[LAU] How bad is mp3/ogg

[S. Massy]

On Wed, Oct 12, 2011 at 01:34:46AM -0400, Al Thompson wrote:
> On 10/11/2011 06:52 PM, Monty Montgomery wrote:
> >> Responding to myself here. Out of curiosity, I just did some AB'ing
> >> (hadn't in a very long time)
> > A/B doesn't remove confirmation bias unless it's randomized.  Perhaps
> > that's what you meant (FTR, squishyball will give you casual A/B,
> > randomized A/B, A/B/X and X/X/Y testing).
> >
> > Some very high end ears routinely fall prey to this-- It's not that
> > you can't trust your ears, it's the brain that's gullible.
> >
> 
> It also doesn't negate something else which may be more difficult to
> categorize, and that is there are apparently many who PREFER the sound
> of their music encoded as mp3.  I've read two studies where blind A/B
> tests were performed on various groups, and a large portion of those in
> their teens/early 20s preferred grainy, compressed mp3s over .wav.
> 
> So, apparently there's something else at work when we talk about what
> sounds "good" or even "better."
That's not necessarily surprising and has less to do with actual quality
of reproduction than with comfort. Many of us who grew up with
LPs and tapes had difficulty adapting to digitally reprroduced music (I
confess I still get a warm fuzzy feeling with listening to a very
slightly worn vinyl record). So, can we really be surprised that people
who probably have been listening to MP3 encoded music since the age of
ten or younger feel a degree of discomfort or alienness when listening
to uncompressed audio? 

Cheers,
S.M.