Karaoke Forums

Wow. What an asinine statement. I have never said anything of the sort...thanks for putting words in my mouth.

You want to play big boy? Let's go!

First Bazza will point out right off the bat, this quote from the author: "I chose 128kbps for these examples because that was the "high-quality" bit rate used in the original MP3 development listening tests." The original test he speaks of was in the late 80's. Seriously? I question what exactly he is trying to prove. That 25 year old low bit-rate files sound bad? Well, Duh. This alone nullifies the entire blog post. Only an idiot would use 128kbs files today. Of course it sounds bad. What next? 78rpm records have low fidelity?! I have never seen anyone here, myself included, advocate such incredibly low bit-rate files.

Bazaa will then remind you that a properly encoded 320kbps MP3 is indistinguishable from a CD in a noisy karaoke bar over an analog PA.

Bazza will also remind you (again) to read the article on psycho-acoustics that explains the science behind exactly how the MP3 algorithm works. Since you never do, I will give you the short story: The human ear cant hear those missing frequencies @ 320kbps (or even 256kbps) because they are masked by other harmonics and the brain cant process them simultaneously. Hearing them in isolation is cute, but really proves nothing.

Bazza will also point out that MP3 technology today is not even CLOSE to the same as it was in 1987 when Tom's Diner was encoded at 128kbps. You always ass-u-me that an MP3 is an MP3 is an MP3. Pro Tip: There are hundreds of variations of MP3 encoding. Don't you think encoding technology has evolved immensely in close to three decades? Of course it has.

But since you bring it up...how about I remind you of my challenge! Lets go there.

• I will come to to YOUR karaoke venue. (You know your acoustics)
• I will use YOUR equipment. (You know how music should sound on your system)
• I will pay you three hours of your hourly rate. (Even though this will only take 30 minutes. I know your time is valuable to you)
• I will play you ten random song clips in both 320kpbs LAME encoded MP3 and uncompressed 256k/44.1 Linear PCM (also known as a CD).
• I will A/B as often as you like. (Before you cry "FIX!" i will remind you that these will not be prepared by me, but come from the well documented MP3 v/s CD test.)
• We will both bring along an assistant to oversee the other to make sure these rules are being followed.

You will be blindfolded and tell me which is which. And I can GUARANTEE, you will do no better than random chance.

You win: I will proclaim to the world that Joe has golden ears and we should all bow to your greatness. I will change my signature permanently to say this. I will also come to a show of your choice in a dress and sing "I'm every Woman".

I win: You admit you are wrong and 320kbps MP3's sound great and are perfectly acceptable in karaoke, right here, to everyone. That's all. I'll even let you keep the money.

I'd say its a pretty generous offer. You should win in a landslide...right? I have offered you this challenge for years...you never respond. I wonder why is that?

I look forward to your response and the inevitable "personal troll" name calling, but like the requests by others to prove your invented statistics and mystery legal precedents, I don't expect one.

If you should, by some freaky chance of nature, lose, let me know the date of your performance. Even if I have to call in Sick from work that night, I want to be there (and NJ is right over the water from me).

I'd pay to see that! I've heard others make similar claims and maybe they can tell - but not me - I've lost too many high frequencies at my age.

You can tell with files under even 192. Anything over that (unless you simply using headphone output on a laptop), you cannot tell any difference. I also would make the same bet to anyone.

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