spitzer
New member
...any two supposedly equivalent audio related things, really?
No, I am serious. This came up again the other day, as a friend thought one of my recordings could've done with a bit more "presence" etc. etc. I know this is an age-old topic in itself, but I did spend time and could not find anything close to a simple answer, and a simple answer to THIS should actually exist and I'd even expect it to be easily found but that's not the case.
The things being compared could be something different, but let's say "A" is a piece of music at CD quality and "B" is the same piece of music compressed to an MP3 at "maximum" quality. It could also be things at different sample rates or whatever, that's not the point.
How many people, in pure numbers, x people out of y people, can reliably tell the difference between "A" and "B"? What is the proportion of people who are actually capable of telling them apart?
There's a ton of very heated debate on this stuff, but this is something I haven't found anywhere. I've seen various studies comparing musicians, engineers, "audiophiles" etc. to each other but the groups of people themselves are "floating" and unspecified. Where did they get those people? What are they supposed to represent? None of them answer the most relevant question (to me). This type of question is interesting in the general population, not at all that much otherwise if you ask me (it turns into a contest instead...)
So, anyone here know of a good study or two?
No, I am serious. This came up again the other day, as a friend thought one of my recordings could've done with a bit more "presence" etc. etc. I know this is an age-old topic in itself, but I did spend time and could not find anything close to a simple answer, and a simple answer to THIS should actually exist and I'd even expect it to be easily found but that's not the case.
The things being compared could be something different, but let's say "A" is a piece of music at CD quality and "B" is the same piece of music compressed to an MP3 at "maximum" quality. It could also be things at different sample rates or whatever, that's not the point.
How many people, in pure numbers, x people out of y people, can reliably tell the difference between "A" and "B"? What is the proportion of people who are actually capable of telling them apart?
There's a ton of very heated debate on this stuff, but this is something I haven't found anywhere. I've seen various studies comparing musicians, engineers, "audiophiles" etc. to each other but the groups of people themselves are "floating" and unspecified. Where did they get those people? What are they supposed to represent? None of them answer the most relevant question (to me). This type of question is interesting in the general population, not at all that much otherwise if you ask me (it turns into a contest instead...)
So, anyone here know of a good study or two?