Asking which file sounds "better" is meaningless; some distortions sound good. The proper way to do this is an ABX test, where you compare both to a known original, and ask which sounds <i>more like the original</i>.
This is meaningless.
Statistically meaningful tests are performed using ABX testing methods (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ABX_test" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ABX_test</a>) with high-quality equipment. And, yes, many people have trained ears (and brains?) that can easily distinguish the artifacts made by the MP3 compression even in 320kbps.
See this (<a href="http://listening-tests.hydrogenaudio.org/sebastian/mp3-128-1/results.htm" rel="nofollow">http://listening-tests.hydrogenaudio.org/sebastian/mp3-128-1...</a>) as an example of an ABX test.<p>As for me, with my current medium-quality headphones, I can't distinguish between the original and an 128kbps mp3.
The difference is tiny but just about audible.<p>To my ears <i>neither</i> sounded like a good quality recording and I think that's what made it so hard to tell the difference. Even with cheap speakers, it's easy to spot compression artifacts in poorly encoded audio but in these samples the drum tracks on both sound "mashed". That might be an instrumental trait but it sounds more like a production or postprocessing error to me.
Much more interesting test:<p><a href="http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2012/06/the-great-mp3-bitrate-experiment.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2012/06/the-great-mp3-bitra...</a><p>And the outcome:<p><a href="http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2012/06/concluding-the-great-mp3-bitrate-experiment.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2012/06/concluding-the-grea...</a>
Do the test with Thelonius Monk.<p>I didn't think I was an audiophile, until I noticed a crispness missing from some of my jazz. I encode at 320kbps out of paranoia now, but what's an extra few megabytes per album?<p>FYI if anyone is using Google Music, turn on HTML5 audio (via labs). I swear there is a perceptible improvement.
And the audiophile loons start appearing in the comments: "on high end gear you can hear the difference between a factory and a copied CD.".<p>No. You can't, sir.
Yup, tested this before. Also with quite good hardware (sound card, circumaural quality headphones), between 128kbps and 192 you're already not sure whether there a difference or not, but anything above 192 is really wasted effort.
Bad choice for the sample. I however still picked #1. Choose a song with bass, and mids. The difference between 128kbps and 320kbps will become painfuly obvious.
192kbs VBR with a good encoder. There's been countless tests and this is indistinguishable to the vast majority of listeners (teens might have a slight edge as the ability to hear high frequencies diminishes with age).<p>I don't have time to dig up citations but check out the Hydrogen Audio forums and other sane, non-cranky-audiophile, evidence based sources.
A 10-second sample misses the point of HQ v. LQ: a very few sections of most albums will sound better at HQ. The vast, vast majority of songs will sound the same. The point isn't that HQ is a little better most the time, it's that some of the time it is much better.<p>LTJ Bukem - Watercoulours comes to mind as a great example of the phenomenon.
Very interesting. This then set me off reading about ABX testing for longer than I wish to admit. For those looking to try some ABX testing between 320kbps and 128kbps mp3 files, this is the best in-browser one I've found so far: <a href="http://mp3ornot.com/" rel="nofollow">http://mp3ornot.com/</a>
If you have quality headphones I don't think it's very hard. On earbuds, or laptop speakers, almost impossible. Put it on a real stereo and you will also be able to.<p>Perhaps the fact that music is now being produced and optimized to sound good on tinny speakers is altering what we perceive to be a "good sound."
Laptop speakers: Nope.
High Quality Headphones: Maybe.
Loud sound system in a crowded club: Definitely.<p>Also just because one track sounds acceptable at 192, doesn't mean another will. The only way to make sure tracks have the same 'opportunity' to sound good is to throw away less information.
I picked the higher one correctly. Though, the difference is barely audible on my laptop (MacBook Pro aka worthless DAC, but quite ok Sennheiser microphones).<p>Personally I like lossless for practical reasons (e.g. conversions without quality loss).
It's just the audio sample is not complex enough to hear the difference, from the encoder POV.<p>Try doing the same test with some orchestra recording or any metal band of your preference, even 320 vs lossless would be noticable.
At work, with crappy Microsoft LifeChat LX-3000 there's a barely noticeable difference. Can't tell which is which anyway. Need to try at home with a proper setup.
I cheated... the first one took a bit more to buffer, so I inferred it was the highest bitrate.<p>Anyway, with the cheap headset I have at work, yeah, I didn't notice any difference.
I would argue this song is terrible for this test. I usually can instantly tell the difference between 320 and 128 kbps, but I wasn't able to with this test.
Obviously for the author's signal source, the original CD sound tracks (sampled at 44.1 KHz * ) would limit the importance of a change from 128 to 320 kbps.<p>* Corrected units
Should test against lossless.<p>Bus driver - imaginary places has really fast rapping, as mp3 its almost impossible to understand, on lossless you can grok it.