How Well Can You Hear Audio Quality?

[Daniboy]

Can you hear the difference between WAV and 320kbps MP3?

http://www.npr.org/sections/therecor...-audio-quality

I'm using a Focusrite 2i2 audio card and Beyerdynamic DT 880 Pro headphones, I had to get the volume high to rear the difference, but I was able to identify which was WAV on all the 6 examples.

[soundinmotiondj]

Using a Fosucrite 2i4 with some Sony MDR-7506's at "moderate" sound levels, and doing a single pass of each option, I picked four wav's and two 320's. The differences were not large, and in more than one case I was trying to decide between the wav and 320 as my top two choices.

The examples ran the gambit of musical genres, but the overall recordings were not specifically picked to highlight the benefits of uncompressed audio.

If anything, this illustrates to me that for mobile DJ use, 320 is more than sufficient.