In this paper, sound quality of high resolution audio (HRA) is investigated in the view point of auditory perception. Perceptual characteristics of HRA have been examined by listening tests compared with the standard audio CD and the compressed MPEG audio layer-3 (MP3) qualities. The listening tests were carried out by the paired comparison, and the participants were asked to discriminate among HRA, CD, and MP3. Jazz music was selected out as the original HRA. Both CD and MP3 quality audio

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... were prepared from the original HRA file by the authors. It is found that the participants prefer the audio format with richer information, that is, HRA is most desirable and CD is better than MP3. The questionnaires filled in by participants indicate that subjective characteristics of HRA include much presence, high spatial clarity, and wide spaciousness. Additionally, perceptual discrimination in quantization distortion is also focused on in between 16 bits and 24 bits resolution. As the result of the listening test with 28 participants, the difference of the quantization resolution was discriminated with the accuracy of 60.3 %. Concerning the perceptual discrimination of HRA, quantization resolution is an important factor as well as its wide frequency range.