I think most people underestimate the quality of the MP3 format. a V0 encode using one of the newest LAME plugin with “Joint Stereo” will be virtually transparent to 99.9% of people on virtually any equipment. Anybody who claims to notice an “obvious” difference has either been using a seriously outdated encoder, or are suffering from the placebo effect and are only hearing artifacts that were contained in the original recording to begin with.

If you were in a club or at a friends house and they’re playing high quality MP3s, you wouldn’t even question in your mind about whether the music you were hearing was a lossy encode or not.

I found quite a nice utility called WavPack that could pack stuff to 1:4 with very little difference, even if you played back at 22.05khz. I would subjectively say the signal is 99.8% the same. But it you go lower than 1:4, say 1:8, then WacPack quickly becomes garbage. I needed a packer that would preserve information as much as possible but pack more than FLAC. So I found WavPack. You don’t do anything with it for normal music listening purposes, but it’s nice app if you need to preserve signal AND pack it. This gave me a whole new view of psychoacoustic packing like MP3.

Naturally, I am skeptical when I hear about audible differences between a 320 kbps MP3 file and PCM. I would suspect an old encoder (old versions of LAME can introduce artifacts in very specific cases) or poor test design (for example, treating 5/7 as a success, repeating an ABX test until you get the result you expect — even one re-run can dramatically change the statistical validity!).

As you see, in order to accept your conclusion, I would have to believe that you did every single thing correctly in your tests. And I have no reason to believe that, or believe the opposite.

I also wonder if you were ABX-ing whole tracks or segments of a few seconds, and how many times you had to play back a segment in order to reach a decision. (I would submit that if you have to listen 10 times until you finally hear the difference, then the difference is of little practical importance. Of course purists, by definition, won’t care about “practical”; they want “identical”.)

The advice to rip everything into FLAC in order to be future-proof is not without merit, but there are also downsides. It may all fit on your hard drive, but will it fit on your iPod? And how long will it take to sync your iPod over USB?

Then, a couple years back I started going into hifi audio. I started with a small solid state headphone amp / DA converter and a pair of AKG 240DF’s. I started noticing all this “noise” and “distortion” in my listening. I presumed it was because the headphones were “too good” and got myself a pair of LiveWires. I was happy again (no noise from the amp in my MacBook pro). Total investment: +$300 (amp, headphones)

Then I bought a small tube amp for home listening, a set of a couple year old Vandersteen speakers, and a Logitech Transporter. Now I can ABX MP3 192 v. 320, and the 192 sounds horrible. How could I ever listen to that?! Then I ABX the MP3 192 v. PCM 44kHz/16-bit (FLAC) and the difference is as great as the difference between the 192/320; now, how could I ever listen to the 320? Going further, from the PCM 44kHz/16b vs. PCM 96kHz/24b I can hear a noticeable step on my system, but not nearly as great as the previous two steps. Ok, I’m very, very happy now. Total investment: +$2500 (speakers, amp, transporter)

And when I think I’ve reached the top of the listening chain, I go and listen to a much “better” system (better tubes, seperate stages, better speakers). I still don’t hear as much of a step between the PCM 44 and PCM 96, but I hear a _HUGE_ step between the PCM 44kHz and a DSD (SACD) of the same recording. The SACD sounds even better compared to the PCM 44 than the PCM 44 did compared to the MP3 320. It is amazing! Now, do I have to spend $35k to get here, absolutely not. Probably just adding a DSD playback source to my setup would allow for appreciatively better playback.

If you made it this far, my point is this: for not a lot of money, you will start to hear your encoding choices. Given that at this time, 2TB hard drives are <$80, I would strongly urge you all to rip your CDs into a lossless encoding (I prefer FLAC). Then transcode them down to however your current player will accept. At least this way when (if) you do start to upgrade your components, you don't have to re-rip your collection because it sounds horrible. Learn from my short-sightedness and certainty years ago. :o)

FWIW, all of my testing has been very blind and well-controlled. I do not buy any components, switch encoding types, change room layouts, etc. without first doing a complete ABX set of tests. The world of HiFi is full of snake oil and placebos, and I tread very, very lightly through them all.

Whatever you do, if you love music, keep listening!

- cj

Maybe I’ll write some more of my opinions about the audiophile market, and their recipes for system building latter.

So many listeners bash mp3s but never indicate they have ever compared them to less lossy formats.

Thank you for your hard work and scientifically-minded testing.

(Make sure you use the latest LAME version and equalize loudness before ABX’ing.)