Mp3 compression is commonly used to reduce the size of digital music files but introduces a number of potentially audible artifacts, especially at low bitrates. We investigated whether listeners prefer CD quality to mp3 files at various bitrates (96 kb/s to 320 kb/s), and whether this preference is affected by musical genre. Thirteen trained listeners completed an A/B comparison task judging CD quality and compressed files. Listeners significantly preferred CD quality to mp3 files up to 192 kb/s for all musical genres. In addition, we observed a significant effect of expertise (sound engineers vs. musicians) and musical genres (electric v.s acoustic music).

Authors: Pras, Amandine; Zimmerman, Rachel; Levitin, Daniel; Guastavino, Catherine
Affiliation: McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
AES Convention: 127 (October 2009) Paper Number: 7879
Publication Date: October 1, 2009
Subject: Data Compression

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