Digital audio listening test

[Goddard, Duncan]

>>> 
> > Here's a little quiz for you guys then...
> 
> The German computer mag c't (issue 3/2000) did some extensive tests
> comparing MP3 and non-reduced digital audio. They had many expert
> listeners as probands - high-end salespeople, audio professionals,
> musicians. They used pretty expensive Hifi gear. *No* proband could say
> which recording was MP3 in a blind test. Only after they knew, some
> could tell some marginal faults in the reproduction.<<<
> 
well, obviously, the test is going to be easier if you're already familiar with the material..... but some artefacts are as obvious as, say, a mistracking phonograph cartridge or a busted tweeter.
I would've been perfectly happy with minidisc if I'd never heard any other format, doubtless, but once I'd heard some of me favourite albums "remixed" by atrac....... 
and the line between what's subjectively wrong and what's technically inexcusable is going to be in a different place for everyone you ask. I ditched the (sharp) minidisc for walkman use and bought a cd player instead, but I still do live recordings on the sharp because the masking effect has proved useful in this area.

at home, though, I prefer vinyl or 1/4". there's a sort of aural fingerprinting syndrome I attribute to digital recordings; no matter what the sample rate/bit depth, one's brain retains a detailed memory or "fingerprint" of the audio because it's the same everytime you hear it, whereas analogue is wonderfully fallible and unrepeatable. that's why when you buy a cd version of some treasured vinyl album that you have listened to for years, you get sick of hearing the cd version really quickly, whereas the vinyl still sounds.....interesting, different, better..... well, that's my theory.

d. 


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