> Asking which file sounds "better" is meaningless
Indeed the phrasing of the question poses problem. The real question should rather be something like "what is the most faithful"? ANd without the source to compare to, that would be reducing comparisons to what a tester has experienced previously.
Yet I answered both confidently and correctly, without very much special audio equipment (Dell XPS 8300 stock sound card, and a cheap Sennheiser HD212 Pro).
What made me confident is I know what to look for†. If I did not I would have had to make a "what sounds best" judgement.
(spoiler alert if you want to take the test yourself)
† MP3 has a hard time encoding some corner-case specific stuff. Here the rattling at 0:06 produces an artifact that is a dead giveaway. Cymbals at 0:11 are more subtle but noticeable.
Sound was generally just more rich. But yeah the background noise was incredibly noticable. I use SE530's with an audioengine D1 at work since using an integrated soundcard always bleeds motherboard sounds in the audio :/
I read a study a few years back though about how the MP3 encoding artifacts and background noise were so ingrained in culture today that people actually prefer the MP3 encoding artifacts over not having them- Which seems to be supported by this poll. The incorrect choice has a non-trivial lead.
Indeed the phrasing of the question poses problem. The real question should rather be something like "what is the most faithful"? ANd without the source to compare to, that would be reducing comparisons to what a tester has experienced previously.
Yet I answered both confidently and correctly, without very much special audio equipment (Dell XPS 8300 stock sound card, and a cheap Sennheiser HD212 Pro).
What made me confident is I know what to look for†. If I did not I would have had to make a "what sounds best" judgement.
(spoiler alert if you want to take the test yourself)
† MP3 has a hard time encoding some corner-case specific stuff. Here the rattling at 0:06 produces an artifact that is a dead giveaway. Cymbals at 0:11 are more subtle but noticeable.