Audio/Video Chat → WAV vs MP3 sound quality comparison question

To start with i know that WAV is Lossless format. But after i have compared the same tune with MP3 and WAV it's seems like Lossless format like WAV or FLAC produce much better clearly. Can someone tell me how i were able to tell the difference in sound quality when i have cheap 2.1 speakers or is it all in my head?

Are you doing a "blind" test or do you know which format you're listening to?

I know what format i am listening to.

Then it's not really a test.

OK. I did a blind test and i still were able to tell the difference.

At what bitrate?

Low bitrate (96 kbps or less) is easy to differentiate, 128 .. 192 is getting difficult, 256 kbps very difficult, and I kinda doubt that you could differentiate 320 kbps mp3 from its wav file.

Many moons ago, on an old telnet based BBS, we had a similar discussion.

I chimed in and said that I could most certainly hear a difference in the various MP3 encoding bitrates. The argument went down hill from there. Then someone piped up and told me to put my money where my ears are.

So I did. Someone on the forum said they'd make a CD with various bitrates and mail it to me. I sent up a track from Ray Lynch - Deep Breakfast in wav format. I requested that tracks 1 and whatever the last track were were the wav file I sent up. Do anything they want with the tracks in between. The person making the CD was to share the track listing with a couple other forum members. I would take my time constructing what I though the tracks were encoded with and post when I got done.

Long story short, using every bit of gear I owned, I spent about 2 weeks reviewing the CD. I posted my thoughts on each of the tracks and nailed each and every one.

As noted, it is -very- hard to differentiate between 256kbps and 320kbps in the MP3 world. Impossible to do so in a casual listening setting.

The track I shared was one that I was intimately familiar with. No way I could have pulled that off with the latest Britney Spears track.

If you're using cheap 2.1 speakers as your listening reference, an untrained ear will be challenged to hear the difference between various compression schemes. Get a really good pair of headphones, and it's easier to pick out the differences.

Well, in terms of frequency response, the MP3 has a steeper roll-off after 16kHz compared to the WAV, but not by very much. And the WAV file size is much larger than the MP3 file--by about 10 times. That's because the WAV file contains more information than MP3 does, and MP3 uses "lossy" compression format to reduce the file size, but part of this process involves losing some of the original information. 320kbps MP3 files are fine audio quality in general, but the information that has been lost can largely be in the bass end of the spectrum. This might only be noticeable when using big sound systems which can reproduce a wide range of bass frequencies, or maybe if you use a good headphones with excellent frequency response.

I'd go for the WAV format if size is not an issue. However, the difference in sound quality is actually imperceptible enough to even be unheard.

I was not able to pickup or hear any Artifacts that lossy compression has. I could hear more of the clearly when i am listening to a lossless format.

Then go with the lossless format.

You really should try vinyl. That right there, that's lossless.

Recently I did a blind listening test:

Analog Hardware:
Naim CDX2 CD player
McIntosh MC6600 integrated amp
Totem Forest Signature speakers

Digital Hardware Additions to above gear:
Macbook Pro /iTunes
Naim DAC-V1 24bit/384kHz asynchronous digital/analog converter

On the McIntosh amp,
the CD player was set to InputA,
InputB was left unused,
the Naim DAC was connected to InputC.

The MBP was connected to the Naim DAC.

1) Original CD's were ripped in iTunes to AIFF format (same bitrate/sample rate as original CD's).
2) Original CD and iTunes rip were cued.
3) A 2nd person switched between the two signal inputs without disclosing which input was being listened to. Thus, I was able to listen A-B-C, A-B-A, C-B-C.
4) Amplifier output level was unchanged whilst comparing tracks.

The subjective result was that :
- In about 50% of cases the original CD and the ripped copy sounded indistinguishable.
- In the rest of cases (mostly newly remastered CD's, but also high quality newer recordings) the ripped versions sounded better (smoother, richer, with greater depth) via the DAC.
- Never did the music from the CD sound better than the ripped music via the DAC.

I'm going to repeat this same blind experiment in the next couple of weeks comparing the Naim DAC-V1 vs. the Bryston BDA-2 DAC (192KHz/24-bit), keeping all the other equipment the same, but in addition I'll also be running an A/B experiment between the two DAC's by utilizing a second MBP with the same music library - each supplying one DAC. Both DAC's cost about the same ~$2200, so it'll be an interesting comparison.