Red Mosquito

At test.tidalhifi.com you can take a blinded test to see if you can tell the difference between FLAC and 320 KBPS MP3. I got a measly 1/5 correct using my Galaxy S4 and Etymotic MC5 earphones. I actually got a Samsung explicitly because it can play FLAC (so I could put my music straight from my computer onto it without converting to ALAC), which in hindsight looks like it should not have made an impact in my decision.

I'd be curious if folks here are better at distinguishing between file types, as well as whether it is only those who use hi-fi equipment can tell the difference (i.e., can folks using iphones tell a difference)?

im going to do this tonight. I probably can't but its fun to dig into this sort of shit.

Ive been obsessed with audio quality ever since I started building a home stereo/record collection. Changes are often subtle.

Chud

That was fun.

Sennheiser HD25-1 headphones coming straight out of my MacBook Air, by the way.

This was a trick just to get me to listen to The Eagles, wasn't it?

LOL 0 out of 5 through my bose dock speakers.

This is Tidal's marketing plan?! To show how indistinguishable their service is to other streaming services in a convenient side by side comparison? Maybe try it again with some decent headphones for fun, but man good luck getting the general public to shell out a premium for that kind of difference.

4 out of 5 with my crappy Panasonic headphones right out of my work laptop. Might try with the Sennheisers later on. Fucking Eagles did me in.

It's always the Eagles.

I'm impressed, RM. Are there distinctions between the two formats that you can generalize (more reverb, cleaner bass, etc)? I am curious if I can even "hear" what others point out, or whether my ears are just poopy.

4 out of 5. I missed the Dixie Chicks one.

That was with my Sennheiser HD598s and this http://us.creative.com/p/sound-blaster/ ... nd-5-1-pro

track11 wrote:I'm impressed, RM. Are there distinctions between the two formats that you can generalize (more reverb, cleaner bass, etc)? I am curious if I can even "hear" what others point out, or whether my ears are just poopy.

It's harder to pinpoint than that. To me, the sound is just a little bit richer, more 3 dimensional almost. The more lossy the file, the more 2 dimensional and flat everything sounds. And I've said it before and I'll say it again, the differences can be so subtle that with a good mp3 and a song you're not super familiar with you might not hear the difference. I only really appreciate a difference when it's music I'm pretty intimately familiar with. And when the sound is more full and dynamic it hits me on a deeper, more visceral level and that's what I want in my listening experience.

cutuphalfdead wrote:4 out of 5. I missed the Dixie Chicks one.

That was with my Sennheiser HD598s and this http://us.creative.com/p/sound-blaster/ ... nd-5-1-pro

That soundblaster worth it? Really make a difference?

Strat wrote:

cutuphalfdead wrote:4 out of 5. I missed the Dixie Chicks one.

That was with my Sennheiser HD598s and this http://us.creative.com/p/sound-blaster/ ... nd-5-1-pro

That soundblaster worth it? Really make a difference?

Not particularly. I bought it when the headphone jack on my old laptop broke and I needed a way to listen to music on the computer with headphones. Now I mainly use it for plugging my computer into my Marantz because it has RCA outputs. If that's what you're looking for then yes it is worth it.

3-5.

I actually surprised myself as I consider me to not be super high fidelity. learning though. Some were super obvious but the Eagles and Daft Punk got me.


Senheissers through my macbook pro.

Anyone know how much audio quality is lost by dumping your mac through to apple tv ?

I got 3 from 5 also, using my Audio Technica AD900s through the PC. The 2 I missed (Daft Punk and Dixie Chicks) were the 2 that I was most unsure about and listened over a few times each. The others I thought the difference was reasonably clear.

Having said that I was using "the good headphones" and it is a very good example of how in most scenarios that I find myself listening to tunes (through my Sonos system in the man cave and via USB in the car) 320kbps mp3s are just fine. I do love some good flac-goodness when listening through my headphones though, fer sure.

Cheers for the link.

sherpahigh wrote:LOL 0 out of 5 through my bose dock speakers.

This is Tidal's marketing plan?! To show how indistinguishable their service is to other streaming services in a convenient side by side comparison? Maybe try it again with some decent headphones for fun, but man good luck getting the general public to shell out a premium for that kind of difference.

Laptop into Sennheiser HD477's for an impressive 1 for 5 here . and somehow the only one i managed to get right was the fucking eagles. my ears are clearly broken.

but ultimately i was just guessing. i thought both sound sources sounded on par with each other, as one would expect from a high bitrate mp3 through a simple setup like 99% of normal people use. terrible marketing plan indeed.

i missed the 1st song, got the next 3 right, was tired of the test by the 5th song and just clicked "this is high fidelity" before making it all the way through the two samples, and got it wrong. It may have only been guesses getting the middle 3 correct, but I'm not sure, I felt like I heard something.