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What is the main difference in Lossless and MP3 320 kb/s or AAC 226 kb/s ?

post #1 of 53
5/12/09 at 3:35am
Thread Starter 
Just curious.

I've maked some comparison and find out that it's quite hard for me to hear any difference at all.

Yeah, i know about more details in lossless etc. But could you explain me in details?

BTW who uses lossless on portable audio? It's quite difficult to hear any difference, plus there a lot of noises on the streets...

Why lossless is better when it takes three times more space than lossy file?
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post #2 of 53
5/12/09 at 5:10am
Well, lossless is an exact copy, while lossy removes details that you can't hear.

I wouldn't recommend lossless for portables. The files are huge and eat lots of HD space. Reading the lossless files will drain the batteries fast because the HD has spin all the time.

Lossless is great as a master copy on your PC. From there you can easily convert to any lossy format for you portable.
If you ever change your mind about the bitrate or format for your lossy files you can just convert from your lossless backup again.
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post #3 of 53
5/12/09 at 11:16am
I use lossless on my iPod and on my laptop. It does take up a lot of space but I don't mind. The street noise should be taken care of by your iem.
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post #4 of 53
5/12/09 at 12:18pm
The main difference is sound quality. Not to be mean but maybe you need a better rig to hear the difference.
For portable lossless isn't interesting imo. It takes too much space and furthermore the difference isn't that big if you have high bit rate mp3s.
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post #5 of 53
5/12/09 at 12:20pm
The fact that there are no audio data loss!
Lossless does what is say, compress and store the audio data without loss (compared to the source). While MP3 and AAC are lossy, and hence throw away quite a lot of audio data during encoding.

If the difference is audible or not depends on a lot of factors:
* The music
* The codec and encoder used.
* Bitrate for lossy encoding.
* Your playback gear.
* Your ability to hear artifacts and other "issues" in the played back audio.
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post #6 of 53
5/12/09 at 5:10pm
I usually just copy the FLAC over because it is faster than converting it and then moving it over. It's all relative. I have small amounts of music on at a time and I shuffle my music on/off, so filesize is not an issue for me. I hate navigating the D2 menu anyway (for large amounts of songs).
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post #7 of 53
5/12/09 at 8:35pm
See for yourself, literally.
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post #8 of 53
5/12/09 at 8:44pm
@Currawong
Great post....
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post #9 of 53
5/27/09 at 3:30am
Thread Starter 
thanks for your answers

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post #10 of 53
5/28/09 at 3:01am
hard drive space by a long way.
the ability to convert/remaster without additional loss.
Other than that subtle differences in sound... (very subtle..)
although to be honest, sound is probably the least different on 99.9% of setups.
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post #11 of 53
5/28/09 at 3:09am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Currawong View Post
See for yourself, literally.
Now do an ABX test in foobar using 256kb/s MP3 and a lossless file and you won't hear the difference. Yep, here we go again.
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post #12 of 53
5/28/09 at 4:21am
Although I am not entirely sure, I think I hear the difference in cymbals.
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post #13 of 53
5/28/09 at 4:47am
Quote:
Originally Posted by ROBSCIX View Post
@Currawong
Great post....
Actually it's a really bad post, because you can't compare music quality with your EYES, you should do that with your EARS.

Maybe you can easily see differences on those pictures, but that doesn't mean you can hear them.
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post #14 of 53
5/28/09 at 7:18am
Post #5 of krmathis says it all, but to put it differently:

On most mobile set-ups most people cannot hear the difference in sound quality between lossless and high quality lossy (>192 kbps) file formats.

On most serious home set-ups (let's say >$500) most people can quite clearly perceive the difference to a small or even a very large extent.

On a very high-quality system, lossy files can clearly be perceived to be less detailed, less natural, less spatial, etc, etc, depending on which encoder is used, and which sound information is thrown out.

For mobile purposes, I use Lame MP3 V2 VBR. For home and archival purposes, I mostly use lossless, but on occasion I may decide to save 40% space on not that important recordings by using OGG Vorbis Q10 at about 500kbps, which on my system sounds almost as good as lossless, and way better than 320kbps MP3.
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post #15 of 53
5/28/09 at 7:22am
Quote:
Originally Posted by milkweg View Post
Now do an ABX test in foobar using 256kb/s MP3 and a lossless file and you won't hear the difference. Yep, here we go again.
I can. But then headphone system isn't as revealing as a Hi-Fi. As a previous poster said, listen to cymbals. And bass. With lossy it's quite bloaty with little definition.
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