Post #775404
2026-03-23 08:24 UTC
Replies (21)
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@amin@polymaths.social 2026-03-23 08:29
@82mhz I tried this for myself a while back… I think it'll depend a lot too on your specific hardware. Sounds like yours is better than mine. And the genre of music; with classical, for example, better hardware can help you better distinguish the different instruments from each other. Cool A/B player, though! I had just listened back to back.
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@stefano@mastodon.bsd.cafe 2026-03-23 08:57
@82mhz great post. When I was younger I could easily spot the mp3 and the original wav file. Now, it's not that easy anymore. I'll perform your test without looking at the correct solutions, but I'm quite sure I won't be able to detect (100%) the difference. The encoders improved, my ears decreased their efficiency.
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@Edent@mastodon.social 2026-03-23 09:00
@82mhz brilliant post. I'm off to have a play with that A|B test thing. Thanks 😃
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@plasmawiz@corteximplant.com 2026-03-23 09:17
@82mhz Not having read the post yet but: these days compression is good enough that the regular person is not gonna tell the difference between a FLAC or a properly produced MP3/OPUS file unless they have a high-powered headphone+amp setup. (Despite this, I keep all my music in FLAC and WAV because I am just autistic like that)
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@bbbhltz@framapiaf.org 2026-03-23 09:20
@82mhz CD is lossy already, so the differences might be harder to hear. I can tell the difference on albums I know very well. Some genres make it harder too. I don't know any of those songs "by heart." More and more of the music I buy digitally is 24-bit lossless, so when I hit shuffle and a 320kbps track pops up, there is a *bit* of a difference. I'll try your test later after work!
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@labellaragassa@exquisite.social 2026-03-23 09:28
@82mhz ooooh, this is fun!
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@joel@gts.tumfatig.net 2026-03-23 09:38
@82mhz sounds like (erf erf erf) I had the same experience last time I had to choose between FLAC and MP3 at 320kbps. Although I thought my ears were just not made to hear the difference :)
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@mahadevank@mastodon.social 2026-03-23 09:46
@82mhz ii scored high on the test, I guess the last one didn't have a B alternative, or atleast, it didn't work on my browser I think if you focus on the realism of the sound, you can make out the difference. No artifacts in the output for sure. Very very minor though, I had to focus and listen hard to figure out the difference.
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@irgndsondepp@gts.da-miez.de 2026-03-23 10:30
@82mhz That is an amazing post! The A/B tests are really cool. I scored lousy, but I knew that already. I ran similar experiments on myself and always came to the same conclusion. Even with MP3 bitrates around 192kbit/s, I can't really tell the difference. At least it doesn't bother me. And the song selection is great! Now I really need to dig into Gamma Ray. That riff is awesome! 🤘 (I just put on the Dreamland link from your Gamma Ray post.)
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@fyrfaras@m.fru.bar 2026-03-23 10:36
@82mhz Thank you for your blog post! <3 It's very nice that you provided an additional explaination regarding lossless and lossy compression which is refreshing for my lossy knowledge. :D Also I didn't know that Bluetooth devices are lossless by default, unless this aptX feature exists. :o ATM for my own home streaming collection with Navidrome I'm encoding my CD collection with opus around 160 kbits/s, which is fine so far I can hear.
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@teotwaki@mastodon.online 2026-03-23 10:49
@82mhz I was able to confidently pick the WAV on 4/5 of the songs. Maybe luck? The only one where I couldn’t hear a difference, guessed, and got it wrong, was the Ennio Morricone one. Fascinating! Would love to do more testing.
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@drwx@mastodon.acc.sunet.se 2026-03-23 13:07
@82mhz I've been impressed by OPUS at around 128kbps which is also near the 320kbps mp3 mark but even less size. I often convert for mobile with this and Plexamp auto converts when off home network using OPUS.
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@m1rk0@social.defcon42.net 2026-03-23 13:38
@82mhz No difference between 320k and Lossless. And i don't care, if others can.
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@deancommasteven@vmst.io 2026-03-23 13:54
@82mhz It depends on the person, the equipment, and the song, I think. In your AB tests I gauged my confidence level along with which I thought was lossless and on two of them I had high confidence and was correct on both. On the others I couldn’t tell at all. However, on the two I could tell, that’s only because I was hearing them together. The mp3 was perfectly good sounding on its own.
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@srgower@ottawa.place 2026-03-23 14:15
@82mhz I didn't go through your test, but 100% I don't hear a difference between MP3 and lossless. I am re-ripping my CDs to lossless but that's because I have access to an iPod and wired headphones. But I listen to the actual CDs when I get the chance to.
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@jake4480@c.im 2026-03-23 14:43
@82mhz great post. And yeah, this is why I do all 320 unless I happen across something that's FLAC only. Or opus, that's even better. Especially for older recordings, which aren't always totally loud enough for my liking. But yeah, there's really no difference between 320 mp3s and 16 FLACs for me (the 24 ones often sound even SOFTER to me, since you need special codecs and such for em). So I stick with 320s, space constraints, time downloading, etc. And I personally hear no difference.
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@jp@polymaths.social 2026-03-23 17:07
@82mhz Cool! I took the test and it sort of reinforced what I've been saying for a while, that being able to tell the difference in lossless audio is highly dependent on the type of music you listen to. On some of your examples I was able to confidently and correctly guess which was which after only one listen (and this was on Bluetooth earbuds!). Others were much more difficult and nearly identical.
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@ajlewis2@social.vivaldi.net 2026-03-23 23:08
@82mhz That was fun switching back and forth and listening to different types of music. I couldn't tell the difference, but I'm not at the top of my game in hearing or sound equipment.
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@krinkle@fosstodon.org 2026-03-23 23:21
@82mhz TIL that Mobile Safari on latest iOS 26 can't play WAV :/ (And given other browsers on iOS are required by Apple to simply embed and wrap the same WebKit/Safari web view, this applies to all browsers on iOS.)
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@nigelharpur@musicians.today 2026-03-24 15:49
@82mhz A great post and setup. Being now 'really old' I've been through most sound tech eras (OK not 78 rpm really! 😂) and came eventually to the conclusion that despite having been a sound engineer for part of my life, and a keen listener/audio freak for most of it, I really value the music over the medium. Same goes for visuals too. I want good stuff. Extra quality is fine but the content is boss. If I listen to Elmore James records in 96kHz 24bit ... need I say more! 😁
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@SnazzyGumball@freeradical.zone 2026-03-29 17:08
@82mhz Thanks for the great post. I didn't seem to find a difference between the A/Bs somehow got lucky and guessed all 5 which was the wav went solely on my gut feeling after listening to both for more times that you'd expect. Was fun and informative experience and came to the conclusion that I should save me some space on my devices by compressing my library since I can't hear a difference.