The debate between audiophile hardcores, opting for a pure lossless audio library and the average joe, more likely to go for the lossy mp3 option, is as old as digital audio is.

Ever wondered if you can actually tell a difference? I did, and this is why this page was created. This is 8x the same audio clip, but quality varies. There is 2x CBR 128, 2x VBR 192, 2x CBR 320, 2x lossless. CBR means Constant Bitrate and VBR Variable Bitrate. Obviously for the same bitrate a constant bitrate is less lossy, since variable bitrate tries to compress audio and leave information out that is not needed. So CBR 320 is less lossy than VBR 320. Makes sense?

Can you hear which is which?

Vote below, votes can be changed. Now let’s start. Have fun.

 

Song Credit: World Of Common Day by Daniel Prandl from the album The Hero’s Journey.

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Solution is here, but don’t cheat!

Here’s the audio files if you want to burn them to a CD: Zip1, Zip2.