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DreamDropDistancia t1_j9ubkj3 wrote

Reply to comment by ultra_prescriptivist in Having a hard time differentiating between Spotify and tidal hi-fi by Not-Icarus

More than a handful of people have made this claim, and it seems there may be some truth in the matter, not only taking into consideration that there are possibly some people out there with better hearing/perceiving ability than you / the "hearing ability/range" of humans is an average rather than a hard limit, but also the fact that it's know certain file formats, when processed, decompressed, transmitted, etc., can have different sound due to variances in the processing itself (e.g. FLAC sounding different when it finally hits your headphone because, despite it being lossless, decompression ends up messing with the output, etc.)

(Edit: Something to do with increase CPU/electronic noise, depending on what device is doing the decompression/playback, I think I've read.)

To make the assumption that just because you're playing "bit perfect" files, you're actually getting every bit, unaltered, through every part of your chain, is widely accepted as a bad assumption to make.

So, if a certain lossless file format gets "colored" one way through your setup, and a different filetype is colored differently, then you may actually notice a difference.

Note that u/coconutbrown123 isn't saying one is better than the other. They're just saying they notice a difference.

I'd say, due to the fact that you're not saying it's impossible, plus what I've head, read, and seen - I'm going to conclude they very well could be hearing a difference, and any further time devoted to debating it is just a waste of our lives.

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ultra_prescriptivist t1_j9uer7i wrote

>More than a handful of people have made this claim, and it seems there may be some truth in the matter

I believe that they think they can, however actually being able to is quite another matter.

>also the fact that it's know certain file formats, when processed, decompressed, transmitted, etc., can have different sound due to variances in the processing itself

>To make the assumption that just because you're playing "bit perfect" files, you're actually getting every bit, unaltered, through every part of your chain, is widely accepted as a bad assumption to make.

>So, if a certain lossless file format gets "colored" one way through your setup, and a different filetype is colored differently, then you may actually notice a difference.

Aside from the fact that there a few pretty dubious claims here, I'm not sure how this changes the fact that the vast majority of people cannot discern a difference between a high bitrate lossy file and the lossless original in a blind test. If your "coloration" theory were correct then it should make such a test much easier!

>Note that u/coconutbrown123 isn't saying one is better than the other. They're just saying they notice a difference.

Agreed - they are two different things, however having the preconception that one source is supposed to sound better than another often leads to a difference being perceived either way.

>I'd say, due to the fact that you're not saying it's impossible, plus what I've head, read, and seen - I'm going to conclude they very well could be hearing a difference, and any further time devoted to debating it is just a waste of our lives.

I don't know what you have heard, read, or seen, but in fact all the evidence points towards the likelihood that they cannot. Most people who think they can hear a difference actually can't when their brains don't know which source is which.

Funnily enough, I too wish this debate could finally be brought to an end. If people would just drop the obsession with lossless formats for their own sake and focus on things that really matter to sound quality, like better recording, production, and mastering, then I would consider that progress.

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Punk_Parab t1_j9uqfi6 wrote

Blind tests to keep people honest is pretty great in terms of headphones, speakers, and audio format.

More people really should go the extra mile to validate their theories of listening to stuff with some proper testing.

It always reminds me of the "feel" audio peeps who can never manage to make a good argument against the measurement audio peeps who can usually drop actual data.

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ultra_prescriptivist t1_j9urcmb wrote

Absolutely. It also really helps narrow down which parts of the audio chain are worth fussing over and which aren't, so resources can be allocated most effectively.

I think a lot of audiophiles are genuinely afraid of it, as if by admitting that two things aren't audibly different is going to get them disbarred and stripped of their Golden Ears Club membership status, or something.

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Punk_Parab t1_j9urw3c wrote

Yeah, idk, it might be my other nerd hobby is a money sink (flight simming), but I am fine saying sometimes (maybe even often) I buy expensive hobby shit just for the sake of it, I don't really feel like I need to defend it as an objective choice though.

There is def some weird thing with Golden Ears / Super Tasters, like bro, no one cares, I don't care if you claim to magically hear / taste better than average.

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DreamDropDistancia t1_j9usxlk wrote

>If your "coloration" theory were correct then it should make such a test much easier!

Unless a "vast majority of people" have subpar hearing, damaged by traffic noise, auto-immune issues due to modern diets, a great number of other physiological variables, etc. How many people tested/making claims of hearing no difference actually have undiagnosed/are unaware of their own tinnitus?

You can't know - especially when they don't even know, themselves.

Or, more reasonably, don't have as good of a listening environment as they think they have. If I had a dollar for every "audiophile" that listened to music while playing video games, or with a TV on in the background, or with computer fans going, or an air condition unit running, etc...

If you based everything on the words of the "vast majority", the fastest car in the world would, in fact, be the Toyota Camry.

>If people would just drop the obsession with lossless formats for their own sake and focus on things that really matter to sound quality, like better recording, production, and mastering, then I would consider that progress

...? The end user has no hand in the recording, production, or mastering of music/audio. If we're already achieved the best hardware our budgets allow, I see no problem moving on to the only other thing(s) we can affect.

Also, it bares noting - the audiophile community is already a niche within a niche. The cross-section of the community is neither diverse, nor a good enough sample size for anything.

And you're suggesting that, within that niche of a niche, that a small group of people saying "I don't hear anything" is proof that there's nothing to hear?

Come on. If we're going to science, let's science. But as long as we can't actually do good science, let's stop pretending like it's already been done well. Because it hasn't.

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ultra_prescriptivist t1_j9uxve8 wrote

>And you're suggesting that, within that niche of a niche, that a small group of people saying "I don't hear anything" is proof that there's nothing to hear?

>Come on. If we're going to science, let's science. But as long as we can't actually do good science, let's stop pretending like it's already been done well. Because it hasn't.

So let's weigh up the evidence, then.

In the "most people can't hear it" camp we have:

  • Scientific studies which show that people can't tell Hi-Res audio lossless from "regular" 16/44 lossless.
  • Large scale blind tests such as this one which show that regardless of age, musical training, or expensive equipment, the vast majority of people can't tell the difference between lossless and MP3
  • My own extensive testing which showed that not only can I personally not consistently hear any differences between Spotify and lossless streaming services, but none of the dozen or so people who contacted me with their test results could either
  • Various encounters that I have had with members of audiophile Reddit subs who challenged my findings, agreed to conduct their own ABX tests to provide some actual evidence for their claim but then mysteriously disappeared and never contacted me again.

And in the "can hear a difference" camp, we have:

  • A metric ton of people who claim they can but then offer no evidence whatsoever
  • Some people who actually managed to pass one of the flawed, easymode online tests such as the NPR one and, to a lesser extent, the digitalfeed.net one.
  • The handful of people who know the specific tells of lossy audio codecs and can genuinely ABX them consistently. These are super rare and I've maybe only seen one in my entire time on Reddit.

So, as you can see, the weight of evidence leans heavily towards the former rather than the latter group.

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DreamDropDistancia t1_j9w4vd8 wrote

> Scientific studies

Did you even read the study?

[I don't know how it include images or quotes correctly, I guess. See section 4 of the first "study"]

They didn't test headphones. This took place nearly twenty years ago. They admit that they were likely using less carefully mastered/recorded sources.

Yeah. Duh. Garbage in, garbage out.

​

Excuse me.

[See the "audio equipment quality graph from the Wordpress blog.]

You call this a control? Self-described, non-standardized, three-optioned meassure of the quality of audio equipment used in this blog-tier "test", which didn't control for jack?

​

Oh, well, if Gabriella says so.

[See the About page of that blog. Who even...]

I'm not that invested in this conversation that I'm going to even bother checking the other links. This is too much work, and I'm not getting paid. Let's just say "you win", because that's clearly what needs to happen here, and then I'm going to call it a day. GLHF

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ultra_prescriptivist t1_j9w73rx wrote

Sure, the large scale test data has some pretty obvious limitations but it's better than nothing. Official scientific literature on the subject is seriously scarce but what little data there is is heavily weighed in favour of people not being able to tell the difference, which also lines up with what my own personal testing has shown.

If people who claimed otherwise could actually provide some evidence to back it up rather than just anecdotal, subjective testimony, that would actually be a great help!

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DreamDropDistancia t1_j9x3pwc wrote

Again, it's a niche within a niche. It's not going to happen / even large studies get it wrong, so what chance do individuals have at providing evidence any kind of evidence you would accept? What would that even look like?

In the end, "better than nothing" is how we end up having to live our lives, and, simultaneously, the foundation for many of the most widespread cases of misinformation in all of scientific history.

We can't know until we know. Until we do, I'm not so willing to say I'm convinced, and saying I'm not convinced doesn't change anything/affect my life, so it's fine, in my book.

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ultra_prescriptivist t1_j9x51nh wrote

> so what chance do individuals have at providing evidence any kind of evidence you would accept? What would that even look like?

As I have often pointed out, proving it is actually fairly easy and pain-free. People who are willing to give up maybe ten minutes of their time and a little effort can use free software tools such as Foobar2000's excellent ABX comparator plugin (installation and usage instructions here) to conduct their own test using their own lossless source files on own their own setup.

The log that results from the test can be saved as .txt and can be verified using Foobar's ABX signature checker to confirm that the results are legitimate. It's not perfect, but it goes a long way to showing that people can actually hear what they claim to hear.

Plus, even more importantly that the result itself, the process of blind testing actually shows to people how small the difference actually is when they don't know which is which and how little it generally matters in the grand scheme of things.

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