Is it normal i can not hear differences between MP3 and flac?, V5 vs flac? :S Options

[Bahamut2]

I tried LAME V5 vs FLAC source with an ABX test, with at least 3 songs, and i can never notice any little difference! Is that normal?
I tried electronic music too... and it sounds really clear, my hearphones are senheisser hd 518 with a very good quality and my speakers are 2.1 Logitech THX Z2300... (btw i love them)

[musicfan321]

Yes, it is normal.

My opinion on this - as long as it sounds good, that's all that matters to me. Although this can be tricky sometimes. While I can't ABX a -V4 file, I can hear artifacts while playing it thru my car's JBL stereo, as mjb2006 has said. This is why I prefer V2 and up on my iPod.

[Nessuno]

While I can't ABX a -V4 file, I can hear artifacts while playing it thru my car's JBL stereo, as mjb2006 has said.

Could you and mjb2006 please elaborate a little more on "I can hear artifacts but can't ABX them"?

[db1989]

Could you and mjb2006 please elaborate a little more on "I can hear artifacts but can't ABX them"?

Emphasis mine:

I routinely hear artifacts in my car, but the same files are un-ABXable when I listen at home through (what I believe is) better gear.

[Nessuno]

Emphasis mine:

I routinely hear artifacts in my car, but the same files are un-ABXable when I listen at home through (what I believe is) better gear.

So, if I can read english, it seems to me that, according to HA TOS but also, generally speaking, to the so called "scientific method" according to GG, he is not legitimate to attribute the distortion he perceive (about this phenomena to happen I trust him, of course) to compression artifacts.

In my precedent post I was just asking him, out of scientific curiousity, to elaborate about the characteristic of the distortion he perceive and how, being so subtle he can't ABX it even when he knows so well what to search for, he can speculate so surely it comes from compression artifacts.

[mjb2006]

Nessuno, 1. See my most recent post. 2. How can I prove the source of perceived distortion? All I can say is it is something I only notice when playing lossy files in the car, either via my iPod Shuffle or the head unit's CD-R player (it supports MP3, AAC, and WMA), but not when playing regular audio CDs. It is consistent with known examples of pre-echo I've heard and unfortunately am apparently sensitive to. It seems unlikely that the AAC files are being improperly decoded. The files are encoded with Nero, which has been demonstrated here as being not terrible, but not as good as it could be, either. And my car's acoustics are crap, despite my efforts to use the head unit's built-in EQ to even it out. Sorry I cannot prove it for you. I don't think it's a TOS issue in this case though, is it?

Even if I have misattributed the noise to compression artifacts, and even if I only imagined the noise, the point remains: the OP might not be able to differentiate MP3 and FLAC because he's listening to the MP3s as intended, using his high-quality gear with its presumably flat frequency response. That is, none of the frequency bands are being boosted or cut or subjected to room acoustics in ways that unmask noise. He may find inferior equipment and listening environments would emphasize the differences to the point of audibility, just like if he were to go cranking up the volume during fade-outs on a CD in order to hear whatever noise or dither might be there.

[Nessuno]

Nessuno, 1. See my most recent post. 2. How can I prove the source of perceived distortion? All I can say is it is something I only notice when playing lossy files in the car, either via my iPod Shuffle or the head unit's CD-R player (it supports MP3, AAC, and WMA), but not when playing regular audio CDs. It is consistent with known examples of pre-echo I've heard and unfortunately am apparently sensitive to.

Ok, so they seem like compression artifacts, though you can't prove it. That's a good point for further examination, but can't in itself lead to the conclusion that compression artifacts otherwise unabxable can be easily perceived in, well, real life listening environment.

To clarify: I'm not telling that they can't, as all this matter is not so plain and simple, I was just asking for clarification (and your latest post clarifies a lot) because the assumption "in a certain listening environment one can clearly and rutinely detect artifacts" (maybe now I'm oversimplifying, but this is the message I got from your first posts, am I wrong here?) seems to me to strong to state and, for what is worth here at HA, not TOS#8 compliant.