Confused by results of my first ABX test..., Vorbis file better when encoded from 24/96 rather than 16/44.1 FLAC? Options

[djp]

My first ABX test here, so be gentle with me! Basically what I've done is as follows...

I have two lossless FLAC files, one @ 24/96 the other @ 16/44.1. I have then used OggDropXPd v1.9.0 aoTuV Beta 5.7 to encode each file (-q 5). When played back the .ogg file encoded from the 24/96 FLAC sounds better. To test I used the ABX comparator in foobar2000. The results were as follows;



Do these results confirm that the .ogg file encoded from the 24/96 FLAC is indeed of better quality than the one encoded from the 16/44.1 FLAC and if so, how is this audible to the human ear? Having read the forums I was under the impression that anything above 16/44.1 was pointless. Now, possibly I'm going wrong somewhere, maybe with regards the encoding.

Any advice would be most appreciated.

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*EDIT*

Just realised a log file can be saved after ABXing in foobar2000! Doh!

This post has been edited by greynol: Jun 1 2011, 17:47

[AndyH-ha]

If you are starting with two different files, the real question is, are those two any different, period?

If the 16 bit is a proper conversion to 16 bits from the 24 bit file, that is one thing. If the two source files were created by different processes, then there may be distinct aspects of each that have nothing to do with the bit depth.

The question of 16 bit vs 24 bit being distinguishable from each other only applies to one original source, made at 24 bit, with the 16 bit version derived from that. How it is derived is important as there are ways to screw up the process.

A probability of 90% that the files are distinguishable is indicative that they actually can be told apart, but one round at that confidence level is not science, that is, not a standard of good evidence. If indeed you can tell the files apart, "better quality" and "sounds better" are your subjective evaluations, not necessarily related to widely used measurable qualities such as noise and various types of distortion, or even resolution of actual musical signal.