[Byakushiki]

Still further reinforcing what was said earlier, tried out some soundtrack pieces
Siege of Farbanti, from Ace Combat 4: Shattered Skies (Distant Thunder in Europe I believe)
320kbps: Sounds good and fine. No issues here.
128kbps: Cymbals and the higher guitar notes sounded ever so slightly lesser. Almost can't tell a difference. Maybe I should check my hearing.
 
Also did a blind test. I honestly can't make any difference out of it.

 

[Rawrbington]

i have amazing ears.  i can decipher between 128 cbr and V5 vbr, also between 256 cbr and V0....
 

 

[bcasey25raptor]

Quote:

Still further reinforcing what was said earlier, tried out some soundtrack pieces
Siege of Farbanti, from Ace Combat 4: Shattered Skies (Distant Thunder in Europe I believe)
320kbps: Sounds good and fine. No issues here.
128kbps: Cymbals and the higher guitar notes sounded ever so slightly lesser. Almost can't tell a difference. Maybe I should check my hearing.
 
Also did a blind test. I honestly can't make any difference out of it.

I have the same results and according to my doctor i have better then average hearing.
 
 

 

[nicholars]

Hmm I can't believe that you cant like instantly tell the difference in quality between 128kbps and 320kbps....
 
It is so obvious to me that the 128kbps mp3 is significantly worse sounding....
 
I really cannot believe that some people cannot notice the quality difference... Especially people with £300 + headphones!
 
(I am not meaning to sound rude btw I just honestly can't believe you cant notice the difference!)

 

[bcasey25raptor]

Quote:

Hmm I can't believe that you cant like instantly tell the difference in quality between 128kbps and 320kbps....
 
It is so obvious to me that the 128kbps mp3 is significantly worse sounding....
 
I really cannot believe that some people cannot notice the quality difference... Especially people with £300 + headphones!
 
(I am not meaning to sound rude btw I just honestly can't believe you cant notice the difference!)

Like i said i notice the difference. But i have to pay attention to the file to hear it. If i have no comparison file i am perfectly happy with 128kbps files.

 

[Head Injury]

Quote:

Hmm I can't believe that you cant like instantly tell the difference in quality between 128kbps and 320kbps....
 
It is so obvious to me that the 128kbps mp3 is significantly worse sounding....
 
I really cannot believe that some people cannot notice the quality difference... Especially people with £300 + headphones!
 
(I am not meaning to sound rude btw I just honestly can't believe you cant notice the difference!)

You have tried one of the ABX tests, right? Or done your own with Foobar, etc.
 
Lossy compression does very specific things to the file. Unless you know what those things are, or are especially sensitive to it, you won't hear a difference or much of one. It has nothing to do with headphone price, or golden ears. Some headphones will be more revealing of the compression, but that has nothing to do with quality and everything to do with sound signature.
 
I have a hard time believing anyone could listen to a file and instantly tell the difference between bitrates without a reference for comparison. Like knowing immediately that a file is 128kbps without having heard it at a higher bitrate recently. That's why it doesn't matter, not because there's no difference at all.

 

[koolkat]

Idno if I've posted this before but
 
I converted a lossless track into high bitrate mp3 and high bitrate AAC. 
I really couldn't tell the difference between the lossless, mp3 and AAC in Foobar's abx app.
I don't do critical listening though, so maybe I need more "ear training" to pick out the difference, lol.
 
If I recall correctly, the music videos on Youtube are 128kbps (read about this somewhere...) but there
are still songs that sound HD, especially those managed by Vevo. ಠ_ಠ
 

 

[nikp]

I can hear significant difference between 128 and 320kbps but I really cannot tell the difference between 320kbps and FLAC. 

 

[nicholars]

Yes I have tried a/b testing and I was always correct with 128 vs 320 but got confused with flac vs 320 quite a lot....
 
To me 128kb is noticably worse quality. A lot of other people seem to agree.... 128kb is OBVIOUSLY worse whereas 320 vs flac is much more debatable
 
I am not claiming to have special hearing or anything like that I just simply cannot believe that people with good headphones and source cannot tell the difference with 128kbps mp3.... I am honestly quite shocked that there is even debate about it lol.

 

[Proglover]

Quote:

 
I have a hard time believing anyone could listen to a file and instantly tell the difference between bitrates without a reference for comparison. Like knowing immediately that a file is 128kbps without having heard it at a higher bitrate recently. That's why it doesn't matter, not because there's no difference at all.

Come on man, even if a 128 file is compressed very well and you have no listening experience with the specific music, it's not very hard to hear. As stated early, cymbals are the first to suffer.
 
Honestly, between 320 and FLAC with whichever headphones or setup, it's very hard when really blindly comparing, I'll even confess it's absolutely not easy with well encoded 192, but 128 is a pretty different story, it gets beneath a certain threshold. And I personally have a flawded hearing in the 2k hz region.
 
Most important thing is that the individual is still enjoying the music. If you can with whatever setup and using 128 files, great. But it does bother me.
 

 

[Satellite_6]

I agree with that guy. 
 
Lossy starts sounding decent around 160. That's the bare bones minimum for me. I prefer to use 256+ 

 

[TobaccoRoad]

Quote:

Come on man, even if a 128 file is compressed very well and you have no listening experience with the specific music, it's not very hard to hear. As stated early, cymbals are the first to suffer.
 
Honestly, between 320 and FLAC with whichever headphones or setup, it's very hard when really blindly comparing, I'll even confess it's absolutely not easy with well encoded 192, but 128 is a pretty different story, it gets beneath a certain threshold. And I personally have a flawded hearing in the 2k hz region.
 
Most important thing is that the individual is still enjoying the music. If you can with whatever setup and using 128 files, great. But it does bother me.
 

 
I don't know..especially when you're not even sure whether the music has good recordings to begin with, I would think it's impossible to tell. If you theoretically know before hand that it's good recording then I would be more inclined to agree with you.

 

[nicholars]

 
Quote:

 
I don't know..especially when you're not even sure whether the music has good recordings to begin with, I would think it's impossible to tell. If you theoretically know before hand that it's good recording then I would be more inclined to agree with you.

Im sorry but it really is not "impossible to tell" at all.... it is really quite obvious! Jeez a 128kb mp3 is like <10% of the original size of the recording and you think that has ZERO % effect on sound quality?!
 

 

[RexAeterna]

It bothers me because it is incorrect....
 
Your opinion is not relevant because it is not a subjective thing... 128kb is SIGNIFICANTLY worse and HEAVILY compressed... You shouldnt go recommending people to use 128kb Mp3 because it is missleading.
 
Clearly you have no idea what you are talking about eg. "it has better compression then FLAC" "lossless is over-rated" "it'll be hard to tell going from even some 128kb/s to complete lossless 24-bit WAV"
 
TBH those statements are just missleading and verging on ridiculous so maybe you should not give people missleading advice.
 
Personally if I am listening to a playlist of 320kbps and FLAC files then a 128kbps file or even 192kbps I can notice within 10 seconds of stasrting the song that it is lower bitrate... 128kbps is horrible quality tbh. 192kbps is not great, 320 is fine and Flac is better again, although 320kbps and Flac I can confuse one for the other sometimes a 128kbps or 192kbps is blatantly worse quality and it is evident straight away to me.

i never said it was better. i said it mostly depends on the original mastering. there is some files that be very well compressed where there is zero difference. i just said if the original mastering itself is good and very good compressor used it'll be very difficult to tell. i never said one was better than the other or one should be used over the other. i don't see how my opinion is irrelevant as i am welcome to an opinion like everyone else on these forums are. i do not try to dictate my own belief on others.

 

[nicholars]

No but that is the thing... I am not dictating my beliefs to others either... I am merely stating FACT vs SUBJECTIVE opinion.
 
Ok so maybe YOU cannot notice a difference but to me and a lot of other people there is an obvious difference.
 
Do you really think that the encoding is SO GOOD that it can remove 90% of the original recording with ZERO impact on sound quality?
 
The difference in quality to me is immediatly apparent with 128kbps and I honestly cannot believe people say there is "no difference" or "have you a/b tested" and similar comments when the 128kbps mp3 is so obviously worse quality!
 
I agree that the original recording quality is the most important but any given recording at 128kbps vs flac will sound obviously different tbh.