Comments by "Mikko Rantalainen" (@MikkoRantalainen) on "Audiophile or Audio-Fooled? How Good Are Your Ears?" video.

  1. MP3 compression is based on psychoacoustic analysis and the closer your hearing is an average the better the compression works. If I focus on some specific instrument I can hear the errors caused by MP3 compression. However, if I listen the music as a whole, I really cannot tell the difference. In short, if the psychoacoustic analysis of MP3 algorithms matches your hearing, even 128 kbit MP3 will sound good. If you have selective hearing problems (e.g. bad hearing on some specific frequencies), you'll notice MP3 compression easier. That doesn't say that your hearing is better than average, to the contrary. If the psychoacoustic predicts that you cannot hear some high frequency sound because of some other sound is masking it but your hearing problem masks the sound that is predicted to mask another sound, your brain can detect the missing sound in compressed version.
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