I though perhaps the comparison was done based on the sound hardware people had at home, but it was apparently with “a pair of £500 reference-grade headphones and a high-end audio processor.”

The sample size was quite small, however. Just 16 people.

“Results of a blind listening test show that a third of people can’t tell the difference between music encoded at 48Kbps and the same music encoded at 160Kbps. The test was conducted by CNet to find out whether streaming music service Spotify sounded better than new rival Sky Songs. Spotify uses 160Kbps OGG compression for its free service, whereas Sky Songs uses 48Kbps AAC+ compression. Over a third of participants thought the lower bit rate sounded better.”

Source

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Anonymous,

Variable Bit Rate (VBR) AAC at 128-bit is also the solution I have decided upon.

Debate closed.

Oh, the glory of MIDI audio!

If your feeling in need of a little catharsis, there is a remarkable application of lossy compression .
It has a very progressive licence agreement

Snobbery comes in many forms. Those who do not agonize over CSS are obviously inferior.

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Here is a study based on blind tests, though it is somewhat dated.

Note how people who review compression schemes tend to have unusually ugly websites.

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Another blind study, with even uglier formatting.

“The 128 kbit/sec VBR (file size 760KB for 42 seconds) is a bit better, though still very fuzzy. Although the artifacts are still very very big, the transients of the harpsicord don’t interfere with the voice that heavily anymore. For less demanding music, this encoding is on the edge of usable…”

“For me it resulted in selecting AAC 224kbit/sec as my default format, as this is the encoding which provides good sound quality, and still results in acceptable file sizes (at least for my iPod 30GB). Although the AAC 224bit/sec still shows some minor artifact, you have to compare it with the original and critical source material in order to recognize those artifacts, though for the Tori Amos track I can recognize them immediately. The AAC 320 kbit/sec encoding results in much larger files, for just a little bit more quality, which was my reason not to select it. For less critical material, I use the 160kbit/sec AAC encoding, just to gain some space on my iPod. For critical material (piano, lots of cymabals, music close to hard rock with continiously distorted guitars) this results in obvious flanging or tremolo.”

“For only about a 5% penalty in file size I use variable bit rate encoding for better quality. This lets the coder use more bits when it has to. I set this under PREFERENCES > ADVANCED > IMPORTING > Import Using & Setting > Custom, and then check “Use Variable Bit Rate Encoding (VBR).” Apple has this pretty well hidden. I leave the rest at default of 128kbs, auto and auto.

VBR sounds better for the same file size. As far as I can see the only reason Apple doesn’t default to this is for compatibility with old iPods. Having a new iPod Nano, no problem!

I couldn’t hear any defects. 128kbs VBR AAC sounds the same as my CDs. Any defects I heard were accurate reproductions of flaws in the original CDs…”

“Audiophiles are people more in love with equipment and algorithms than music. They prefer listening for artifacts over enjoying music. They, like most people, hear things based on what they expect to hear. Tell them something was data-reduced and it really will sound worse to them, even if you play them an uncompressed selection! Most people don’t worry themselves sick about the oxygen content of their power cables or green magic marker on the edges of their CDs. Audiophiles oddly are deaf to the clicks, pops, scratches, horrendous inner groove distortion and speed and pitch changes caused by eccentric pressings of the vinyl records they still hoard.”