Bitrate Challenge Nr. 2 - Identifying Higher Bitrates
 

Bitrate Challenge Nr. 2!

Hey guys!

As consumers of digital music formats, we often get to choose the quality of the lossy file formats that make up the digital music libraries for so many of us. There are two general schools of thought regarding bitrates;

• That higher bitrates makes for a better listening experience
• That an increase in bitrate only creates a better listening experience up to a certain point (usually thought to be around 160~192 kbps)

The previous bitrate test (nr. 1) asked testers to rank a series of sound clips by in order of quality. This time, I've made it easier and divided the whole challenge into several simpler ones. You'll only have to choose between two options at a time. There are 6 tests pitching different bitrates against eachother and, with enough participants, the data can tell us something about what bitrates people are able to differentiate. So, please take a few minutes and do this test!


How to do it

Open the following site in your browser : Bitrate Challenge, Round 2!

The page contains 6 blind tests represented by 6 flash players. Each player plays two tracks. Underneath each player, you can tick off which one of the tracks you think has the highest quality. Tick it off and when you get to the bottom of the page, click the submit button. You'll get a short string of numbers, your choices, which you can paste to a post in this thread.

Good luck! :)


Edit :

Remember that the picks you get wrong are just as much worth as the ones you get right, so don't worry about that! Each individual result will not be made public, but you may get it on PM if you want.

This test always tests the same part of one song, something which is important to the test because it makes them all highly comparable. I might make the same kind of general test later, only with a clip of metal or classic music or something else.

The test clip is from the song "Vintervake" from Panzerpappa's album "Koralrevens Klagesang" from 2006.

edit :

In case anyone's wondering, the order of everything has been randomized (usig a randomizer script), so don't go into the test expecting anything like it getting progressively harder or easier etc. :)

112121

Ah god not again.
Audio is never simple enough to just do one on one comparison...
It just doesn't work that way. It only proves how good your memory for sound is.
Eitherway, enjoy the game :)

This is round 2! Which just tests your ability to separate different quality lossy files for one song. It's not the whole story, there will be more tests in the future.

Don't take the test .. if you're afraid of what the answer might be. :p:

122111

PM me.

Oh I don't care :)
111222
I know I don't score all that good on those tests.
But I know how usless they are to check if someone can hear audio quality.
The brain really gets in the way with those tests.

Where is Round 1?

Is 111222 based on a real attempt or just something you wrote?

It's not a useless way to check if someone can hear and differentiate audio quality. Blind test comparisons is basically the only way to do it. The fact it's blind is supposed to prevent the brain from getting in the way. If you listen to something with a preconcieved idea of the comparative quality of what it is you're listening to, then that's gonna affect your answer. That's why new medication has to be tested against placebos, because people are expecting to get a drug which works regardless of whether it really does. If you don't have any preconcieved ideas, like in a blind test, that helps eliminate that problem. Furthermore, this way gives definite yes/no data which is easy to use in statistics to prove simple hypotheses, provided you get enough data.

GuitarBizarre, sending you your score!

Oh it's based on a real attempt. But that remark probably says it all.
Neither of them are worthless by the way.

The brain does get in the way because you keep comparing.
The same thing happens when you listen to some different sets of speakers. You may be able to hear differences, but you can't tell for sure which are best (unless one of them is obviously ****ty).
I'm busy buying a new phono preamplifier. I've compared four so far. At first sight, the new one always seems the same or better than the old one. But then you start listening to music instead of listening to the preamp and then you realise 'I'm missing stuff'. That's the only way I can compare. And if I am to believe the real audiofreaks (guys who buy cables for the price of a second hand car), I'm doing a really good job for virtually no money. So hey :)

Edit: I'm going to do the test again, see what comes out now :D. Probably something different.
Don't send me my score yet :)

Hahaha, second attempt :)
121212
:D

Ah well :D.

I think people confuse quality with a good listening experience. Good sound quality in the context of this test means that there are more details in the sound information which is being played. Some of that information will be outside the audible spectrum and so on so we should suspect that it's not likely to add much to the listening experience. Some of that information may be audible and then it could. But the real test is whether or not we can identify the higher quality music when it is played.

I think sometimes, some speakers sound better than others, not because you hear more details in the sound, but because it transmits those details in a nicer way. Then you're talking about a different kind of quality than what we're testing here of course.

Sending you your score :)

211221, that was hard

The information itself is outside the audible spectrum, but there's lower and higher resonance even from the tones you can't hear. This also creates a lot of depth and what 'us audiophiles' like to call 'black'.
Black is the actual space between instruments in a room. You can hear that on a good set. It's brilliant, as it gives you the idea you have more 'space' to listen to. I only have this with some records, but I have been at places where everything has a lot of 'black'.
Some audio rigs are so good they can take away my headache (not kidding).


Completely true. Almost every speaker is able to go from let's say... 60 to 25.000hz. But that's not all there is to that.
That's why a speaker that measures 100% flat, doesn't always sound good.
I've been at an audio show last year and there was a set of speakers of 9000 dollars each. The most expensive in the room. They measure perfectly. But they sound like complete crap. Really really very bad.
The speakers that would actually measure worse as they only have one unit (full range broad band speaker), were brilliant. Yes they lack a bit in detail, yes they lack a bit in lower frequencies. But everything in between was so beautiful. They really made music, those speakers.
http://www.alpha-audio.nl/wordpress/.../03/Solo-1.jpg

I know people who lay claim to both, and personally, I don't believe I notice a difference after a point (or if I do, I don't care), but I thought I'd give it a go!

EDIT: I just kind of winged it after the first few. Just like the colour hue test, I don't really have the patience to nitpick around the end, haha.

Paste this to the forums : 111122

The last three were definitely guesses.

Pedestrian, don't forget to post your answers :D (edit: ah, now they're there)

sk, I'm aware of the resonance created by inaudible sounds. Still, I suspect they don't add much to the listening experience. Actually, that's a given since if they did, this test would be easy. :p:

I'm not taking this test, but if anyone wonders how I'd do, I'd probably suck at it. My hearing's taken a beating over the years and I'm a tinnitus sufferer so that's changed how I view quality. I think the kind of sound which is nice to listen to is a lot more important than the kind of sound which contains a lot of minute detail.

Oh yes they do.
And about this test: A CD goes from 20hz to 20khz. This lays within the hearing range of quite some people. So you don't have the full listening experience eitherway :)

All you have to hear in a test like this is the lack of quality :).
You might do just fine.

112212

That was pretty difficult for the most part. PM mah score, please! :)

I had some hunches but I'm not even going to pretend there's enough decernable difference in quality between tracks that I would ever make a fuss over. That being said, I'm not one to ensure my collection is perfectly flac'd. I definitely enjoy a higher quality file rip as much as the next guy but I think there's certainly a limit to where it really matters all that much.

yeah hit's pretty hard to tell the differences but one sounded more pleasing to my ears than the other and that's how I chose which ones I liked and were probably the higher BR ones.

112212

I'm not sure for any track I've chosen. They all sounded pretty much the same to me in quality.

I guess that depends on how you listen.
When I listen to music on my computer here in my studio, while posting on a forum, chatting, cleaning up... Anything higher than 192kbps will do. Anything under that will be annoying. Tannoy SRM10B's are actual studio monitors. They will show you every flaw :).
But when I listen to music in my living room and really sit down to listen to an album, I start missing stuff with any mp3 bitrate.

Audio is a strange thing. I actually was comparing two different power supplies for a phono preamplifier. One was a cheap ass plastic thing that you put directly into the socket, the other one was a nice transformator in a metal housing with decent power cables etcetera.
The difference was HUGE and the cheap ass thing won by miles.
Believe it or not, that difference was WAY easier to hear than the difference between 320kbps mp3 and wav. Strange eh! Just a power supply made the singer sound like he had his hands in front of his mouth...

Oh there's no doubt that the devices make a world of difference. Every player has it's subtle (or not so subtle) nuances and adds more or less of it's individual eq colourization. For a lot of 'average quality' audio equipment, I still feel that there's a point where you reach a bitrate threshold where past it you're just splitting hairs and the audible difference is little to none. However, like you said, it really depends on if your gear can accentuate the highs and lows of quality.

121112

PM me. :)