Can you hear audio quality? Online Randomized Test

[Flint]

Put on your best headphones and give this a try.

https://www.npr.org/sections/therecord/2015/06/02/411473508/how-well-can-you-hear-audio-quality

On all the samples I could single-out the 128Kbps from the 320Kbps and uncompressed WAV, but on the messier dynamically-compressed stuff, like Neil Young, Jay Z, and Coldplay it was a random guess on the two higher quality audio formats. The classical and Susan Vega tracks I got right 9 out of 10 times.

Oddly enough, I nailed the Katie Perry track each time, like it was super easy for me.

I would take the test, reload, and take it again to see if I could tell better after knowing the right answers (but the answers are randomized each time to keep you from choosing the previous correct answer base don location). In total I did it 10 times.

Fun stuff.

 

[Flint]

If you go to the results article for this test, they had this interesting paragraph:

There was one anomaly. More people chose the lowest quality version of Coldplay's "Speed of Sound" than the two higher quality versions. 35.6 percent of users chose the 128kbps MP3, 33.7 percent chose the WAV and 30.7 percent chose the 320kbps MP3. We chose "Speed of Sound" for its historical significance — the song was the 1 billionth song downloaded from iTunes — but perhaps it was not the best song for testing audio quality. It was the only song of the six to perform this way.​

 

[Randy]

5 out of 6 with my computer speakers and Katy Perry was the one I missed, but I got really distracted and lost focus.

I'm pretty sure I either got very lucky or maybe I am just that damn good.


Lets go with lucky.

 

[team_tsp]

I stumbled across that NPR site a long while back and thought it was a neat test. Taking it several times, I could fairly consistently discern which one was the uncompressed WAV for all the songs except the Mozart Piano Concerto. Even after about 20 tries, I was averaging ~50% accuracy of choosing the WAV file on that song, which isn't any better than guessing lol. (The real statistics are different since there are 3 choices per song, but you all probably know what I mean).

Another neat site that has similar, but much more extensive tests, is: www.audiocheck.net.

While some of the tests on that site are obvious, many of the tests show just how imprecise our hearing can be (or at least my hearing lol!)

 

[malsackj]

here is another test site. blind test.

http://www.audiocheck.net/blindtests_index.php

 

[Nufan]

LoL. Listening through my eight year old laptop's built in speakers, I got all at the 128kbs except the Coldplay, which I got correct.

 

[bmwuk]

4 of 6 with music I don't normally listen (Neil aYoung and piano) to being my 320 picks. Otherwise I'm glad on the results..

Forgot to mention, I only used the AKG earbuds provided with my Samsung S9+

Glad I wore my Tom Ford sunglasses today. I don't rock Molly I rock Tom Fords