How Well Can You Hear Audio Quality? Take the quiz!

[Mike Joyce]

I think that was the point the quiz Cowpoke,to show that MP3 quality is not far off the mark, as I am sure you know.However some artists say that it just doesn't do their music justice. I have to say though I could not live without my little MP3 player which I use while I am working. It's great to listen to my favourite tracks through the day, especially if I am doing a tedious job which doesn't require much concentration on my part.The convenience sure out weighs the loss of quality.

[Cowpoke]

Well I got 4 out of 6 correct. I failed at Cold Play which to me is already such a compressed sound in the original recording that it's almost impossible to detect any difference in audio quality at all! I also failed with the classical recording. However, it did take me several listen of every clip to detect the difference which really isn't all that big. Interesting link, thanks for posting!

[Mike Joyce]

Oh Dear,
I failed too. However I was listening through headphones on a computer. I think for the quality to be appreciated you need to listen through quality speakers and a good HI- FI. When I worked in the HI-FI business it was accepted that to hear a 10% improvement you needed to spend virtually double the price on amplifiers and speakers when you got near to the top end of the quality range. As I have noted before, as Television picture quality has improved my eye sight has deteriorated so I have stood still. I am sure the same can be said for my hearing as well. At least I can still taste good food, if not the wine. LOL.

[Dee]

Take NPR's quiz: How Well Can You Hear Audio Quality?

I failed miserably!
How did you do?

Are uncompressed music files the wave of the future?

The 250+ comments are interesting to skim through.

See: http://www.npr.org/sections/therecord/2 ... &utm_term=" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;