http://www.npr.org/sections/therecord/2015/06/02/411473508/how-well-can-you-hear-audio-quality
 
I got 100% - picked the uncompressed wave every time.
 
Or at least I would have if I'd been able to handle listening to Jay Z. There's a limit to what one will do in the name of science.
 
Do I have golden ears? Hell, no. I'm almost 64 years old. So how did I get them all correct? A slow internet connection.

I tried and couldn't do diddley. Between the electric fan and the window shaker I can barely hear. I'll have to wait another month before I can get into audio again.

4/6 for me. hen I was wrong I picked the 320kbps.
 
The wrongs were JayZ and the Mozart piece.
 
I'm uncultured at both ens of the spectrum

I'm pretty sure this was the same test that was done about a year ago.
 
I think I only got 3/6 then. Can I conclude that my guessing is improving?

bapu
4/6 for me. hen I was wrong I picked the 320kbps.
 
The wrongs were JayZ and the Mozart piece.
 
I'm uncultured at both ens of the spectrum

Me too, Baps. I have trouble separating the 328 kbps samples from the wav files.
Cheers,
Bert

2 out of 6, and honestly, they were guesses. I assume my hearing is gone.

jamesg1213
2 out of 6, and honestly, they were guesses. I assume my hearing is gone.

to quote "Many listeners cannot hear the difference between uncompressed audio files and MP3s"

I was surprised to get them all right except for the Suzanne Vega one, for which I picked the 320kbps file instead of the wav. I had thought that an unaccompanied voice would make it more obvious, but there you go. The secret of my success was in trying to mentally filter out everything except the high frequencies and concentrate on them. I picked whichever one had more brilliant and defined high freqs.

sharke,
 
I focused on the bass.
 
And since the JazzyG was synth bass that was hard one.
 
The classical piece, for me, was hard..... just because.

I can normally hear a great difference in bass quality when it's between two MP3's of different bit rates, but in choosing between 320kbps and wav I dunno, I think I hear it more in the highs.