Loss-less is it worth it?

lossless is worth it,but not on your v-modas. You need reference class headphones to hear the difference. Also,156 kbps is total ****. You should rip them at 320kbps and not on youtube. Youtube has pretty ****ty rips that are at max only 160kbps. So yea, just download torrents or buy them legit. I recomend 320kbps until you get a better headphone.

lets think,amazon sells 320kbps (VBR best kind) music,but i recomend getting flac since flac does not get crappier everytime you re rip it into different formats. There is a catch to flac though. Flac is about 10x larger than mp3 because it is not sized down. (thats how it keeps it quality) Overall,flac is better. Like i said,when you convert flac into other formats and bitrates,it doesnt loose quality.  So,if you can,download flac. Here are some good sites:http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-33199_7-57532487-221/top-5-sites-for-buying-flac-music/

Further more,you cannot play flac music on itunes. If you plan to,ether download fluke or conver the flac files into ALAC files (also lossless).

google Play sells 320 kbps

 

In my experience FLAC is around 3.5x the size of V0 MP3 when ripped from CD. It might be 10x if you're converting 24 bit files. 

 

Amazon sells 256 kbps VBR MP3, not 320...

 

As posted by Headphile32, Google play sells 320 kbps CBR MP3.

You don't even know what the bitrate is going to be on a Youtube video. The maximum bitrate is 192kbps for 720p+ afaik, but they could have uploaded it at something lower. And also when you're ripping them from youtube as compressed files, you are adding an additional level of compression. You are getting the output of a compressed file as PCM data, and then compressing that again to make your mp3 file. I did some testing on this kind of transcoding in extreme amounts(see sig) and it does have a definite effect at lower bitrates, takes a while to be noticable with higher bitrates though(320kbps).

 

As far as whether lossless is worth it compared to high bitrate compressed files, not really. Unless you just want peace of mind. You can always compare between them yourself to be safe.

 

Bandcamp is another good place to get music in a lot of different formats though.

Are you in Pc or Mac?

Also Boomkat is another good place for FLAC average price is the same as iTunes.

If your in a mac A good converter from FLAC - ALAC (to be able to play in iTunes) is Music Converter Pro - allows you to choose the bitrate, format, KHz, mono or stereo

They've got the advantage of universal compatibility.

 

The disadvantages are poor tagging and large file size.

 

Same quality as lossless.

I think you can hear a difference between mp3 and a good flac on V-moda. I can recommend hdtracks.com as a good source of good quality music files. However there are a few other places. Just use google.