Hello, as a sound design artist and and audiophile, I thought I would share my theories on audio encoding. These are only theories and everybody may have different views / interpretations, so please remain considerate.
I have spent many hours over the course of at least the last 6 years in researching/comparing the difference between lossy and lossless audio encoding (MP3, AAC & OGG vs. FLAC / WAV) and their different bitrates. You really need to trust me on this: Lossless is the way to go! The higher the bitrate, the better. The general concept is that the more an audio file is encoded (converted) or re-encoded, especially if into a lower bitrate, the more degraded the dynamics, texture and the soundstage imaging become. So then you have an audio file that has new 'artificts', the bass loses it's puncyness and the treble loses it's texture. Along the way I've experimented with various combinations of VST mastering filters at an attempt to restore the audio, but with mixed results. So basically when it's downconverted too far then the copy is ruined for good.
I have trained my ears to listen to tiny nuances and have been able to tell the difference between MP3 / AAC / OGG / FLAC and WAV. Yes, WAV is actually better than FLAC by a little. FLAC is so-called lossless, yet the bitrate is reduced by an everage of 500kbps from WAV and I could hear some of the stereo-width and fine treble-texture that was missing in the FLAC. Also I have been able to tell the difference between varying bitrates within each codec, FLAC included, can sound better/worse than each other. However the exception would be if the master track was originally encoded into a FLAC file, thereby bypassing any secondary encoding; especially if the FLAC file is encoded in a format higher than 16/44.1 from an original source of equal or greater bit depth and sample rate.
Furthermore, CD quality is NOT the best format (16bit bitdepth, 44.1khz sample rate, 1411kbps bitrate); it's just the defacto 'industry standard' that was decided upon by media executives back in the 1980's when they invented with the compact disc. The best format I've heard so far, as far as PCM goes (WAV) is 32bit / 96khz. That is to say, that the 32bit / 192khz seemed indistinguishable, and I have yet to try the DSD (SACD) format (am I missing anything?). In the recent year or two, I've dropped lossy files unless totally exhausting my resources to find a lossless format of the song. The only exception would be if an album was mastered poorly (Burial, Flying Lotus and older U-ziq for example), then in that case a lossy encoding can be OK since it's hard to distinguish between the source that was mastered with it's has poor dynamics, too much distortion used, etc.
Lastly, I've discovered that, contrary to common belief, that "upconversion" can seem to improve the sound quality. Take a source track at CD-quality 16bit / 44.1khz, and play it through a player such as AIMP3 and upconvert it to at least 24bit / 88.1khz and with a hi-end setup you should be able to hear added fidelity.
I have spent many hours over the course of at least the last 6 years in researching/comparing the difference between lossy and lossless audio encoding (MP3, AAC & OGG vs. FLAC / WAV) and their different bitrates. You really need to trust me on this: Lossless is the way to go! The higher the bitrate, the better. The general concept is that the more an audio file is encoded (converted) or re-encoded, especially if into a lower bitrate, the more degraded the dynamics, texture and the soundstage imaging become. So then you have an audio file that has new 'artificts', the bass loses it's puncyness and the treble loses it's texture. Along the way I've experimented with various combinations of VST mastering filters at an attempt to restore the audio, but with mixed results. So basically when it's downconverted too far then the copy is ruined for good.
I have trained my ears to listen to tiny nuances and have been able to tell the difference between MP3 / AAC / OGG / FLAC and WAV. Yes, WAV is actually better than FLAC by a little. FLAC is so-called lossless, yet the bitrate is reduced by an everage of 500kbps from WAV and I could hear some of the stereo-width and fine treble-texture that was missing in the FLAC. Also I have been able to tell the difference between varying bitrates within each codec, FLAC included, can sound better/worse than each other. However the exception would be if the master track was originally encoded into a FLAC file, thereby bypassing any secondary encoding; especially if the FLAC file is encoded in a format higher than 16/44.1 from an original source of equal or greater bit depth and sample rate.
Furthermore, CD quality is NOT the best format (16bit bitdepth, 44.1khz sample rate, 1411kbps bitrate); it's just the defacto 'industry standard' that was decided upon by media executives back in the 1980's when they invented with the compact disc. The best format I've heard so far, as far as PCM goes (WAV) is 32bit / 96khz. That is to say, that the 32bit / 192khz seemed indistinguishable, and I have yet to try the DSD (SACD) format (am I missing anything?). In the recent year or two, I've dropped lossy files unless totally exhausting my resources to find a lossless format of the song. The only exception would be if an album was mastered poorly (Burial, Flying Lotus and older U-ziq for example), then in that case a lossy encoding can be OK since it's hard to distinguish between the source that was mastered with it's has poor dynamics, too much distortion used, etc.
Lastly, I've discovered that, contrary to common belief, that "upconversion" can seem to improve the sound quality. Take a source track at CD-quality 16bit / 44.1khz, and play it through a player such as AIMP3 and upconvert it to at least 24bit / 88.1khz and with a hi-end setup you should be able to hear added fidelity.
