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Blind testing a 2 ms Timing Difference (2-way)

Change the target here:  1ms  2ms  5ms  10ms  20ms  50ms  100ms 

Purpose

This test will help you evaluate the shortest time difference you can hear. This version is the easy one, intended for home-theatre users. You will be asked whether two sounds are synchronized, or not (2-way test).

Musicians and studio engineers, please switch over to the 3-way test (more difficult).

Files being tested

Sync Delay (2ms)

The first file plays an electronic bass drum and an electronic high-hat simultaneously in sync. The other file, introduces a 2 ms delay between the high-hat and the bass drum. Can you hear the difference? If you think so, confirm with the blind test below, or change the target to a shorter timing (on the top of this page).

In a typical 2.1 or 5.1 speaker system, the kick drum will be reproduced by your subwoofer, and the high-hat will be coming from your satellites. At very low timings — 1 or 2 ms, possibly 5 ms in a large room — the different distances between the satellites, the subwoofer, and your ear may cause the 'delayed' variation to be more 'in-sync' by the time the two sounds hit your ear than the actual 'sync' variation. If your speaker system uses a subwoofer, it is recommended that you take this test while wearing headphones, unless you want to test the timing of your speakers.

The Test

Sync Delay (2ms)
Listen to [?] then vote — multiple guesses not allowed (your vote triggers a new draw)

To pass a blind test, you will need to perform 10 trials at least, obtain a high score and reach a high confidence level: 95% is standard to rate statistical significance. It means that your score outperforms random guesses by 95%. There is still a probability that you just got lucky though, 5%. To reduce such probability to 1%, keep testing until you reached a confidence level of 99%.

If you didn't pass this test, try with a longer delay. Change the target on the top of this column.

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Take up the challenge

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For sound and studio engineers