[kn19h7]

Quote:

Quote:Originally Posted by yepimonfire 

"this is because a high bitrate MP3 above 256kbps discards information that is physically inaudible by the human ear, information the brain will discard by itself, you will most certainly not hear a difference between 256kbps and a lossless file ever. no matter how good your ears are, it is just impossible. it's the same thing that goes for video compression and image compression, you can't tell a blu-ray disc is compressed can you? no....that is because the information discarded could be safely discarded without affecting what the viewer sees. the brain interpolates a large amount of the information it receives. the only time mp3 begins degrading the sound quality audibly is when people use lower bitrates, lower then 192kbps, then it is forced to throw out information you can hear, which does affect the sound quality (duh). there are also several much more effeceint codecs such as WMA and AAC that do a much better job of compression. both WMA and AAC at 128kbps cannot be distinguished by even a trained listener from the original, so using AAC or WMA at 320kbps is double that bitrate and you can put your mind at ease that nothing you can hear has been removed from the audio."


Many people prefer lossless and hi-rez files. The hi-rez market is expanding. Not contracting. I can't see where mp3 files are better than any lossless format. Where is the benefit of mp3? Storage is cheap and plentiful. Used CDs are inexpensive. By definition hi-rez is better.

I want someone to show me how mp3 is a better alternative. I've already read how there are people who can't hear the difference. No-one has told me why or how mp3 is better than lossless taking storage space out of the equation.

Both of each have their points, I don't think there is 'better'.
 
Even having about 10tb storage, I'm still avoiding lossless files as I've other purposes for it and swapping around harddisks is somewhat troublesome too. Besides that, they cost physical space and need to be taken good care of. Its not about price only.
 
 

 

[keanex]

The main advantage lossless has over Mp3 is for archival purposes, not for listening. I'd be very surprised if even one person in here can reliably ABX Flac Vs. V0 or 320 for a properly recorded album. 

 

[baka1969]

Quote:Originally Posted by LugBug1 



"I don't think anyone can show you how it could possibly be a better alternative sound wise. Even if you cant tell a difference objectively, subjectively you will feel better knowing that there is nothing lost in the process from the original recording. It can only be because of the convenience of mp3 otherwise all audiohpiles would have lossless. By convenience I mean every program accepts mp3 and only a few accept Flac or Apple lossless, Wav is just too big a file for most portable players and takes up too much space on my pc. If like me you download music every night from different sources you have a lot more choice through mp3 format. If all you do is buy cd's then why not play them through a good cd player in the first place?"


You can buy a 1 or 2TB drive cheaply. I use a computer because I like having the convenience of keeping all of my music in one place.

 

[DeatHaze]

If you listen to 320kbps rips your fine, just make sure you have a big enough ipod to store it all on (usually 10mb a song!!!)

 

[mikeaj]

 
Quote:

this is because a high bitrate MP3 above 256kbps discards information that is physically inaudible by the human ear, information the brain will discard by itself, you will most certainly not hear a difference between 256kbps and a lossless file ever. no matter how good your ears are, it is just impossible. it's the same thing that goes for video compression and image compression, you can't tell a blu-ray disc is compressed can you? no....that is because the information discarded could be safely discarded without affecting what the viewer sees. the brain interpolates a large amount of the information it receives. the only time mp3 begins degrading the sound quality audibly is when people use lower bitrates, lower then 192kbps, then it is forced to throw out information you can hear, which does affect the sound quality (duh). there are also several much more effeceint codecs such as WMA and AAC that do a much better job of compression. both WMA and AAC at 128kbps cannot be distinguished by even a trained listener from the original, so using AAC or WMA at 320kbps is double that bitrate and you can put your mind at ease that nothing you can hear has been removed from the audio.

 
Quote:

The main advantage lossless has over Mp3 is for archival purposes, not for listening. I'd be very surprised if even one person in here can reliably ABX Flac Vs. V0 or 320 for a properly recorded album. 

Indeed.  However, I would urge caution about assuming that you can't tell the difference.  I saw another thread where someone was indeed able to ABX (10/10) 320 kbps modern LAME mp3 vs. lossless on one particular track.  How transparent the lossy encoding really does depend on the music:  naturally, some tracks have greater entropy than others.  As a consequence, the FLAC encode has a higher bitrate for those than for other music.  But what's more important is that some lossy encoders are perhaps not throwing away the right information all the time.  Usually the modern encoders do a very good job though.
 
That said, I'm pretty sure that most people claiming to hear huge differences would not be able to actually hear them in a ABX test.  I'd urge even more caution about assuming that you need lossless FLAC of 16/44.1 or even 24/96 to get great sound quality.  What's most important is what's originally on the disc and your headphones.
 
Personally, I can borderline distinguish between LAME 3.98 -V1 (ABX 8/10 or so) vs. FLAC for some problematic tracks.  Most parts of most music tend to be transparent at bitrates around that high.  I tried Vorbis -q7 (AoTuV 5.7b; current version of 6.02 is better; nominal 224 kbps, so about like LAME -V1) and found that the number of problematic tracks that were not encoded transparently to my ears decreased.  i.e. for similar bitrates, the quality was higher.  I also tried 320 kbps mp3 for just a couple music selections, but I was unable to distinguish that from lossless in ABX.  Of course I imagined some differences when trying to ABX them apart, but I don't think those count. 

 
The difference is very small to my ear though and much smaller than the difference between different headphones.

 

[pp312]

 
Quote:

The difference is very small to my ear though and much smaller than the difference between different headphones.

I'd say that's a given. And also much smaller than the typical difference between recordings, which makes me wonder why lossless enthusiasts are not as vocal about sub-par recording quality. If the recording is poor, FLAC v. MP3. becomes even more irrelevant that it already is.  
 
 

 

[pp312]

 
Quote:

If you listen to 320kbps rips your fine, just make sure you have a big enough ipod to store it all on (usually 10mb a song!!!)

Better still choose VBR. Cuts down on the space problem but gives the same quality.  
 
 

 

[pp312]

Quote:

Many people prefer lossless and hi-rez files. The hi-rez market is expanding. Not contracting. I can't see where mp3 files are better than any lossless format. Where is the benefit of mp3? Storage is cheap and plentiful. Used CDs are inexpensive. By definition hi-rez is better.

I want someone to show me how mp3 is a better alternative. I've already read how there are people who can't hear the difference. No-one has told me why or how mp3 is better than lossless taking storage space out of the equation.

The fact is, lossless is just not compatible with much of the hardware out there. I wanted to use my LG DVD HD recorder as a media player, but it only accepts MP3. I bought a second DVD player/media player with USB input but it only accepts MP3. I bought a Noontec A3 media player, advertised as playing everything including FLAC and OGG, but when I tried to play FLAC files it played one and stopped. I contacted Noontec, and after much kerfuffle I was told that the chipset does not support continous play with FLAC. In other words, FLAC right now is just an incompatable pain for many people, and since most of us (read virtually all) can't tell the difference, and never will be able to tell the difference no matter how much our equipment improves, why should we bother?
 
And that's taking out the space and download time issues! 
 

 

[pp312]

Quote:

this is because a high bitrate MP3 above 256kbps discards information that is physically inaudible by the human ear, information the brain will discard by itself, you will most certainly not hear a difference between 256kbps and a lossless file ever. no matter how good your ears are, it is just impossible.

 
You know, I've said this before but all this is just a rehash of the debate about Minidisc and ATRAC from 15 years ago. Once ATRAC reached a certain level of refinement it was effectively transparent even to hi-fi reviewers, and most admitted it, but because it was a compression system the Golden Ears were just not going to have it and Minidisc slowly died, or is dying. One of the best formats of all time, but that idea that information was being discarded just kept seeping back into some people's brains. Eventually Sony came out with Hi-MD, a lossless system, which of course sounded exactly the same, but by then it was too late. And now we're going through it all again, and it wouldn't matter how many ABX tests proved conclusively that the discarded information was inaudible some people will still insist on lossless and will still lobby the powers that be until all downloads are lossless, however incompatable it is with everyday equipment (see post above). Sheesh....   

 

[baka1969]

Poor recording quality, sloppy dubs, bad production and/or high compression does bother me. It makes some recordings virtually unlistenable. There's nothing I can do about it though. The only choices I have are to either listen or to not listen to those. With lossless vs mp3 I do have a choice.

As for the hardware issues, I do believe that the vast majority of hardware will play .wav files.

 

[AnotherN00b]

I reconciled myself to high bitrate mp3 files (lame v0 mostly) long ago due to storage issues (100k+ songs) and the fact that my home music library is currently in iTunes which doesn't support most lossless formats (I know storage is cheap but I can't afford a 10TB+ storage array). I would use lossless if storage wasn't an issue but I have tried ABX tests many times and can't reliably tell the difference on most recordings.
 
I strongly urge anyone having those nagging doubts about the audible difference to mp3 and flac to set their mind at ease by doing their own double-blind comparison on their equipment using foobar's built-in ABX Comparitor. Its very easy and should demonstrate how difficult it is to hear any discernible difference. Yes there are a few who can pass the ABX test by training their ears to  listen very very closely to certain sounds but the vast majority of us simply cannot tell the difference no matter how hard we try. It's well worth doing just to know that you really aren't sacrificing your listening pleasure by listening to mp3 files. 
 
http://www.misticriver.com/software-faqs/11162-%5Bq%5D-what-abx-testing-how-do-i-do.html

 

[pp312]

Quote:

As for the hardware issues, I do believe that the vast majority of hardware will play .wav files.

I should have made it clear that my problems encompassed all uncompressed formats. I was just using FLAC as a general synonym for lossless. The only formats I can get to play continuously are MP3 and WMA. Whatever we here in audiophile-land may think, most manfacturers of regular, as opposed to audiophile equipment, simply do not expect people to want to move beyond MP3. It's perhaps indicative that Noontec didn't even offer me an apology for the fact that their equipment can't play lossless. They appeared to consider it a very minor inconvenience, and to be honest, so do I. I only castigated them for the principle of the thing.
 

 

[baka1969]

Quote:Originally Posted by pp312 



"I should have made it clear that my problems encompassed all uncompressed formats. I was just using FLAC as a general synonym for lossless. The only formats I can get to play continuously are MP3 and WMA. Whatever we here in audiophile-land may think, most manfacturers of regular, as opposed to audiophile equipment, simply do not expect people to want to move beyond MP3. It's perhaps indicative that Noontec didn't even offer me an apology for the fact that their equipment can't play lossless. They appeared to consider it a very minor inconvenience, and to be honest, so do I. I only castigated them for the principle of the thing."


I have no problems with .wav.

 

[tribestros]

v0 or 320kbps MP3 is great, especially when ripped from vinyl.  I just don't see the worth in wasting the space for FLAC.

 

[baka1969]

Quote:Originally Posted by tribestros 

"v0 or 320kbps MP3 is great, especially when ripped from vinyl.  I just don't see the worth in wasting the space for FLAC."


Space is cheap.