Like having A always be lossy and B always be lossless. it’s not about guessing but enjoying higher quality.
By just confirming that they sound different is enough to tell that lossless is better.
If you can’t encode lossy well enough to hide the difference the lossless track is always better as it sounds like it is supposed to sound. If there is no difference you might have to do the comparison on a more demanding track.
I know of no lossy encoder capable of not changing the lossless audio in any way.
You can argue that lossy is good enough but lossless will always match how it is supposed to sound.
There is just no comparison that can claim lossy is better than lossless period.
I’m a old WiMP user that has been around and the feeling of having millions of lossless tracks streaming is mind boggling.
You end up listening to lossy tracks quite often at other places but at home I’m surrounded by lossless except in the case of music videos where there is so far no service offering lossless sound.
Sound comparisons is difficult as we can’t remember sound very well. We rather remember the feeling of listeing but only a few seconds of actual memory.
In the end it is being able to not be distracted by the technology and be absorbed by the experience of the music. I have been following the MQA discussion, and ordered a Meridian Explorer 2 to find out whether this could get me closer to that. I have a good listening room, an EL 84 tube amp on quite good loudspeakers, usually linked up with by old Benchmark Dac1. Also having a raspberry with a Hifiberry I2S dac+ I created a triple ABC test using Roon, starting the same music simultaneously on all three. The Explorer in exclusive mode on the Roon from a PC, the Benchmark Dac 1 from my mac and then the raspberry. From Tidal I played MQA encoded 2L music, Van Morrison, and a range of other, shifting back and forth. I then checked my own HiRes material in the same way. Here and there I think I sensed a slight difference, but I would not be able to point it out consistently. I found myself again and again forgetting which one was now playing. As time run, I found myself just listening - and now and then shifting to one of the other setups.
I was surprised that they sounded so alike - whatever MQA or not, whatever the cheap I2S dac, the MQA dac or my highly estimated Benchmark.
I have tried comparing a lossless track, and the same track via Spotify and Chromecast Audio Device to the same amp and speakers. The amp has an inbuilt DAC. Both the lossy Spotify version (playing in extreme quality and the lossless flac version were connected to the same amp and speakers by toslink cable. To compare lossless against lossy it surely is best to remove as many other variables as possible, so playing the tracks through as much of the same equipment is essential. I was able to start the two versions together (or within a few milliseconds of one another) and near-instantaneously switch the input on the amp between the Spotify source and the lossless flac source. I did not expect to hear any difference and I could not tell any difference. I did not dwell on the test, at each amp input switchover the sound seemed to stay the same. After the track got to the end, that was it, I did no repeats. Some may say I should have done more intense focused listening, but I was happy to see that there was no night and day difference and that was the end of the matter for me.
With foobar2000 and the ABX plugin you can do a more controlled test comparing a lossless file against a high quality lossy file which you can create yourself from the original lossless one. I have not bothered to set up such a controlled test but would probably find it interesting.
It probably matters that I disclose that I am over 60 years old, and have never really contracted ‘audiophilia nervosa’. I believe the speakers and their reaction with the room acoustics are the most important things to getting a good sound. I do not, and never have owned high-end gear.
Especially when quoted outside the original context.
I expect people to notice no difference or a minor difference between A/B In the AAC against lossless test.
I have not heard anyone claim that AAC is better than the original.
MQA is a end to end process and I think they can claim that they can clean up flaws and also running ADC/DAC at 192kHz 24-bit is quite special and there is probably a reason MQA can’t perform at 192kHz without MQA hardware.
Sorry, it was me hitch-hiking your track - you brought up the theme up long before MQA became a theme. Earlier on I have tested MP3 material against lossless material earlier, and have experienced differences experienced as creating fatigue at the listener, but my surprise was about how little difference I could hear between MQA end-to-end processed material ( via the Explorer 2) and the same material played via Roon, that was not MQA processed. This led me to check my own hi-res material to check out differences between the three very different DAC’s, and I was surprised about how difficult it was for me to recognise them from each other. My gear is not high-high top notch, but it usually performs quite well, maybe also supported by a good listening room - so I am not claiming that others cannot hear such differences.
MQA sets a pretty high standard even without decoding.
You get proper 24-bit 44.1/48 material and none of the MQA additional material is above the noise floor so impossible to detect. MQA is really great even without unfolding. Software unfolding is good enough for most material as it brings it up to 96kHz when applicable. Some masters don’t do any unfolding. 192kHz unfolding is fairly common but I don’t think it’s that easy to detect with the required MQA DAC. It’s also take it or leave it, my explorer2 will always unfold to 192kHz if possible so no way of doing just 96kHz with the same signal chain.
It is really hard to create a proper A/B test. In a store listening room you look which speaker pair you prefer and can listen quite long on each channel. When comparing compression you need to be able to switch back and forth fast without a hitch as your sound memory is very limited. Before TIDAL there was an ad fir WiMP which just subtracted the compressed file from the master. What I noticed was how much of the drums was changed. They talked about sound that had gone missing when compressing. You tend not to focus on the drums when listening to a song so I guess the compression is fairly competent hiding changes in areas where you have a tough time hearing them. Mp3 compression was revolutionary in making significant changes to music while producing good sound. Suddenly you could download songs across the internet.
Some people that visit say I have good sound. The lack of audio compression must have an effect. I don’t own HIFI gear, I have a £500 surround sound setup from Samsung with a 8" subwoofer and tallboy speakers. I consider it pretty well balanced and well designed. Samsung is known to build that type of system well.