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Difference between MP3 and FLAC? - Page 3

post #31 of 93
6/22/09 at 2:59pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by P4Z View Post
What about gain. I keep finding myself having to adjust the volume on my iPod when playing playlists of tracks from different albums from various sources.
Lower bitrates seem to be louder?
I personally feel that flac sounds more refined, as well as providing better soundstage.
I find that with some tracks as well. I think it's more the original source than anything though, but I'm not positive. Will have to play with the ABX tests and do some random format conversion someday.
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post #32 of 93
6/22/09 at 3:04pm
Quote:
What about gain.
Use Apple soundcheck
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post #33 of 93
6/22/09 at 3:57pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Pistachio View Post
If you think the difference between 320kbps MP3 and lossless is large, go do some ABX tests. It will probably be a humbling experience.
So true!
Luckily I do not think there are a large difference (audible one, not audio data) between MP3 and lossless.
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post #34 of 93
6/22/09 at 4:51pm
Honestly,
I tried differenciating FLAC, 320Kbps, 192Kbps (same song)
I couldn't do it. I couldn't tell the difference.

I would FEEL like FLAC sounds nicer, but I couldn't convince myself why.
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post #35 of 93
6/22/09 at 5:18pm
This topic has been discussed to death. You should do a search and read about it. However, for those of you who believe there's an audible difference between 320 and FLAC please do a simple ABX in foobar. I have found that it is VERY rare that I am able to tell the two apart, and even when I am the differences that allow me to ABX them just mean that the two are different, not better. Also, do use replaygain. Finally, do make sure you get the mp3 from flac; don't try to compare two different rips and expect them to be identical.

If you do some reading on hydrogen audio you'll learn that around 160 kbps is transparent and only around 1% of people can abx above 192 kbps or so.

I personally rip to flac for archival but not SQ purposes.
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post #36 of 93
6/22/09 at 5:31pm
I've already done mp3, ogg and flac comparisons, and have picked out mp3 as the worst sounding. But if I'm listening to a badly recorded album, or on a low end system you probably won't.

The booming bass in mp3's was really noticeable, I thought I knocked my subwoofer dial.

165kps mp3 is NOT transparent.
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post #37 of 93
6/22/09 at 5:55pm
..and 192kbit sounds plain bad, it start becoming acceptable >224S

most of the stuff from the hydrogen-audio forum is biased and retarted anyway...they like to make ppl look stupid, they also like to say that noone can hear a difference between bit-perfect and DS+KMixer on XP

KMixer will ruin the sound so badly, that yeah, indeed...160JS sounds just fine
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post #38 of 93
6/22/09 at 6:13pm
I think this image is pretty interesting. Basically, V2 is the most bang for the buck setting, and 320 is not much of an improvement, especially over v0. Unfortunately a quick google search was unable to turn up anything other than anecdotal evidence. However, the consensus on Hydrogen Audio is that 320 is transparent 99% of the time. Occasionally, you can pick it out due to cymbals, harpsichord, etc. I have used cymbals to abx in the past.

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post #39 of 93
6/22/09 at 8:41pm
objectivists: "Here's evidence from many tests concluding that in almost every case, 320k is transparent, and indeed in many cases a lower bitrate is undetectable for most people."

subjectivists: "No it's not, I can easily tell, I've done tests with my friends, and mp3=garbage. Hydrogen audio is nonsense because they disagree with me. I'll never post my fubar ABX results, can't be bothered."

That sums up the discussion, no need to ver have it again.
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post #40 of 93
6/22/09 at 9:20pm
Devout skepticism is just as bad as devout belief. Neither appropriately apply logic, or make good use of evidence. If you can't handle unknowns or maybes, logic is not for you (the greatest learning is what you don't know and can't prove). Ditto if you've ever bought anything from an infomercial .

FYI, I tend to find pipe organs and clean synths to be good for ABX testing (Inglot's remaster of Brain Salad Surgery has been my main album to use), barring random odd artifacts. I've never bothered with 320, just due to the size constraints (when it's 1/2 the space of lossless, I'd rather take half the music and be sure...at 1/4 the space, it's worth the minimal risk).
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post #41 of 93
6/22/09 at 9:39pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by project86 View Post
objectivists: "Here's evidence from many tests concluding that in almost every case, 320k is transparent, and indeed in many cases a lower bitrate is undetectable for most people."

subjectivists: "No it's not, I can easily tell, I've done tests with my friends, and mp3=garbage. Hydrogen audio is nonsense because they disagree with me. I'll never post my fubar ABX results, can't be bothered."
well I guess the objectivists in that specific case play music w/ DS+KMixer on crappy X-Fi cards(or worse), and the subjectivits trust their ears and use quite a bit better gear....sorry to get into the e-penis matter, but a bad soundcard w/ bad op-amps and KMixer on top of it is not going to get you ANYWHERE tbh.

try this test on several low/high end equipment, and see how good you fare : Listening-Test

I'm not saying that proper 320S is "garbage" but 160/192 definitely are..not on loudness war/trance techno music maybe but on classical or acoustic, yes they are! and max compression APE is not that bigger than 320S, especially considering that it's not lossy and essentially 1:1...meaning no compression artefacts and a "clearer" sound, less THD+N if you get my drift.

bottom line is : you're only as strong as your weakest link...if your soundcard gives bad THD+N/IMD+N/SNR measurements, your audio is already "mangled" to begin w/...you've never really heard your music really clearly in the first place, so additional distortion is inaudible
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post #42 of 93
6/22/09 at 10:32pm
ok, so I've generated a 16/44.1 stereo 1Khz test tone w/ SineGen, then played it in WaveSpectra :



I've mp3'ed it w/ :

Quote:
C:\WaveSpectra>lame -h -b 320 -m s 1kHz.wav 1kHz.mp3
LAME 3.98.2 32bits (www.mp3dev.org - mp3devÂ*)
CPU features: MMX (ASM used), SSE (ASM used), SSE2
Using polyphase lowpass filter, transition band: 20094 Hz - 20627 Hz
Encoding 1kHz.wav to 1kHz.mp3
Encoding as 44.1 kHz stereo MPEG-1 Layer III (4.4x) 320 kbps qval=2
Frame | CPU time/estim | REAL time/estim | play/CPU | ETA
230/230 (100%)| 0:00/ 0:00| 0:00/ 0:00| 31.958x| 0:00
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
kbps LR % long switch short %
320.0 100.0 98.7 0.9 0.4
then I've converted it back to wav w/ dBPowerAmp, and that's what WaveSpectra gave :



the difference you're seeing is what mp3 took OFF from the original wave file, you can see that the THD rate has been 50% increased....and the THD+N doubled

that's what MP3 does to your music, distort it....if your system is already badly distorted to begin w/, you just won't hear it.
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post #43 of 93
6/23/09 at 1:05am
Quote:
Originally Posted by leeperry View Post
snip...
This is all very nice, but I have the same card with the same opamps and more revealing headphones and I can't tell the difference between 320kbps MP3 and FLAC on my best recordings. Even if I feel there is a slight difference I couldn't identify which is better.

All I am saying is, go perform an ABX for yourself and see how you go. I know at this point if you fail to tell the difference you wont report it to us all, but at least your mind will be changed anyway.
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post #44 of 93
6/23/09 at 1:11am
File size is the main difference. The difference audibly is minimal at best.
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post #45 of 93
6/23/09 at 1:42am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Pistachio View Post
If you think the difference between 320kbps MP3 and lossless is large, go do some ABX tests. It will probably be a humbling experience.
Agreed. The difference is very subtle and most of the time inaudible (for me) between those two.
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