# Which is WAV?



## DanTheMan (Oct 12, 2009)

I decided to start a new thread and see if this will work here on the HTS. This is a single blind test for format superiority. he he I don't care if you can get the answer right or wrong. Just collecting data about the importance of format for both you as individuals and the public as a whole.

I made 2 files of the same song. One is a WAV and one is AAC. Both were then placed into an aiff file to be the same size. To get the songs in full resolution you will need to download them. Just hit the 'down arrow' in the tittle bar of the recording.

http://soundcloud.com/dantheman-10/g49

http://soundcloud.com/dantheman-10/i26

Please PM me with which one you think is the WAV file in the form of "i26", "g49", or "I can't tell a difference". It would be nice to have another volunteer to receive the PMs to prevent cheating and assure an accurate count.

Which file is what will be shown when participation falls.

Any commentary about how big the difference is to you would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Dan


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## Jungle Jack (Jul 28, 2009)

Hello,
Challenge accepted. As I have friends and family in town for Thanksgiving, there will more than likely be a delay in having the time to do it, but I will do so.
Cheers,
JJ


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## DanTheMan (Oct 12, 2009)

Thanks Jack. The tracks are just 90 seconds long so t won't take much time really. I trued to do that to get more participation. It didn't work though.  A lot of interest and argument around the web about this, but when you make it easy for people to 'see', they don't want to try. I figured this would help end arguments.

Good Luck!

Dan


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## robbo266317 (Sep 22, 2008)

Hi Dan, 
I will have a listen as well. 
Although I don't have the ears of a fifteen year old.
Cheers,
Bill.


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## DanTheMan (Oct 12, 2009)

Thanks Bill! This really means a lot to me and hopefully will help the community as a whole. I'm hoping it with calm some arguments instead of creating one.

Dan


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## ghost rider (Dec 29, 2010)

Dan the links don't work. I was interested in checking it out. I have some demos too. On another thread I posted how I started remastering my LPs to 24/96. I took a 100mb sample (24/96) and converted it to 16/44.1, mp3 320, 256, 192 I thought I could hear some difference in each. In a blind test I might get them wrong 50%. The one I think I would get right 100% of the time is 24/96. It just has more depth you can hear the ringing much longer with all the others it's like the back ground sounds are clipped off.

I'm willing to email samples. They won't be blind because of the size of the 24/96 that would be one email and all the others would be on the 2nd.

just to get you interested the system consist of a Project audio turntable ,Shure V15 cartridge, Grado PH-1 phono stage and an Echo Mona audio interface captured at 24/96


PM email


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## DanTheMan (Oct 12, 2009)

Oh, I took them down b/c so many people got too upset about the results. It was essentially null, but I think some people definitely heard a difference, but most definitely didn't. Everyone said the difference was small but one person. out of 24 people, 8 got it right, 6 got it wrong, and ten said they couldn't tell.

I rip stuff from vinyl often--and have software to do a lot with it. I appreciate the offer, but the study wasn't for me. I was hoping to cool some arguments with data from forum members so that they could get a good idea. It proved too much for most egos. Most of the biggest proponents of hi rez wouldn't take the test.  More than twice the people who downloaded the files wouldn't submit an answer. I know the first night I got 100% on my ABX and it I was confident I heard the difference. The next night I couldn't do better than guessing. My bet is your mood is a huge factor in what you can hear. Maybe more important than your system! Some people(2) were confident and correct even through computer speakers. I'd also say the difference is very small, but has several "tells".

Dan


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## erwinbel (Mar 23, 2010)

DanTheMan said:


> Oh, I took them down b/c so many people got too upset about the results.
> 
> I rip stuff from vinyl often--and have software to do a lot with it.


Dan, 

I guess I saw this to late to participate. IMO, it depends a lot on the recording and the way the thing was mastered before it gets to the listeners system (be it via disk or download). I have AAC 320 that sounds superb and AIFF that sounds useless. If you rip a CD to Apple Lossless, sometimes the bitrate is only 360-400 kbps, in which case the AAC 320 would sound the same. And as with all things: 90% of the people perform average, 5% significantly worse, and 5% significantly better... I smell very good, but my hearing is unremarkable. 

I downloaded some Vinyl rips recently. The best sounding are a 24/96 rip of Serge Gainsbourg "Histoire de Melody Nelson" (I play it very loud, I can feel the guitar strings and Gainsbourg's voice is astonishingly realistic) and then the 11 LP's from a Rolling Stones Box set (24/192) are also very good. Do you rip them to High Rez?


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## ghost rider (Dec 29, 2010)

All I can say is with a 24/96 capture. On nearly any system most people will hear a difference over the same recording that has been processed down to lower resolutions.

But between CD and mp3s it get much harder to tell.


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## ghost rider (Dec 29, 2010)

DanTheMan said:


> My bet is your mood is a huge factor in what you can hear. Maybe more important than your system! Some people(2) were confident and correct even through computer speakers. I'd also say the difference is very small, but has several "tells".
> 
> Dan


I agree and if you didn't have a choice you might not care. I know I like pandora and that is 128. It's only when I pulled out the vinyl that I knew what I was missing compared to pandora.


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## DanTheMan (Oct 12, 2009)

I certainly didn't expect better performance than I got--What I got is pretty much what other studies got. Rigorous studies just don't fly with audiophiles when their beliefs differ. That's why I wanted a test for them to participate in. Most didn't that downloaded the material. That something something right there.

Thee were done with 24/96 capture. I actually don't think the difference is as large between the hi def and the cd quality. There still seems to be a little however. I wonder how well I could do blind on that... My ABX won't do hi res stuff. Any case, the music trumps the resolution/format stuff with me several fold. I can't say I really care that much anymore. It's all about the music. 

Dan


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## lcaillo (May 2, 2006)

Who got upset? I thought it was a great idea. I suggest leaving them up and have people vote publicly. Periodically report which file is which and then post a new one. If people get upset or do not like the results they can not participate. If there are any egos that get aroused, we have mods to deal with it just like in any other thread.


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## DanTheMan (Oct 12, 2009)

No one here got upset--in fact no one here got to take the test. Other boards just went wild with accusations about my motivation and the legitimacy of my test. I was accused of putting the same file out there several times(among other thing in the recording process). It was really ugly. I wanted to keep things private so people couldn't see which way the voting was going. The first simpler test I did(which wasn't posted here), everyone voted for the same thing even though the files were the same. I thought that maybe people wanted to just go with what they could see so that they could at least say "well everyone else was wrong too. There must be a difference." type of thing. When no one knew what other people were voting, things were radically different. Especially the number of answers per hour! My guess is being able to see what others were voting did introduce a bias and thus the fairly useless results. The problem with private voting people would know that I know wether or not they got it right. Only one of the most volatile advocates or adversaries voted. He didn't vote until he analyzed the files to see which was which. Of course he voted with absolute confidence and said he heard it with absolute confidence. I'm not calling him a liar or anything and gave him the benefit of the doubt, but these files are so easy to figure out if you are handy with your computer. Free software can tell you the difference. Sure makes this type of testing very difficult even if we could find a way to vote anonymously and w/o introducing a bias... I just don't see anyway to any useful data in any long term web study. Too many crafty people about. I think 4 people who got it right admittedly analyzed the file b4 voting. It may have just been 3. What we can see from my test is that most people who took the test and/or downloaded the material cannot tell a difference or find the difference so small as to not be important with highly dynamic recordings encompassing the full bandwidth of reproducible frequencies. These are essentially the things that the proponents of high resolution say make these things most easily discernible. 

Without a doubt now, forum participants had the opportunity to participate and the results looked like: 'meh, some people in their normal listening environment under no time constraints can hear an utterly tiny and most(all but the one mentioned above who got it right) said insignificant difference. Most, the vast majority cannot hear any difference.'

I don't expect this to calm the heated debates now. In fact it seems to have made little difference.

Thanks! I appreciate the promotion and desire for good science. This is what I am after and all I cared about in this test. I tried to make it as fair as possible--meaning being the most easily distinguished difference.

I've dropped off of several forums b/c of the responses from people. I have no desire to argument what people feel or think about my motivation and even my online handle(which I got when I was 3 yrs old). It's just too rude and stupid for me to have any desire in participating.

Again, much appreciated!

Dan


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## lcaillo (May 2, 2006)

We don't tolerate the nonsense here. We would welcome a more well moderated discussion and similar test here, but please do not cross post to HTS regarding the behavior of those on other forums. We don't need it here.

PM me to work outcast plan for a meaningful test of this type run here if you like.


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## DanTheMan (Oct 12, 2009)

Sorry, I was just clarifying that it wasn't here. I certainly have no desire to bring it here. By all means delete my post if it could cause a problem.

I'm really not interested in trying again. It takes a lot of time to do b/c I have to write/record/mix my own stuff to do it properly and legally. I never record with that much fidelity in general--I like to pretty up the sound a bit.  Making music for fidelity sake isn't fun. Making music for listening sure is.

Dan


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## lcaillo (May 2, 2006)

You clarified. It is unfortunate that the majority of forums just cannot sustain a rational discussion without the egos and emotions getting out of control. I thought your idea was great. It reminded me of the methodology I used in my thesis work.

I agree with your conclusion that the music is what matters. I find myself actually listening and enjoying music much more with the many options we have these days, even if some of the quality is limited somewhat.


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## DanTheMan (Oct 12, 2009)

I totally agree! All the new tech certainly outlasts analog(which I also love BTW). With the cost of hard drive space, it's nice to be able to use high quality formats and not feel the memory penalty. I put high quality on my hard drive, one lower quality on my iPod.

The music and soundtrack are essentially what really matters to me.

I wish other forums were moderated as effectively as this one.

Dan


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