[LAU] What is the best MP3 encoder?

[Ralf Mardorf]

On Tue, 2013-04-02 at 08:08 -0400, Paul Davis wrote:
> no, this is also not true. they want to *think* they are in the 10%,
> but they are not. its a common woo belief that you can "train" the ear
> to hear these differences and people who work in audio like to think
> they've done so. the current understanding of the ability to hear the
> differences, however, is not based on "training" but physiological
> abilities of the inner ear. double blind tests of discrimination
> including self-classified "golden ears" doesn't show them to
> substantively better than a random population sample.

And why tend non-musicians to miss radical differences between two
versions of the same song, while musicians _always_ notice the
differences? Make ABX tests yourself with non musicians and replace a
snare with a cowbell, I suspect that even this is a difference, some
people won't notice. I produced a lot of music with non-musicians, they
miss such radical differences very easy, but sure, the hobby guitarist
does notice a difference for the sound, when you move an EQ at the mixer
that isn't used by the audio chain.

Most people do this tests with expectations. Because they experienced at
home that sound becomes muddy when they copy their records with elCheapo
equipment and auto-leveling etc., this is what they take care about +
that the rhythm and tune _seem_ to be equal, but even here, they won't
notice differences in phrasing that easy.

Less people are educated to listen to individual musical lines by all
the aspects an audio engineer and musician should be able to listen to
music. You can train your listening! Filtering audio btw. is an issue
for many people, that's why speech therapist educate listening.