DJing Discussion

Forum
 DJing Discussion
Can you tell the difference between an MP3 and WAV?
This area is for discussion about DJing in general. Please remember the community rules when posting and try to be polite and inclusive.

Can you tell the difference between an MP3 and WAV?

msoultan 6:30 AM - 12 June, 2013
Lots of people say that they can tell the difference between MP3 and WAVs, so I thought I'd finally put it to the test. I have prepared samples for five songs, two samples for each song, and the goal is to try and identify whether you think the sample was originally encoded as an MP3 (192kbps) or if it's the original WAV:

www.soultitanium.com

Just so that people know how these were created and that there was no manipulation, here are the exact steps I took to make the audio samples:

1. Rip CD into Sound Forge as WAV
2. Trim to create 20 second audio sample
3. Save as WAV
4. Save as 192kbps Fraunhofer MP3 (different file name)
5. Save MP3 as WAV with different file name than original WAV
6. Rename files appropriately to conceal their identities
7. Zip and upload

Tracklisting:
- Spring Heel Jack - Take 1
- The Police - Walking on the Moon
- Underworld - Pearl's Girl
- Union Jack - Water Drums
- William Orbit - Million Town

Lastly, this is a listening test - don't try and cheat by looking at the waveforms. Also, while the MP3 encoding process has a tendency to increase the peak volume, it surprisingly had the opposite effect on one of the samples, so I wouldn't try and use that as a gauge for which is which ;)

Thanks!
Mike
SELECT 2:28 PM - 12 June, 2013
Dont you think this test would be more suited in live setting such as club? Thats where you can actually hear and more importantly feel the difference. Hearing it like this online is not really gonna produce what your trying to achieve. There is a reason why a lot of people prefer wav files.
msoultan 2:57 PM - 12 June, 2013
That is specifically why I brought it here as I don't have access to high end equipment. I'd love it if someone could take the opportunity to see if they could tell the difference in a club environment, maybe during sound check if they had the opportunity. That, or in the studio or on some high quality headphones.
SELECT 3:43 PM - 12 June, 2013
Also the equipment setup will matter as well. For example if I play an MP3 through my serato/laptop it sounds great. If I take that same mp3 and play it directly from my CDJ 850 via usb stick it produces a much richer and stronger signal. Same file though...
msoultan 5:26 PM - 12 June, 2013
Yeah, like you said, same file. The key here is having two different files and comparing them. Every system is going to color the audio one way or another, but the question here is whether the difference in audio is apparent enough for you to tell the difference between an MP3 and a WAV. That being said, it's most likely the mid/higher frequencies that tend to suffer because it takes more data to represent a high frequency than it does to represent a low frequency, so quality headphones should make the difference apparent, assuming it is possible to tell the difference. I've posted this on my FB page and nobody's fared out very well yet.