It must be deterioration since by lossy encoding a priori you lose typically about 20% - 95% of the original WAV data (depending on lossy encoding bit rate and bit depth).
Many people can easily hear the difference between mp3@256 and mp3@320 kbps (~20%).

 

yeah, i would say i can say i can do just that, those 20% must contain what pushes "imagination" over the border to actual audible discrepancy for me at least

 

The whole concept of lossy encoding is based on assumption that most people have bad hearing...

 

Extensive maybe not but that doesn't mean it was a strange question, followed by some kind of discussion (in this particular example). That's my opinion (and because Google didn't give a proper answer)

 

And/or, they don't know what they don't know!

 

If you have a bad hearing, you can hear the differences more easily, since the masking effects differ. The real assumption is, you have a normal hearing. For example, if you don't hear higher frequencies, they cannot mask the control noises anymore and you hear the artifacts below.

 

Personally, I can't hear the difference between 320kbp-mp3 compared to wav and flac. Maybe it's an age thing with ongoing hearing deterioration but I really can't hear a difference.
Maybe it makes more sense for someone younger to choose higher bitrates as they can hear the difference.
As long as it sounds good to me then 320 suffices.

 

Correct, add also having low profile loudspeakers, shitty boomboxes or $5 earbuds

 

Even with top end equipment, can you really hear much difference?

 

Side by side A/B comparisons are one thing, yet hearing one new sound and judging if it has been compressed or not is only possible when the typical artefacts are audible.

The main problem from my experience is that most of the compressions work quite well at higher bit rates but there are always a few challenging samples that will reveal the weak spots of a certain encoder, and there's no automatism to find these reliably. If it was that simple, the "quality" settings of encoders would be more reliable.

 

Uh, FLAC is lossless, no different than the original WAV.

You're therefore asking if WAV is better than MP3.

This entire thread is pretty lol.

 

I think age is not necessarily it, a schooled ear is a must though. most teens and people in general would not know what we would call "trash" from high fidelity after a certain point.

for daily consumption I would say 320kbps is brilliant, but for scrutinising professional use of particular tracks, definitely flac/wav.

 

No matter the age, Hi-Fi enthusiasts, who care much about sound quality, detest mp3. Even CDA Red Book is clearly inferior to analogue recordings made from 1960-1985 (even with a mid-priced turntable). How much it does matter depends on your natural hearing abilities, the level of training and auditioning experience and the quality of your audio equipment. We may add the fact how much your profession is connected with sound analysis. But those 'sensitive' people aren't imagining anything, they are just unable to be negligent to presence of artefacts, distortion and sound degradation.

 

'the typical artefacts' are always audible (it does not mean that everybody can hear them, but after some training most of the people will)
Because - for instance - dull and shallow bass, small dynamic range, hardness due to over-compression, unfocused transients and slightly blurred ambience and edgy highs in general - are omnipresent (it is like a 'seal' of lossy compression). So when you know what you should expect you can hear it (and it's not placebo but focus on things that exist).

 

The better equipment, the more you can hear it.
Digital noise especially (because it is too subtle for low grade equipment).

 

 

Last edited: Sep 11, 2020

Truly, I don't understand what you mean, but you are a great guy.
[Feel free to quote this too]

 

Last edited: Sep 11, 2020

'Audible' means physically present (as a part of the air-waves, and can be measured with some equipment), so that people can detect them; for some it's easy, some need some training, some have innate low hearing resolution (like people have different sharpness of the eyesight), so some will hear them in the end, some probably never. But people with weak eyesight believe people with sharp eyesight that they see what they see. In audio, for some reason people seem to be more sceptical and more stubborn in appreciating their inability, trying to generalize it (even in spite of physical proofs for the opposite).
It is not debatable if all people can hear it - they can't. But it is also not debatable if some people can hear it. Anyway, it can be tested objectively by scientific tests.

 

Last edited: Sep 11, 2020