How well Can You Hear Audio Quality?

[Happy Face 29]

 

Recently, the rapper Jay Z relaunched the subscription streaming music service Tidal, which includes the option to listen to high-definition audio for $19.99 per month. Tidal's HiFi, with its uncompressed audio files, promises a better listening experience than any other streaming service on the market.

 

Many listeners cannot hear the difference between uncompressed audio files and MP3s, but when it comes to audio quality, the size of the file isn't (ahem) everything. There are plenty of other ingredients to consider, from the quality of your headphones to the size of the room you're sitting in to, well, your own ears.

 

Can you hear the difference? Take this quiz to find out. One hint: Turn your volume up.

 

 

http://www.npr.org/sections/therecord/2015/06/02/411473508/how-well-can-you-hear-audio-quality

 

2 out of 6 for my £40 headphones, plugged into my pc soundbar, plugged into my pc.

 

Have to dig out my £100 ones and plug them in direct to see if I do better.

[Park Life 71]

Found in the past that the 320kb is very close to uncompressed, unless you're listening to very fiddly music (detailed). Our ears are shit these days actually DUE to overuse of headphones.

[Tom 14013]

I did a hearing test for a job a year back. Not great.

 

Don't need a test for that.

[Gemmill 46016]

Chez got 7 out of 6 on this.

[Park Life 71]

Chez got 7 out of 6 on this.

[Kevin Carr's Gloves 3961]

I am awful at it, I get no real difference in my £20 bluetooth headphones than a £300 bang and Olufssen set. Too many Loud bangs in my life.

 

I am lso shit at discerning visual quality too.

[Anorthernsoul 1221]

In the world of Audio geeks the uncompressed, high quality sounds are more about numbers on paper than about what you can actually hear. They'd rather pay a premium just to say they listen to a higher quality sound, even though most can't tell the difference. It's like when Neil Young launched Pono, it looked good on paper but the sound was very similar to WAV or FLAC. Over the years ears are over exposed to many elements and rarely are protected, so most are damaged by the age of 30. I'm happy with 320 Kbps, after DJing for many years this is the ideal sound for me these days.

[toonotl 3106]

I did a hearing test for a job a year back. Not great.

 

Don't need a test for that.

 

I had a hearing test last year during chemo. Going in I thought I was a bit deaf because I quite often don't hear what people are saying to me. I blamed my apparent deafness on the years of blasting my mp3 player at full volume on the train up to uni. Nope. Perfect hearing. Turns out I'm just ignoring people when they talk to me. I'm not deaf. I'm an asshole.

[Park Life 71]

Selective deafness is an art.

[Alex 35568]

I think higher quality compressed music just removes the stuff human ears can't pick up anyway. It would make a difference in a club because although you might not be able to hear all that sub bass but you can feel it. For home listening, not so much.