duxlist.com — Apple just announced songs at 256kbps, but I wondered how many people could even tell 128kbps encodes from the originals. I whipped up this little app in the hopes of finding out just how good the average Digger's ears are, or how good Apple's encoder is, depending on how you look at it. So get out those Sennheisers and listen carefully!
Apr 10, 2007 View in Crawl 4
guitargod21Apr 11, 2007
could tell the difference immediately. and if you think its because of good speakers... its not. the speakers on my computer are old gateway speakers... nothing good. many people who can actually tell the difference have more trained ears than others. of course, i've been working with music half of my life... recording, mastering etc. you know the drill...
ericnmuApr 11, 2007
welp, I can't tell
coldfusion055Apr 11, 2007
My Shure E4c's sniff out the bad tracks with ease.
rovertlyApr 11, 2007
The download time gives it away.
allioApr 12, 2007
I've done the first two and you picked very sparse-sounding songs with a lot of silence. I think you'd find that busy, complicated songs like a full orchestra or rock/metal would be much easier to pick as it'll be more difficult to pack all those details into 128kbps without noticeable audible artifacting. I got those two right anyway with a $10 sound card and $20 headphones, but I have to admit there's no way you'd be able to tell on the go.I also wish you had used FLAC, because then I could use Foobar's ABX feature instead of having to f**k around with playing two different copies of a song in VLC.
superdougApr 12, 2007
"Here's the song Young Pilgrims by The Shins. Below are two versions of the song, "A" and "B". One is the original and one has been compressed."Oh No!! He is illegally infringing copyright on that music!! Call the RIAA!!!
standaloneApr 12, 2007
OK this test really doesn't work because I go all 4 right with my sound off. The files are streaming and you can tell the smaller size AAC file because it loads faster. Just pointing out a possible flaw in the test results.
Closed AccountApr 13, 2007
Why is he or she being dugg down? If you rip .WAVs, you can keep them on a extra hard drive and rip to whatever format takes the lead in the future.
leesoongMay 3, 2007
Apple Lossless format is included in iTunes,All iTunes songs should be sold in Apple Lossless format, without DRM...That would be the digital equivalent of the modern Audio CD.