It's now an aging debate:
Can you tell the difference between lossless and lossy digital music and what impact does playback equipment have on this?
I guess this is of interest to the people on this board, and I need help with a project I'm doing on this topic. Part of it is gathering results for a test I've created.
Basically I took a friend into the studio and recorded her playing the Cello. I then did a small amount of mixing and encoded it as a CD quality WAV (16-bit 44.1khz). I then created various mp3 versions. Finally I converted the Mp3s back to uncompressed wavs, so that the files look the same to prevent cheating, but underneath they are mp3 quality with varying bit rates.
I ask of you a simple task, load the 5 files as a playlist in the audio software of your choice and fill in my form rating them, then send it to the email address at the bottom of the page.
I'm sorry if anyone considers this spam, if so just ignore it, but I think some people on this board will be interested in taking part, seeing the results and testing their equipment and ears!
Here is a link to the form, it contains links to the 5 files (stored in dropbox) (Try this one if it doesn't work: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/16808054/EPQ/TestForm.docx )
Sorry about the file sizes, but it's the best way to avoid cheating.
Thanks for your help, maybe don't post what you thought in this thread as it may affect the judgement of others, but feel free to say whether you noticed large differences or not, without meantioning the names of the files.
Thanks so much guys (if you want to do the test another time on different equipment just ask and i'll send you links to the files with different names to make it a fair test).
tl;dr version: Download form, download music, listen, fill in form, email me (or PM if you want)
Even if you don't want to take part in the test, feel free to use this thread to dicuss your opinion on the matter of compressing digital audio.
 EDIT: Fixed link
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