Hearing difference in Audio Quality

[dancook]

I don't subscribe to any music streaming services and tend to rip and play what I buy - not at the highest quality though.

I started a Tidal subscription today and I got thinking, can I hear the difference? I have no real base line.. then I found this

https://www.npr.org/sections/therecord/2015/06/02/411473508/how-well-can-you-hear-audio-quality

I could hear a clear difference in the Suzanne Vega vocal in #2 and the Piano in #5, and identified the uncompressed Wav
I also identified the correct Katy Perry #1 uncompressed WAV.

I had a hard time with #3/#4 to the point I had to stop because I was annoying my wife with the repetitive nature of it.

But it was interesting.. still not sure I'm interested in forking out £20 a month for Tidal though!

 

[dancook]

will have to listen when I get home, but on a windows laptop+its speakers though its volume mixer at 48KHz/16bit not so different between samples.

- but the HQ lossless tidal stuff 96KHz/24bit available for some albums or, lossless 44.1KHz/16bit=cd, versus the AAC lossy,
should be more distinguishable, if, you can download the tracks and play them back directly w/o volume mixer via an external dac/better system

Mine was PC HDMI straight to my amp and to my sound system, with windows 'dolby atmos for home theatre' option enabled