字神帝國英語天地

今日主題：Human Ears Can Hear Better-Than-CD Quality (Just Barely) / 人耳能分辨出高品質音樂嗎

洪欣老師推薦：托福聽力最好的課外教材：60-Second Science
康康精選托福會考的主題，堅持每天精聽一定會進步的哦!!

建議方法：
1. 先聽兩三遍 (不看文稿)
2. 再一句一句聽寫 (每句都要聽寫數遍，直到寫出85%以上的字)
3. 最後check文稿，看哪聽不出來，單字沒背過，還是發音不熟。
4. 堅持天天聽，就能每天進步哦。

MP3音檔 (按右鍵可下載聽)：喜歡的同學，幫忙推或按讚哦~~
http://yiwen.cdstm.cn/attach/resource/201608/…/12038SWID.mp3

只有音檔怎夠，聽不懂地方，不用怕，康康幫你準備好中英文稿了：

中英文稿：
Human Ears Can Hear Better-Than-CD Quality (Just Barely) 
人耳能分辨出高品質音樂嗎

Listeners can tell the difference between CD-quality music and better-than-CD quality—but only if they train their ears first. 
經過一定的訓練，人們能夠分辨出CD品質和高於CD品質的音樂之間的差異。

Jay Z's "Tidal" platform promises listeners CD-quality streaming music, in all its 44.1 kilohertz, 16 bit glory—much better, they say, than compressed files, like mp3s. But why stop there? Neil Young's PonoMusic Store sells music that's even better than CD quality. 
Jay Z的Tidal平台承諾為用戶提供CD品質的流媒體音樂，該網站認為，這類44.1 kHz採樣率，16 bit位寬的音樂的音質遠好於mp3的音樂。那為什麼要止步於此呢？因此有了Neil Young的PonoMusic平台，在那裡我們能買到比CD品質更好的音樂。

In a YouTube video for the service Young compares mp3 listeners to scuba divers, muddling around the seafloor. "You know you're walking around in the murk and there's big fish down there, that's kind of like listening to an mp3." 
在一段YouTube視頻中，Young將聽mp 3格式的音樂比作穿戴潛水裝備，在海底聽音樂。“你就像在漆黑中摸索，並且可能還會遇到危險的大魚。這就是你聽mp3格式音樂的感覺。”

CD listeners are underwater, too. The only way to rise to the top, he says, is to dial up sample rate to over four times that of CD: to 192 kilohertz. "When you make it to 192, you actually break through the surface, and you're breathing air. And the feeling is different, it actually is a visceral relief. You feel good." 
他認為聽CD品質的音樂也如同是在水里聽。而回到水面上的唯一方法，就是將採樣率提升到CD品質的4倍以上——192 kHz。“當你把採樣率提升到192 kHz，你就像躍出了水面，能呼吸到新鮮空氣了一樣。這種感受是完全不同的，你會發自肺腑地驚嘆這種差異，這種美好。 ”

But… how good? What researchers, record producers, audiophiles, sound engineers, want to know is: "Is CD, compact disc, enough?" Joshua Reiss (RICE), who leads audio engineering research at Queen Mary University of London. " And the arguments seem to be never-ending." 
但是…有多好？研究人員、音樂製作人、音樂發燒友、錄音師一直都想知道，CD即激光唱片的音質是否足夠讓人們滿足。，倫敦瑪麗皇后學院音頻工程研究項目的帶頭人，Joshua Reiss說，“這種爭論從未停止。”

Reiss took a stab at settling the argument with a meta-analysis—a study of studies—on whether people can really perceive better-than-CD quality sound. He analyzed data from 18 studies, including more than 400 participants and nearly 13,000 listening tests . Overall, listeners picked out the better-than-CD-quality track 52.3 percent of the time. Statistically significant, if not all that impressive. 
But when Reiss isolated studies that trained listeners first and gave them a chance to feast their ears on the difference, their odds of picking the higher-quality track climbed to 60 percent. Suggesting there may actually be some perceptible difference... at least enough to convince Reiss to change his listening habits. "Yes I think I actually will, based on this ." The analysis is in theJournal of the Audio Engineering Society. [Joshua D. Reiss, A Meta-Analysis of High Resolution Audio Perceptual Evaluation] 
Reiss從大數據入手，對這一爭論進行研究。他們對過往研究的結果進行分析，從而判斷人們能否準確辨別出音質高於CD的音樂。他分析了來自18項研究的數據，這些研究包含超過400名參與者和近13000次盲聽測試。其中，在52.3 %的測試中，受試者能夠選出音質優於CD的音樂。在統計學上，這個數字具有顯著性，但卻不那麼令人印象深刻。然而，當Reiss只統計那些讓受試者先接受聽力訓練，再參與音質差異測試的研究時，能選出高音質音樂的比例提升到60 %。這個結果表明與CD相比，高音質音樂的確存在一些可察覺的差異——至少足夠令Reiss改變他的聽音習慣，“基於這個結論，我想我會去聽高音質音樂。”該分析結果發表在《音頻工程學會學報》(Journal of the Audio Engineering Society)。

Not that it will settle all arguments. "No, no never. But what I think it might do is allow the researchers to move on a little bit from this question and to start looking deeper into the causes of the perception." And for the audiophiles out there? It's no doubt music to their ears. 
這個研究並不能終結對音質的爭論。“這一爭論永遠不會停止。然而，我認為這項研究的意義在於，今後的研究不再局限於這個問題，而是對其中的感知原理進行深入研究。”而那些音樂燒友呢？毫無疑問，他們將越發瘋狂的追求更高的品質。