is compressed to hell and over-EQ'd. Remastering engineers that do this crap should be strung up by their nuts.
        • Abomonog, on 03/25/2008, -0/+2Yeah, what version do you have of the album? The CD remaster is crap. It also depends on the MP3 codec your using to encode the file. The windows codec (Fraunhoffer) really sucks for encoding. Use the Lame codec and you'll get much better quality MP3's. Even at 128 bits.
          • koosh, on 03/25/2008, -0/+0I originally ripped it several years ago using the Fraunhoffer codec. I reripped it later using Lame. I will have to check out the original CD. I had the tapes, I only bought the Greatest Hits CD though.
          • Barbrady, on 03/25/2008, -0/+1koosh, the Greatest Hits cd is also horrible. It's really compressed and also suffers from poor EQ choices. Comparing Magic Man using Goldwave it's an average of 6 db louder than the original cd. That doesn't sound like much until you compare them side by side. The original has that nice smooth analog sound, the Greatest Hits cd has the treble cranked up way to high. I wish I hadn't wasted my money on it a few years ago. :(
    • MacSuxWindozSux, on 03/25/2008, -16/+4Most songs these days still sound good at 128kbps, but theres definitely a difference.

      I find that a CD doesn't degrade as much at higher volume levels as 128kbps audio does.
      (High volume as in heard from every room in the house volume levels)
    • ToadLeg, on 03/25/2008, -28/+7the 128 one sounds like it's mixed with a very fast series of differently pitched notes, like if you put a piano on synth and hit random tones 30 times a second. The drums sound like they've been broken and have a bunch of plastic bags in them. Even 320 bps isn't that great. FLACs are only like 5 times bigger than 128 MP3s, so everyone really should be using them. However, even FLACs are usually only sampled at 41000 hz, or maybe 48000 hz, so are really pretty bad. We should move to much higher sampling rates, like 96000 or higher, lossless like FLAC, and the artifacts will be hard to notice (it will actually sound good).
      • dext3r, on 03/25/2008, -0/+16We should all just be listening to WAVs.
        • dgendreau, on 03/25/2008, -0/+3I'm sure audiophiles will find something to whine about with WAVs too. :)
          • maexus, on 03/25/2008, -0/+2Well, if it was ripped from a CD, maybe. Ideally, it would be nice to be able to purchase lossless rips of the masters. I mean, if we are talking about music you want to keep long term.
      • 80hd, on 03/25/2008, -0/+23i can't tell if you're serious
        • ToadLeg, on 03/25/2008, -11/+2I can't tell if the people they did tests on to make a "psychoacoustic model" (the algorithm a program uses to generate an MP3) were deaf.
        • XristosAnesti, on 03/25/2008, -0/+5Okay, so then you weren't serious?
          • ToadLeg, on 03/25/2008, -0/+4It is possible to be serious and not serious at the same time. However, for my own amusement, I'm going to leave it up to you to decide whether I was serious or not.
      • ralphthemagi, on 03/25/2008, -5/+5Higher sampling rates are better in theory, but in terms of actual listening it's hard to tell the difference.

        I can guarantee that you'd fail a blind test comparing a 44.1kHz 256Kbps VBR MP3/MP4 against a 96kHz FLAC file. Maybe you'd be able to pick out the better song if you got to pick the songs, and listened really hard. But honestly, what's the ***** point?

        Human hearing is actually pretty *****, and hearing only degrades over time. Ripping to FLAC is good if you want to remaster things or you're anal retentive, but in reality it's pretty much pointless.
      • horbal, on 03/25/2008, -2/+1296 kHz sampling is overkill for not much benefit. There's a reason we settled on 44.1-48 kHz in the first place -- because humans generally can't perceive frequencies above 20 kHz very well, or even at all. Since we can generally sense low frequencies almost down to 0 Hz, that means our useful bandwidth is roughly 20 kHz. Some very exceptional people might hear up to about 22-24 kHz. Anything beyond that - you're kidding yourself, you can't hear it. If you band-limit your audio to what can actually be heard by humans (i.e., < 20 kHz), you can mathematically assure perfect sampling and reconstruction of the sampled signal thanks to something known as the Nyquist-Shannon sampling theorem. It's pointless and wasteful to use a higher sampling frequency if your audio signal doesn't contain frequencies beyond the humanly perceivable range.

        In other words, doubling the sampling rate to 96 kHz would accomplish little else other than doubling the data rate required to maintain comparable audio quality.

        There is something of an argument to be made that running audio through the low-pass filter necessary to band-limit the data introduces artifacts and so on. I don't buy it. This might be true at the production level, and this is probably why professional tools tend to work at higher sampling rates, but if you're doing it digitally and it's a one-time operation, you can afford to run some very good low-pass filters on the data such that the effect is negligible and undetectable.

        In short, sampling rates higher than 44.1-48 kHz are unnecessary at the consumer or even the "prosumer" level.
        • lucas911993, on 03/25/2008, -1/+7Trouble with your Nyquist-Shannon theorem is that it doesn't take into accout real world filters need for the Digital-to-Analog Converter (DAC). Don't forget your ears are analog, along with the pre-amp(s), amplifier(s), cross-overs (assuming cone speakers), and speakers.

          The filter needed had unity gain at 0 Hz and increases (exponentially) until hitting the half the sample rate. Then it suppose to be a brick wall. Not possible with real circuits.

          The solution? Oversampling to 96, 192, DSD (SACD 2.82 MHz) and then using a simple low pass filter of the first order. Ok, so maybe not THAT simple, but you get my point


          So in short, 96 kHZ + sample rates are ABSOLUTLY manditory for the future of high fidelity audio.
          • Barbrady, on 03/25/2008, -1/+4You hit it on the head. There are no perfect anti-aliasing filters because they all have phase-shift errors. When you have a sampling rate of only 44.1 khz that doesn't leave any real margin when you're dealing with audio. The higher the sampling rate the more gentle the slope of the anti-aliasing filter can be which reduces phase-shift errors.

            Audio Engineers like Tom Jung feel that PCM is fatally flawed from inception because of it's need for anti-aliasing filters regardless of sampling rate. Tom probably knows more about recording with PCM than anybody in the world. He started out in the late 70's messing around with 3M's very first digital recorders at Sound 80 and went on to start the audiophile label DMP in the early 80's. He's a huge believer in DSD and the SACD format and says DSD doesn't suffer the same problems that are inherent in PCM.
          • Barbrady, on 03/25/2008, -1/+2BTW, very good interview of Tom Jung talking about digital recording here: http://www.stereophile.com/interviews/604jung/inde ...
          • horbal, on 03/26/2008, -0/+0What you're saying doesn't necessarily contradict what I'm saying. Like I said, I don't have a problem with higher sampling rates at the production level. Capturing digital data, filtering and all that should use higher sampling rates to eliminate aliasing and filtering artifacts. But, once you have the data in a digital format, you can apply very sophisticated, arbitrary-ordered software filtering algorithms that aren't feasible in hardware. If you can do that, I just don't see that there's much benefit to producing consumer-level audio at 96 kHz. I'm open to being proved wrong with some proper data, but I seriously doubt there's a generally appreciable difference between 48 kHz and 96 kHz sampling rates *on the consumer end*, given properly digitized and filtered audio.
        • Abomonog, on 03/25/2008, -3/+3Human ears can detect sounds up to 50 kHz. You may not hear it per-se but you definitely notice when the high range is missing. That is why most high end speakers range from 20 Hz to 50 kHz. And also why all computers use a default sampling rate of 44 or 48 kHz. Lower rates are easily told by a distortion of the high end of the sound spectrum. Cymbals will sound nearly alien and drums will include a slight sssssst sound at every hit when sampled at 11 kHz. These aren't added sounds. They are the result of removing a good chunk of the audio spectrum from the sounds. Drop it down to 9600 Hz and your tune begins to sound like a real audio broadcast. The high end begins to sound like every high note was run through some ***** up flanger and the bass sounds flat as hell. Drop the rate to 4400 and you've just created a $1500 AM radio with surround sound. And the actual $10 radio will be easier to understand. You should also know that it's very rare for a sound to have a single frequency in music. Hit a single note on a stringed instrument and all of it's harmonics are played a various volumes at the same time. You may not notice them but good musicians can bring out or dampen certain ones to change the sounds of a guitar. ZZ-Top are masters at toying with harmonics if you need an example. And most of their stuff sounds like crap at low sampling rates.
        • ozydingo, on 03/25/2008, -2/+2Humans can hear only up to roughly 20 kHz, true. But the auditory system is non-linear (meaning the response to two summed frequencies is not necessarily the same as the sum of the responses to those frequencies alone), and has shown to be sensitive to timing differences of as short as 10 microseconds. It is arguable then than the presence of absence of signals up to 100 kHz may affect perception of the sound, though I am unaware of any studies addressing this question.
          • ozydingo, on 03/25/2008, -0/+1Ok, you digg me down, fine. But could you tell me why? Have I misrepresented facts? Do you disagree with my analysis?
      • zongamin, on 03/25/2008, -0/+3*****
      • Malovech, on 03/25/2008, -0/+1The B clip totally lost power and seemed slightly muted compared to clip A. I really didn't think I'd notice a difference, because I am no audiophile, but I could honestly hear a difference.
    • shimmi147, on 03/25/2008, -9/+0ye, what he said
    • t3rmv3locity, on 03/25/2008, -4/+11I have a pair of DT 770 monitoring headphones (near top notch studio gear), and it was easy to tell also.
    • FoxOrian, on 03/25/2008, -3/+19My ears are usually really sensitive to treble and high pitched sounds. In almost any 128kbps song, I can hear deterioration in the highs such as cymbals, hi-hats and tambourines, etc. They start to sound "watery" from the compression to my ears. It's not enough to make me hate listening to a 128kbps song, I just prefer 192kbps as a bare minimum to rip with. The severity really does depend on what's in the song, how fast it was encoded, and the individuals ears ability to pick up the compression.
      • geodescent, on 03/25/2008, -0/+2Sounds like dragging chain link across the floor to me
    • salomejones, on 03/25/2008, -3/+5It was easy to tell on my Genelec monitors also. I experimented and ripped a 128 and 320 bit version of "taste of blood" by mazzy star, (completely acoustic, lots of natural headroom, back when CDs had a little more of that) and the difference is audible even over 30 dollar earbuds.
      • Philodox, on 03/25/2008, -1/+9Are you aware that you influence your perception by what you think the outcome should be? If you didn't do a blind test your "experiment" was worthless.
        • lamiaconfitor, on 03/25/2008, -1/+2He did this one too. so, it wasn't an actual experiment. he isn't a scientist, he is a guy messing with his speakers. get over yourselves.
        • salomejones, on 03/25/2008, -1/+1Philodox, if you actually knew what Genelecs were, you would never have said that.
          • Mothrog, on 03/26/2008, -0/+1What the hell does the brand of speaker you're using have to do with observer bias?
          • salomejones, on 03/26/2008, -1/+1They're not speakers, they're active studio monitors, and just about the best you can get. They're known for their utterly unforgiving signal conversion and incredibly narrow sweet-spot, and are best XLRed directly into a mixing board. I'm not listening to this stuff on bose headphones, I'm listening to it on the same kind of gear that *it was created on*.
          • Mothrog, on 03/26/2008, -0/+1...Which has what to do with expectation bias, again?
          • salomejones, on 03/27/2008, -1/+1Is it "expectation bias" that enables you to tell the difference between the sound of a violin and that of a fart?
      • zongamin, on 03/25/2008, -1/+4Yes because you KNEW which one you were listening to. Do it again BLIND.
        • salomejones, on 03/25/2008, -1/+1Ummm...do you even know what "headroom" is? Let me put it into simpler terms, so that a shorn monkey such as yourself has some chance of understanding:

          THE STRUMMY PART OF THE GEETAR IN THAT SING TOWARD THE MIDDLE IS MUCH, MUCH LOUDER, CLEARER, AND PUNCHIER WHEN YOU HAVE LOTSA HEADROOM THERE JETHRO!

          I know its hard to believe, but there are those of us who at the same time think that monster cables are dumb---and can easily hear the difference between 128kbit and a bitrate that doesn't suck.
    • NuclearFalcon, on 03/25/2008, -5/+61It also helps that it is a 50-50 chance.
    • Fordi, on 03/25/2008, -11/+10Fine, man. I have no problem with your wasting 1.4MiB/min or 85M/hr worth of hard drive space. Me? I have constraints. And a lot more music than iPod.
      • sonic11, on 03/25/2008, -0/+6you kinda missed the point since the question was not "which format is better suited for people with large music collection?" but .. "can you tell the difference between 128 and 320kbps compression?"
        but we're all very impressed with your larger than iPod collection.
        • Fordi, on 03/25/2008, -0/+1The point is that it is a waste. Even at CBR 192k, the subtle tinkling that you can hear maybe 1% of the time with CBR 128k is eliminated - and ABR 128k allows for that quite handily, without the additional bandwidth constraint.

          Sure, 320k is superior - if you're a dog.
          • sonic11, on 03/25/2008, -0/+0well.. just between you and me, i couldn't really hear the difference there :/
            and i am using echo indigo sound card, with ultimate ears super.fi 5 headphones..
            was pretty upset over it since everyone on here seems to be able to hear it.
    • sputza, on 03/25/2008, -4/+7I also found it really simple to hear the difference. I listened to the 2 tracks on my laptops built in speakers... and it was like night and day different. However, I also agree with ralphthemagi's comment. Different types of music are easier to tell than others. I switched to only 320 kbps mp3s about a year ago. I used to be satisfied with 192 kbps but I began to notice quality loss on certain CDs I ripped. With 320 kbps, everything sound like gold.
      • Fordi, on 03/25/2008, -0/+2Tips:
        1) Floating point compression is your friend. Most mp3 encoders use fixed point or integer math for their DCT analysis. Using floating point will almost always result in a more accurate DCT, and thus a more accurate encode.
        2) Use VBR or ABR. With CBR, you waste information on low complexity areas of sound, and get constrained by your bitwidth in higher complexity areas. VBR allows you to set a homogenous 'quality' for all areas, and ABR allows you to choose a target bitrate and distribute bitwidth along the sound as it is most needed.
        3) Use joint stereo. By using joint stereo, you can save a lot of bit use in the parts of the song where the left and right channels contain similar information. In ABR, this means that you can store more quality in the same space.
        4) Use the highest quality noise shaping algorithm. Noise shaping is how the psychoacoustic model determines what artifact noise is 'inaudible'. It analyses the DCT to determine what causes the 'tinkling' noise you hear in the background of lower quality MP3s. By using the higher quality (but slower) shaping algorithm, you can further increase an MP3's quality per unit bitrate.
    • kerzhaw, on 03/25/2008, -1/+10You can hear a little distortion at 128k if you've got a decent pair of phones. 192k or 256k gets rid of that distortion, but perhaps most people are encoding at CBR? Try the same using VBR because it provides some compression at higher bit rates.
      • lucas911993, on 03/25/2008, -6/+1Meh, Lossless encoding doesn't make a CD suck worse than it does. If you want fidelity, go buy a turntable.
        • kc0re, on 03/25/2008, -0/+4Are turntables really that much better? Maybe I am a slave to marketing, but I understood that the optical quality of a CD is better than a turntable.
        • cawpin, on 03/25/2008, -0/+5Yes, CD quality is better than vinyl, no matter what anybody says. If you PREFER the sound of vinyl, fine. But don't tell me the quality is better, because it isn't.
        • Fordi, on 03/25/2008, -0/+1The second pass of a needle on a turntable is functionally similar to playback through a 'declick' filter. Basically, on the first pass, momentum and steel v. vinyl reduces the sharper edges of the vinyl grooves. This is why people think it's better quality; the human ear isn't capable of discerning the difference between an analog signal and a digital one sampled at 44.1kHz. (humans can just barely hear up to 22.05kHz frequencies, which is the highest a CD can reproduce).
        • kerzhaw, on 04/03/2008, -0/+1Sorry if I wasn't clear, I was more addressing the issue of the larger file sizes that come with high bitrates
    • cw1242, on 03/25/2008, -2/+47Just watch the load time for each file. File A takes longer to load than file B so it must be the larger of the two...and yeah I know thats cheating.
      • mrsammercer, on 03/25/2008, -0/+12High Five. I looked through all the comments and no one else mentioned this. Why would they have it tell you when A is loading, then when B is?? Why not just say "tracks loading" or something.
      • Evolve, on 03/25/2008, -4/+5cough* Slow connection. *cough
        • ultrafez, on 03/25/2008, -3/+2If it was a slow connection, then both loading would be slow... not just one... duh
      • Barbrady, on 03/25/2008, -1/+9I didn't think of that. What they should have done is convert the 128 and 320 files into flac files and posted those so the file sizes would be nearly identical. You'd retain the sound quality of the respective mp3 files but the filesizes would be nearly identical and not a clue to which is which.
    • jmark13, on 03/25/2008, -1/+7It's easy to tell if you know what to listen for and if you have the right kind of speakers. If you listen closely to the reverb you can hear a genuine loss in frequencies. there is also a more subtle overall effect that's harder to describe. The music chosen wasn't the best for the experiment either. The more a song uses compression/limiting (not to be confused with mp3 compression) to boost its volume, the more of a difference you will hear between 128 and 320. And classical music doesn't use as much compression/limiting as does say hip hop or pop music. If the experiment was with a jay-z track at 320 and 128, the difference would be even more profound. In fact, It would be somewhat easy to tell between a CD quality 44.1khz wav file and two times CD quality at 88.2 khz wav file.
      • julienbh, on 03/25/2008, -3/+1I really don't think 88khz would really make a difference since the ear can't hear very high frequencies much.
        • jmark13, on 03/26/2008, -0/+2fyi 88.2 khz refers to the sample rate not the frequency. the difference is not only in how many more frequencies one can hear, but also in the amount of dynamics available before distortion and overall smoothness of the sound. there is an audible difference if you are attuned to it. And actually a bigger audible difference would be heard when moving from 16 bit to 24 or 32 bit sound. huge difference between 16 bit and 24 bit. CDs are generally 44.1 khz 16 bit.
          • Barbrady, on 03/26/2008, -0/+1CDs are always 44.1khz/16 bit, no exceptions, to meet redbook standards. You are right about 88.2 khz. Theoretically the highest frequency would be half of the sampling rate but theory and reality are 2 different things. Increasing the samplig rate allows the slope of the anti-aliasing filters to be less resulting in less phase-shift errors.

            I also agree with you that increased bit-depth makes a bigger difference than increased sampling rate. I've got a couple dvd discs that are 48 khz - 24 bit and they sound incredible.
    • ieatsmurfs, on 03/25/2008, -10/+4On my macbook speakers I could tell a slight difference. Mainly in the high vocal notes part (the beginning and the end), If you keep replaying the first second or two of each file you can tell.
      • Timmmm, on 03/25/2008, -1/+5Yeah right. You were just lucky (or saw the loading times).

        This is a misleading test - it should have several samples (10 say), and allow you to switch between 128k and 320k while the samples are playing. At the end it should use actual statistics to say whether you could tell (at 90% confidence maybe). Someone make that and resubmit it... Or maybe I will.
        • ieatsmurfs, on 03/26/2008, -0/+1actually I was too stupid to think to check the loading times. Perhaps I was lucky, but in my mind I heard a difference. Maybe I was imagining it.
      • zongamin, on 03/25/2008, -1/+3Look - unless you can tell in a blind test you have proved nothing.
        • ieatsmurfs, on 03/26/2008, -0/+1well apparently no one has proved anything then.
      • sweetholymosiah, on 03/25/2008, -0/+2you might as well stab your macbook speaker with a small fork. does it sound different if the other one is stabbed with a kitchen knife?
        • ieatsmurfs, on 03/26/2008, -0/+1ya the kitchen knife makes more of a cutting noise, the fork just kind of sounds like pounding.
    • withinavoid, on 03/25/2008, -5/+5Agreed, very noticeable. Only took 1 play and at that a few seconds into the 2nd clip could easily tell it was lower quality. I would never use 128k MP3 for my own rips unless it were on a space limited device and it would be AAC anyhow.
      • zongamin, on 03/25/2008, -4/+1Not in a blind test you liar
        • withinavoid, on 03/27/2008, -0/+1Man relax, just cause you got ***** ears, no need to get on the rag. Seriously, anyone with decent speakers or headphones and hearing that hasn't been torn by todays pop music, could tell the difference easily on those clips.
    • Barbrady, on 03/25/2008, -10/+5I also thought it was very easy to tell. All you have to do is listen to the vibrato of his voice or the cymbals, dead giveaway immediately. I'm listening on an inexpensive pair of Athena S3 speakers on stands on either side of my desk powered by a Yamaha CAVIT RP-U100 USB receiver. If the original poster barely heard the difference on his B&W 685's he needs to clean his ears.

      I should feed this over to my big system: Parasound PL/D 2000 preamp, 2 Parasound HCA 1200 II amps and biamped B&W 802 series 3 speakers.
      • Barbrady, on 03/25/2008, -6/+3Who are the tone-deaf morons digging me down?
    • InsaneOni, on 03/25/2008, -6/+4I could really tell in the bass w/ my HD555's. I bet if I hooked up my headphone amp, it would make the difference even larger (but I need a new tube, current one is buzzing).
      • Elude107, on 03/25/2008, -0/+0.mp3's don't compress the bass, only the highest frequencies.
    • Pritchard, on 03/25/2008, -4/+4Sound quality isn't that big of a deal until you have a song on loop for hours, or hear it over and over again. You begin to get annoyed by the defects, which take away from the ambiance that the music helps to generate. I couldn't really hear the difference in sound quality between the two, and I got the question wrong, but that's not a very good example song, in my opinion.

      The music I listen to is VERY different between two bitrates, standard compression methods.
    • complexigon, on 03/25/2008, -4/+2I have a set AU$30 Plantronics headphones and could tell the difference fairly easily.
    • upsilonh24, on 03/25/2008, -4/+2Clip B was way more agressive.
    • mrinsanity, on 03/25/2008, -5/+3Easy to tell on my Sennheiser HD600's. Also I am a classical musician and composer. It helps to know what you're listening for.
    • ray4389, on 03/25/2008, -1/+1also take into consideration that newer music will not have as much of an affect as older music would, bu then again, I still don't hear much of a difference until it's less than 128kbps.

      sidenot--my hearing could be slightly messed up from my avid going to loud rock concerts every weekend, but I typically am said to have good hearing.
    • bj00rn, on 03/25/2008, -3/+2It was easy to me to hear the difference, and even on my laptop speakers, LOL. But then I've been a musician for a few years... Can understand that "normal" people may have a hard time hearing the difference.
    • artisresistance, on 03/25/2008, -2/+3No compression FTW!
    • homercles337, on 03/25/2008, -3/+1Yea, that was easy for me too. I could definitely hear the quantization in lesser quality clip.
    • getmeawhopper, on 03/25/2008, -1/+0I want to hear it on FLAC as well, just to see how much more it can be improved. My Etymotic ER-4P could pick out the flattening of the symbol sound no problem, but you really notice the difference if you listen to poor quality for long periods of time.
    • dajernts, on 04/19/2008, -0/+1It would be really funny if they came out and said those were actually the same clip.
    • thefelinepunk, on 05/28/2008, -0/+0Same here. I got it right on the first try.

      Not to mention I have crappy 8 year old speakers and I could still hear the difference. I just keep my ears cleaned out. :P

      Thing is, 320 kbps is totally unnecessary and a complete waste of harddrive space when a 192 kbps mp3 is already beyond CD quality.
  • TheSpamSlayer, on 03/25/2008, -24/+101Maybe its my old speakers but I didn't notice much of a sound quality difference. cool though :)
    • KMartSheriff, on 03/25/2008, -19/+9I noticed the difference and I'm using laptop speakers.
      • kahunaburger, on 03/25/2008, -5/+15You're awesome mate.
      • Fordi, on 03/25/2008, -3/+21I assure you, we're all impressed.
      • ocgstyles, on 03/25/2008, -2/+5same here.... dead giveaway when those castanette (sp?) things came in at the end...
    • MikeCerm, on 03/25/2008, -1/+15It was pretty obvious to me, but even so, it's amazing to me how much better the current LAME encoder is than the Fraunhofer codec of 10 years ago. 128kbps files from LAME 3.98 sound much better than the really old 192kbps files that I have laying around. I can't even listen to old 128kbps files. It's just painful, and it really makes you wonder how anyone ever got the impression 10 years ago that 128kbps was "near CD quality".

      128kbps today is much closer to CD quality, but it's not anywhere near enough for transparency. The clip they used for this test is very sparse, sonically, consisting mostly of a solo voice. It's relative easy to encode. Had they chosen something more complex, it would be a lot easier for normal people to distinguish between the 128 and 320 version.
    • WiskyDrinker, on 03/25/2008, -2/+7It is interesting to add that there are studies/articles (which have popped up on digg before) that suggest that even if we can not consciously detect a difference in quality, our sub-conscious does, and it affects our emotional response to the music.
      • Odeon, on 03/25/2008, -0/+1I'd like to see this study done on a larger number of compressions. I personally use 196 because that's where I can't tell any difference between CD quality and mp3 quality. 96 and 128 are fairly noticeable especially if your familiar with the materials.
    • slaizer, on 03/25/2008, -0/+16Actually, pure unprocessed human voice is a pretty bad example to use. Male vocals' hertz area, especially when sung high, is quite narrow (most of the sound is in 400-4000Hz), and thus doesn't require much compression.

      If you have a song with full bass, high treble (20+ kHz) and lots of instruments overlapping each other, and thus messing with the compression algorithm, the difference is clear as day. 128kbps is really not very good.
      • ozydingo, on 03/25/2008, -0/+1Which is why I was listening for the difference in the percussion at the end of the clip. It took a few plays to get it--perhaps it doesn't help that i just woke up. Or perhaps I just can't tell the difference that easily, at least in this example.
    • Kronk42583, on 03/25/2008, -3/+1i could tell a very minor difference on my laptops speakers. but when i put them in my ipod, and play it in my car's $1000 dollar steroe system, you hear a HUGE difference.
      • theeldest, on 03/26/2008, -0/+2Exactly.

        I rip music at 192 in AAC, and it sounds good over headphones. It even sounds pretty good over my computer speakers (some Bose I got for free). But as soon as I toss it over to my Home Theater system, it just sounds empty. Then I switch it back to the real CD, and I wonder why I even listen to lossy formats.

        Given the right system, anyone will notice the difference. It's like listening to a concert at home, and actually going to one. They just can't compete because the concert hall has better speakers than you do at home (at least, I'd hope that's the case).
        • Kronk42583, on 03/27/2008, -0/+1i agree. i still use my ipod hooked up to my car deck, i used to use cd's and i just ended up ruining the surfaces of the dics with overuse. i used to rip at 192 as well, but now, since huge hard drives are super cheap, and ipods hold 160gigs, file size is not an issue anymore. back when i only had an ipod mini, those 192kbs files were a pain. now not so much. different music can get away with lower bitrates though. the biggest difference i notice, is bela fleck and the flecktones. in my car, the difference between cd and mp3 is major. that was the main catalyz to get me to rip at higher bitrates.
    • jondo85, on 03/25/2008, -0/+1I have old speakers and I could tell, they are pretty good speakers though. The difference in quality isn't that noticeable if you are playing it quite quietly, but if you turn the volume up the lower quality degrades faster.
    • digjam, on 03/25/2008, -0/+2If you listen to a song with a lot of synthesized and computer generated audio ... then yes it does make a lot of difference. For any ordinary song there wont be much of a difference... and also..it depends on the way ur speakers interpret and what freq response your speakers has...if they cannot represent anything under a certain freq..then you are pretty much loosing all those sounds...you wont notice it then...but then u ll need to compare it with a wider response speakers..then u can see whats missing..
  • thenumber8, on 03/25/2008, -105/+382for further explanation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBGIQ7ZuuiU
    • rmeddy, on 03/25/2008, -11/+55Thanks i enjoyed it.
      • fiskintl, on 03/25/2008, -3/+8sooooo, was that rick roll 128 or 320? not sure...
        • johnmalc, on 03/25/2008, -1/+7The sound quality on YouTube is terrible, which is why I bought the song on iTunes. Now I have to go jump off a bridge.
    • bossm4n, on 03/25/2008, -8/+107I was shopping with the wife today in Academy and about fell over when this song started playing over the P.A. I was looking for someone dancing around in a trench coat.
      • tidu, on 03/25/2008, -30/+14I was out at the mall today, going through some stores. I walked outside on of them, and lo and behold, a small dog was in front of me. I picked him up and we walked down a few stores, but the leather jacket in the window seemed to catch his attention. I loved the jacket as well, so I got in one little fight with the dog and my mom got scared. She said 'You're movin' with your auntie and uncle in Bel Air'
        • uhhNo, on 03/25/2008, -6/+9the story is supposed to be interesting before getting into the Bel Air part...
        • dudeguy1234, on 03/25/2008, -1/+1It's the song...
      • tidu, on 03/25/2008, -16/+9hey, I worked pretty hard on that.
    • iCallShotgun, on 03/25/2008, -12/+5AAAHHH, NOT AGAIN!!
    • Treblex, on 03/25/2008, -6/+43Ah, now I can hear the difference in sound quality.
    • lfernandez91, on 03/25/2008, -10/+102uuiU
      • OrangeSoda31, on 03/28/2008, -0/+1I always spot it with the e"BIG", even though it isn't actually "BIG", it looks like it.
    • ElBeh, on 03/25/2008, -5/+23I love that song.
    • edru, on 03/25/2008, -6/+172every ***** time i fall for it... ever single ***** time.
    • addurobi, on 03/25/2008, -5/+6You got me. Again.
    • MasterPlayer, on 03/25/2008, -1/+91I told myself while clicking the link "If this is a RickRoll, I'm going to punch this guy in the ***** face." I'll find you man...I'll find you...
      • dudeguy1234, on 03/25/2008, -1/+4Check four uuiU at the end of youtube links... its pretty memorable.
    • Milkey, on 03/25/2008, -4/+6I got rolled hard
    • BenKenobi88, on 03/25/2008, -5/+15Please, I knew before even reading the eBGIQ7ZuuiU that a Youtube video would NEVER be the place to judge sound quality hehe.
    • shadowmoose, on 03/25/2008, -4/+5Well played sir.
    • fayerboll, on 03/25/2008, -4/+1ah come on thenumber8, WTF.
    • RNAPolymerase, on 03/25/2008, -4/+1Thank you for that.
    • SODA8297, on 03/25/2008, -4/+2lol u got me again lol good one
    • looksliketrent, on 03/25/2008, -4/+2I love that song.
    • Tiggums, on 03/25/2008, -3/+8ahh is it bad that I'm starting to find that song catchy?
      • csfreakazoid, on 03/25/2008, -1/+9no, cause now every time i see it, I click the link to rock out to the rick roll
    • rohan182, on 03/25/2008, -3/+2rolled like a mofo
    • yogiincork, on 03/25/2008, -2/+5thank you sir, may i have another one?
    • monsterenergy, on 03/25/2008, -1/+9It's a trap!
    • wgasa, on 03/25/2008, -2/+2*****! my heart just totally sank to my stomach.
    • iruel, on 03/25/2008, -1/+10that Rick Roll better have 320 kbps audio
    • fishbert, on 03/25/2008, -1/+5"rick rolling" is goat.se for christians
      (or 12-year-olds... take your pick)
    • Kreios, on 03/25/2008, -1/+1Damn got rolled
    • strypersarmy, on 03/25/2008, -2/+2fuk
    • sharris203, on 03/25/2008, -1/+2AHHHARARGG u got me! lol good one
    • maxsunset, on 03/25/2008, -1/+4you son of a bitch... lol
    • MrWii, on 03/25/2008, -1/+1Got me again.
    • mookieXL, on 03/25/2008, -1/+522khz, mono, 32-64kbps. I refuse to listen to such crappy rickroll.
    • analogjunkie, on 03/25/2008, -3/+2lol, that was my first time being Rick Rolled. I have heard of it but never got nailed. Congrats you got me!
      • JusticeFriend, on 03/26/2008, -0/+1Are you new on the intertnets or what?...
        • jmark13, on 03/26/2008, -0/+2no, he is just so internet savvy it took him this long to finally get caught.
    • DpNo1, on 03/25/2008, -1/+4i middle clicked, realised and closed the tab just before it loaded :D
      • dudeguy1234, on 03/25/2008, -5/+1middle clicked? You mean you click on the scroll wheel or something?
        • OrangeSoda31, on 03/28/2008, -0/+1Yes, I know this is difficult for beginners.
    • snowygal18, on 03/25/2008, -1/+4how sad is it that i knew it was a rickroll from the random letters after youtube.com?
      too much digg.
    • reisyboy, on 03/25/2008, -1/+2You sod :P Well done, but i really was hoping for a youtube explaining the different wave forms :-P thats just the nerd in me.
    • metalwolf, on 03/25/2008, -0/+0You almost got me, almost.
      Oh well, I guess I'll click the link for the heck of it.
    • bernlin2000, on 03/26/2008, -0/+1Hmmm...rickroll explanation: wait nooooo! Hehe, it did explain it quite well, but what quality is THAT clip now...
    • OrangeSoda31, on 03/28/2008, -0/+1Well rolled
    • ddc1, on 04/09/2008, -0/+0nice roll...
    • denny24hrs, on 04/13/2008, -0/+0Nice! I just had to laugh! Thanks!
    • TheRedeemer, on 05/26/2008, -0/+1I hate your guts! Well played.
  • no1joel, on 03/25/2008, -26/+129Couldn't see any difference at all. I actually thought the wrong one was a lot better. Maybe wine does that to you
    • thecheatah, on 03/25/2008, -8/+194It could also be because you are suppose to LISTEN for the difference.
      • alexforcefive, on 03/25/2008, -15/+8I know I shouldn't digg you for being mean, but I honestly laughed out loud...
      • mykalimba, on 03/25/2008, -2/+26*supposed
    • bluepass, on 03/25/2008, -0/+18Well sometimes you do need a good headset to clearly hear the difference. Your average dollar store headphones are just not gonna do it.
    • alexpigment, on 03/25/2008, -2/+74actually, when they provide a sample that contains none of the frequencies that are adversely affected by a bad 128kbps encoding, you really CAN'T tell the difference. this is stupid. put ONE ***** CRASH cymbal or hi-hat from a studio recording and you could actually tell. ***** stupid diggers and their brag session. as an actual expert on audio compression, this page makes me want to punch a baby
      • RNEMESiS42, on 03/25/2008, -2/+4Yeah dude, you would totally notice this more if it was a clip with some higher frequencies in it. I listened to it in my $200 Senneisers run through my mixer, and couldn't hear much of a difference.
        • Frustian, on 03/25/2008, -0/+2I could clearly hear a difference on my $70 PC161 Sennheisers and an Audigy 4 SE.. I have no idea how you couldn't hear a difference on (I assume HD555's?) $200 headphones.

          I think people are also forgetting that the MP3 is playing through FLASH, which isn't well known for high quality music.
          • alexpigment, on 03/25/2008, -0/+2it's not really an issue of whether you could or couldn't hear it. between all the variables (sound card, headphones, etc), you may or may not be able to hear the difference. but if you have a song that utilizes a wide spectrum, or more importantly that has frequencies that push the upper edges of 0db, you would be able to hear it on anything, even crappy ipod headphones. the prob is the song choice. i could make a test that no one would fail using the same two bitrates.
      • recruz, on 03/25/2008, -0/+0careful dood- this guy did punch a baby and it landed him a bunch of jail time- but at least he knows what you feel like?

        http://community.myeyewitnessnews.com/blogs/speaku ...
      • SaxmanTrav, on 03/26/2008, -1/+2Oh good. Now I don't feel so stupid for not being able to tell the difference.
    • Zzone, on 03/25/2008, -11/+5maybe you have ***** for ears.
      • D0m0kun, on 03/25/2008, -0/+8Good point. Thanks for your helpful and insightful addition to this discussion.

        /sarcasm
      • kevdude421, on 03/26/2008, -1/+1Maybe you have ***** for brains.
    • xlneoMAXlx, on 03/25/2008, -2/+7You emulated an mp3 in linux?!
      /sarcasm
  • doctorsound, on 03/25/2008, -27/+38I couldn't notice a difference. I don't have a cheapo speaker setup, but I don't have a pro level either. So I'm sold on only having to use 128k.
    • desuexmachina, on 03/25/2008, -2/+6The thing I've noticed about 128k is that sometimes the encoder screws it up, which is why some of them sound so bad. I've never experienced bad sound with a 256k stream, but then I haven't been testing much recently. A good encoder should be able to work magic on even 128k. I'd love to know which encoder he's using, but does it really matter? 8gb of 128k or 320k is still lots of music for me.
      • zoom1928, on 03/25/2008, -0/+2Good point about the encoder. I have about 1,600 CD's I ripped in 1995 with l3enc in 128 kbps that sound horrible at times while a new rip with iTunes at 128 kbps sounds pretty good. Encoders have come a long way since l3enc came-out nearly 14 years ago. It's enough of a difference that I spent a few weeks reripping those CD's.
      • ozydingo, on 03/25/2008, -0/+1I've never studied it objectively, but I think I've noticed iTunes' encoder producing poorer quality 128 kbps rips than ... dammit now I can't remember if it was LAME or it was whatever encoder comes with Cool Edit (no I will NOT call it Adobe Audition damn you)..I think it was the latter.
      • skeletorcares, on 03/25/2008, -0/+2iTunes is a media library tool, not a solid audio tool. Get out of this forum until you realize that. Otherwise you're just talking like a noob.
    • Poco, on 03/25/2008, -2/+5Boy are you going to regret that in five years when your new cheapo speaker setup is so good that you can tell.
    • Zzone, on 03/25/2008, -7/+2you also must have ***** for ears.
    • shawnanigans, on 03/25/2008, -0/+6If you are having trouble noticing listen to the background and not the foreground. The background sounds are muted and almost inaudible on the 128 but on the 320 you can hear them clearly.
    • guyincognitoo, on 03/25/2008, -0/+18Maybe you shouldn't use the name doctorsound then.
    • mGARANDEUR1, on 03/25/2008, -1/+2It only really makes a difference when you have really high end headphones.
      • frell69, on 03/26/2008, -0/+1Bull. Listened on $15 earbuds (Skull Candy) and noticed a difference. High or Low end headphones makes no difference. 128 bitrate just sucks
    • skeletorcares, on 03/25/2008, -1/+1Pff. Mac users. Of course you don't hear it, your computers try to 'enhance' your sound to sound more 3d and bassy and everything ends up sounding like its got too much wa-wa. Just like a mac, to always want more, and deliver less. Google search to find out how to disable that.
  • charbarred, on 03/25/2008, -15/+365I wonder if the difference would be more apparent if it were music I'm actually used to hearing
    • unearth, on 03/25/2008, -4/+50I guarantee that if people actually started replacing their 128kbps files with 192kbps, they would be blown away by what they are missing.

      Someone set up a double blind for me with a familiar song in 192kbps and FLAC, and it was still relatively easy to pick it out. You don't need to be an audiophile to recognize the way things SHOULD sound, especially if you know what it sounds like already.

      Not an audiophile, but 128kbps is such a travesty.
      • jaxx751, on 03/25/2008, -1/+0Werd. I've found it is very to easy to hear sound difference in snares or instruments that have a "hiss" to them. I think it's great when people think that something like 56kbps still sounds good. :-
      • ubrikkean, on 03/25/2008, -2/+1Even worse to me is that I find people using YouTube to listen to music. I can't stand it, but although they notice the difference, they shrug it off. Then again this is usually for pop-rap, which tends to be quite simple.

        I think most people would notice the difference, but a somewhat smaller group would appreciate it. If 320 kbps music cost, for example, 1.5x 128kbs music, I think the majority would go for 128 regardless of whether they knew.

        It saddens me too.
    • mddawso, on 03/25/2008, -4/+12yah that was a pretty weak audio file for demonstration.
      • faraggi, on 03/25/2008, -0/+2you're crazy! that's the best neutral song he could've picked.
    • bbandito, on 03/25/2008, -2/+8I agree as it was a clip with a pretty specific main "voice" with not much background detail to "confuse" the compression. I think a larger and more varied sample would be needed to really tst this, but some people just gotta push a barrow I guess. Maximum PC did a good "blind test" a while ago http://www.maximumpc.com/article/do_higher_mp3_bit ... this was a pretty good testing.
  • theAlice, on 03/25/2008, -34/+60I honestly can't tell the difference. However, I have noticed it before with certain songs, especially ones which have extensive layering.

    Still, most songs sound just as good at 128 as 320. I'd rather save the HD space.
    • sarixe, on 03/25/2008, -1/+9just use lame --extreme... it's a great compromise
    • omjeremy, on 03/25/2008, -9/+19Yeah save HD space.... since MP3s take up so much space. lol
      • sirbeta, on 03/25/2008, -3/+6Yes, actually they can, especially if you're a quality nut. Perhaps you've not encoded many high quality MP3s, but they can span upwards on 11MB per file if you're really gunning for quality.
        • PatrickBrown, on 03/25/2008, -1/+16"Quality nuts" do not use mp3s.
          • sirbeta, on 03/25/2008, -0/+1The same arguments apply, however.
          • theAlice, on 03/25/2008, -6/+1Most people use MP3, and converting every single thing you download into another format would take forever.
          • zammit, on 03/25/2008, -0/+4theAlice... think about what you're saying. first of all you're not going to transcode an mp3 to a "better" format; you cannot ADD quality. what is implied by PatrickBrown's comment is when ripping from a CD (off the shelf) or compressing from a ~mastered compliation out of an audio program (Sonar, Pro Tools or Cubase) you're not going to take your WAVs and compress to mp3 (by default any mp3 eliminates certain sound frequencies among other things)... you'll most likely compress to a "not-so-lossy" compression format, or just keep it raw
          • theAlice, on 03/25/2008, -1/+21) Who buys CDs anymore? Seriously?
            2) If you are going to distribute the ripped music, you're going to have to convert to MP3, simply because the average person doesn't know how to play other formats.
            3) We have MP3 Players, not OGG players.
            4) Even if you don't convert to MP3, everyone does anyway, so using other formats will just piss people off. Have you ever looked at the comments on The Pirate Bay? For every album download there's always some stupid ***** asking how to unRAR the file. If people can't do that, do you honestly expect them to be able to find a plugin for another audio format?

            Yeah, when I rip a CD I will do it in a superior audio format. But I'm not going to pay thousands of dollars for a ***** of useless discs.
        • zammit, on 03/25/2008, -3/+2I'll take an 11mb (mp3) over a 110mb (wav) any day, in terms of disk space
          • cyberpear, on 03/26/2008, -0/+1or you could use FLAC; it uses much less space than wav
        • PixelEater, on 03/25/2008, -0/+1FFFLAC?! Where will I ever find the space for those?!
      • theAlice, on 03/25/2008, -0/+3When you have 12,000 songs they do.
        • Lazaryn, on 03/25/2008, -5/+4Call me old but I would really like to know why some people own over 800 hours worth of music. Assuming you listen to it every single minute you are awake it would take around two months to hear the same song twice. Is there really 12,000 songs out there worth listening to or is it all just a pissing contest?
        • noin, on 03/25/2008, -0/+5People have extensive music tastes and I personally want to have that song I suddenly wanna hear close to me. I lost all my music in a freak accident a while back but I'm slowly rebuilding and I'm up to 2400 songs already.
        • Barbrady, on 03/25/2008, -1/+5Hard drives are cheap these days, no real need to make your music sound like ***** because you're cheap. I've got 1.2 TB of music on my computer and another 1500 cd's in my collection that need to be ripped some day down the road.
        • rigorious, on 03/25/2008, -0/+1@ lazaryn
          well you want to check out new stuff with all the artists you like and possible up and coming artists + if you like the most popular music in rock, pop, dance and electronica its quite easy to come up in 8 gb a month of download as in my case.
    • Poco, on 03/25/2008, -8/+2Let's see... 160GB iPod... 80,000 songs... $80,000 to fill it from iTunes. Better save that space so you have somewhere to put that extra $40,000 worth of music.
      • theAlice, on 03/25/2008, -1/+8Clearly this man has never heard of piracy.
    • D0m0kun, on 03/25/2008, -1/+4OGG -Q8 (256 VBR) FTW!

      http://www.digit-life.com/articles/oggvslame/

      In all seriousness though, your future surround sound system pumping a 20" sub will thank you (that's part of everyone's dreams, right?). Your 10 terabyte perpendicular-bit or holographic hard drive won't care.
    • PixelEater, on 03/25/2008, -1/+4The 90's want their high end 20 gigabyte hard disks back.
    • steeeeve, on 03/25/2008, -0/+1I think, apart from speaker quality it all depends on how familiar you are with the sound of orchestra instruments.
      I ask myself, why they have one sample, not five or six. The way it is, you have 50% chance to get it right, when you hear nothing.
    • domokunt, on 03/25/2008, -2/+3Wow, at least someones honest, I can't wait till they publish the results because many people have fooled themselves by accidentally clicking the right one. If I'm right 50% of people will bury me and 50% will digg me and I'll stay at +1digg :P.
    • zongamin, on 03/25/2008, -3/+2What a ***** reason - hard disk space is cheap enough to waste anyway.
    • betobeto, on 03/25/2008, -1/+3Today's hard drives retail for, like, $0.33/GB or even less... If space is one of your concerns, you must be seriously broke.
  • michaelk2k5, on 03/25/2008, -4/+156If I'm honest, I could tell the difference. Although not enough to get worked up about like some audiophiles.
    • boydrew, on 03/25/2008, -3/+19And if you're not honest?
    • scamper22, on 03/25/2008, -1/+10I'm tone deaf and not ashmed to admit it. 128 kpbs is plenty for me. That said my own personal preference seems to be 192 kpbs. 128 can sound flat for some songs on some speakers.
      While some like to have a pissing contest as if you're less of a person for not 'hearing the difference' you have to look at reality.

      Let's compare it do drinking. Another favorite pissing contest.
      Who can drink the most? Sure, it's great to see who can drink the most. Yet now, I realize how I wish I was a cheap drunk. Imagine the savings of being able to get tipsy after a few beers. That would be great :)

      So to those who are metaphor deprived. Imagine the savings of being tone deaf. No high quality speakers / cables. You can save time and bandwidth by downloading lower-quality songs...
      • robocop1, on 03/25/2008, -2/+1'Yet now, I realize how I wish I was a cheap drunk. Imagine the savings of being able to get tipsy after a few beers. That would be great"
        Keystone Lite,my man.
      • theragu40, on 03/25/2008, -1/+3Well, technically it doesn't really have anything to do with whether or not you're tone deaf. This is about the *quality* of the sound, not the tonality. What you're saying is like saying a colorblind person doesn't need anti-aliasing in their games, or doesn't need HD resolutions in their movies. The fact that a colorblind person cannot see color has nothing to do with his ability to see higher resolution images, just as your tone-deafness has nothing to do with your ability to perceive loss in audio quality with a lower bitrate song versus a higher bitrate song. Compression does not change pitches.
        Anyway, sorry, I don't mean to rail on you, but I understood your metaphor just fine and still thought it was silly.
    • vanguardanon, on 03/25/2008, -0/+1The first time I heard something toward the end and thought, "Aha, this is the bad one." When I was right I figured I was so smart and had a finely tuned ear.

      The second time I got it wrong. I guess it's pretty close huh?
  • andrewlinn, on 03/25/2008, -12/+21wahey I could tell the difference
    • toppgun, on 03/25/2008, -1/+2i could too, but I have higher quality speakers. I had to listen to it a few times though but after 3 or 4 listens it was clear which was the better sound quality
      • Tyrion, on 03/25/2008, -0/+2With my Sennheiser headphones I knew the difference within 3 seconds of playing the second clip, and since I listen through my headphones 95% of the time I think I'll be sticking with the higher quality MP3s thanks.

        Self-confessed audiophile though... but if you've got the HDD space, why not?
      • zammit, on 03/25/2008, -0/+1*pinches nose to get nasily sounding voice* "With my Sennheiser headphones"... name dropping huh? well w/ my AKGs i can DEF hear it... within 1.5 seconds! sennheiser makes great microphones and wireless systems... not so much w/ headphones (imo)
  • rmeddy, on 03/25/2008, -21/+133I need to hear that with a modern song ,Like a Daft Punk or something.
    • Wootstapler, on 03/25/2008, -19/+2*****. Yes.
    • skyshock1, on 03/25/2008, -8/+34An recording made up of mostly synthesizer sounds isn't going to give you the best representation of the difference b/w bitrates I think.
      • KMartSheriff, on 03/25/2008, -1/+19The cymbals from drums are usually a dead giveaway for me.
    • sarixe, on 03/25/2008, -15/+2what is a daft punk?
      /s
    • DCesque, on 03/25/2008, -6/+46Daft Punk is too chunky and filtered...as awesome as they are, I reckon they would sound the same in 128kps and 320kps. With hi-fidelity full spectrum ***** like Drum&Bass or Dub-step though, you can definitely tell the difference. There's a reason that DJs in clubs use 320kps mp3's bought off of Beatport for $2 a track instead of the $.99 ***** on iTunes.
      • TheKarmaPolice, on 03/25/2008, -0/+16dugg for someone actually referencing dub-step.
      • Peynis, on 03/25/2008, -0/+12The main reasons DJs are buying their tunes at Beatport are the bigger selection and DRM-free tracks...
        Most club PAs are so ***** you'll most definitely not notice a difference between 320kbps and 128kbps (let alone 192kbps, which is most common with MP3s), anyway...
      • SoundScape, on 03/25/2008, -0/+3Agreed. Daft Punk = bad example.
      • ThreeDee912, on 03/25/2008, -0/+2Note that although music bought from iTunes is 128kbps, it's encoded in AAC, not MP3, which fares a bit better with compression. But I still hate all the DRM crap Apple uses.
    • 80hd, on 03/25/2008, -4/+6I think daft punk has enough depth to it that 128 vs 192 would be noticeable.
    • tian2992, on 03/25/2008, -2/+7Depends on the disc, Discovery needs to be at Lossless, while Human After All doesn't...
      • booshack, on 03/25/2008, -2/+4Truth. Discovery has a lot of air between the instruments, and broader dynamics.
      • PAStheLoD, on 03/26/2008, -0/+2Discovery WAS/IS the real thing .. those awesome clips for the 5555 team, ah :|
    • guyincognitoo, on 03/25/2008, -2/+2If you really want to hear a difference, get the Michael Buble - Caught in the Act DVD. It has a 2304 Kbps PCM track on it. It's Jazz, so it has the whole range of sound.
      • Gravey9, on 03/25/2008, -0/+6Ya but then you gotta listen to Michael Buble :S
    • marklarznexyne, on 03/25/2008, -0/+4Try it yourself. foobar2000 has an ABX test, just rip some track and encode it at 128kbps and 320kbps or leave it uncompressed...
    • justice7, on 03/25/2008, -2/+2Any Hard Rock / Metal will test your bitrates to the max. Lets be honest here, it has the most going on -- kinda the point.
  • macfanboy07, on 03/25/2008, -52/+2there was not a big difference...a slight one..i mean on speakers there is (or should be) a lot...but when its earphones not a big one...i use a 33kbps for my ipod songs and no difference what so ever.....
    • TotalHalibut, on 03/25/2008, -1/+43You're deaf, or you have TERRIBLE headphones. 33kbps is almost unlistenable.
      • ozydingo, on 03/25/2008, -0/+1If anyone wants to know and doesn't have 33 kpbs audio files; try http://www.secondshiftpodcast.com/ -- it's not music, but the files are 32 kbps and if you can't tell that the quality is degraded then you should get your ears checked.
    • 80hd, on 03/25/2008, -3/+633kbps is fine - if you record all of your stuff through a cell phone
    • aerophantom, on 03/25/2008, -2/+1033kbps? I'd suggest using an analog tape to record radio while on a road trip. It'll probably get you quality that's a bit better.
    • CommentPoster, on 03/25/2008, -2/+2He probably uses the stock iPod earbuds in a noisy environment.
    • tas08, on 03/25/2008, -1/+2Holy Sh*t
      You aren't using stock iPod headphones are you!? You must be.
    • monsterenergy, on 03/25/2008, -1/+4What a tool.
    • xlneoMAXlx, on 03/25/2008, -1/+2DUMB. *****.
    • Gravey9, on 03/25/2008, -1/+2WRONG!
    • g00fball, on 03/25/2008, -1/+4typical...your name says it all.
  • thenewkasanova, on 03/25/2008, -33/+6Extremely easy. I was using standard last-gen iMac speakers, and I could tell with no doubt.
  • SirNoobius, on 03/25/2008, -22/+4I have x-fi xtrememusic and logitech Z5500 speakers and i didn't notice any difference.
    • 1807, on 03/25/2008, -4/+25too bad you bought into the Soundblaster hype..
      • RadiatedAnt, on 03/25/2008, -0/+2Auzentech FTW!!
        • TotalHalibut, on 03/25/2008, -0/+2If not for their terrible driver support I'd say yes.

          Right now, I'm tempted to say exceptional quality USB gear is the way to go for music and gaming.
      • NuclearRainbow, on 03/25/2008, -0/+0hmm, I actually like my Audigy 4 Pro. and at $100, its the best deal for 24-bit 192khz ive seen, and with 119db SNR to boot!
        Also, the stereo upscaling is a nice feature, without any artifacting (stereo surround mode).
        then again, I haven't used the X-FI series, and i probably won't. sound card RAM? wtf...
    • TotalHalibut, on 03/25/2008, -4/+6A soundblaster is not a good sound-card, sorry :(
      • Briankh3, on 03/25/2008, -0/+4I may be ignorant, but I thought soundblasters were good. What cards do you recommend?
        • PAStheLoD, on 03/26/2008, -1/+1optical output with external amp plus stereo loudspeakers (2 way)
          or
          optical output with external amp plus you could get a 4.1/2.1 set with an active subwoofer

          too bad that nowadays soundcards are all about EAX3, 7.2 ..etc.
          • Briankh3, on 03/31/2008, -0/+1you still need a sound card to get the optical output......
    • sarixe, on 03/25/2008, -2/+5you, sir, are a noob.
    • s1mph0ny, on 03/25/2008, -2/+3It helps if you aren't deaf.
    • Gravey9, on 03/25/2008, -0/+1Why do people insist on telling everyone the make and model of the crap they own?
      • Akufen, on 03/25/2008, -0/+3Are you kidding? It has TWO x's, a Z AND the word 'xtreme' in its name, stuff doesn't get any cooler than that.
  • pltnz64, on 03/25/2008, -4/+109I think they should use a song with more range. maybe something with tambourines or bells. i'd also be interested in having a female voice set to a bassy background. i failed this test with a decent pair of headphones.
    • TheCheeks, on 03/25/2008, -3/+29Exactly, this was a horrible sample song without much range.
    • thecheatah, on 03/25/2008, -0/+7I think the piece covered the range pretty well. The ending really gave