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Poll: Audible Difference between FLAC and 320kbps MP3?
Aug 15, 2009 at 11:33 AM Post #46 of 242
hah, I can't stand MP3's...but 128kbit takes the crowd! oh yeah, it filters things out ok
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I like how record companies make mp3 previews in 32kbit, just to be damn sure that noone enjoys it: Kung Fu Super Sounds (CD) Kung Fu Super Sounds [DWCR 002] - £11.99 : De Wolfe Shop, The Place to Buy A Selection of Music from De Wolfe Music
 
Aug 16, 2009 at 4:00 AM Post #49 of 242
My reasoning is basically that I own the CD, hard drives are cheap why wouldn't I use flacs. For travel I do keep a VBR256 AAC copy of my music on my Ipod. I keep meaning to redo it with lame one of these days.
 
Aug 17, 2009 at 12:00 AM Post #51 of 242
First of all I want to say: great topic/poll.

It's my considered opinion that for the majority of songs it's impossible to tell a difference between flac and 320 kbps MP3.
Some listening tests (e.g. on hydrogenaudio) have shown that 192 kbps VBR MP3 can give the listener a completely transparent audio experience for most of the songs tested.

I use flac for archiving and ~250 kbps VBR MP3s (lame encoder quality V2) for my portable player, MP3 CDs ...
 
Aug 28, 2009 at 1:11 PM Post #52 of 242
I keep most of my most precious songs in Lossless, such as songs I use for critical listening, favorite songs (or most played), and favorite artists. While I've started downgrading the rest of my lossless files to 320 as I don't see the point in having lossless files of music I don't care about.
 
Aug 28, 2009 at 9:57 PM Post #53 of 242
if it's so subtle that you have to sit and A/B and try to find a difference, then it doesn't matter at all!

I use losless just for peace of mind cause I might as well, I can burn a cd, and re-import it as many times as i want. But I don't feel bad about anything over 200
 
Aug 30, 2009 at 7:59 PM Post #55 of 242
Depends on the set-up, and the song. Obviously if there is a weaker link than the source, you will not be able to tell. Obviously if the song is very simple, you will not be able to tell.

Often classical music bit rates do not go that much higher than 360 anyway, even when in flac. But there is a lot of music which goes up to 1200. It's up to your equipment whether it can make use of the extra 900 kb/s, or if it just gets lost in translation.
 
Aug 31, 2009 at 11:21 AM Post #56 of 242
I did quite a bit of AB testing several years ago and found that I could hear the differences between lossless/WAV and most types of compressed music with compression of more than about 4 to 1. Above that, for me, it very much depends on genre and the original recording. I very often can't tell for files better than 4 to 1 but that's the genre/recording more than the file format I think. Anyway, once my ear got used to hearing the differences, I couldn't live with them. I have a few 96/24 files recorded from DVD-A and re-sampled from DSD SACD. The jump up from 44/16 is there but again, very much depends on the recording and genre. I wish there were more SACD recordings out there. My other big wish is for a 500Gb memory card in my phone. Does Santa read this forum ?
 
Aug 31, 2009 at 7:14 PM Post #58 of 242
To me FLAC sounds with less volume than the original SACDs when I rip the SACD to FLAC (I have compared these a/b) . Flac files tend to have more spatial sound than other files. Also, the clarity of instruments and voice is much real. However, I have heard some very good MP3 files at 128K that sounds awesome, if they were originally recorded with quality. I think that it is very difficult to identify FLAC, MP3, OGG, or Monkeys or Hippos if they have quality.
I get very confused when trying to explain this, many of you know...
 
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