[dsdeiz]

Hey all,

So I've been trying really hard to notice a different music experience when it comes to listen to Flac files or even just 320 mp3 files. Currently I have a Fiio X3 that I recently bought. I'm trying to differentiate the output when listening to Flac and regular low quality mp3 files but so far I am not noticing any differences. I have the ATH CKS77X IEM.
There seems to be a lot of things to consider in order to differentiate High and Low quality music. I wonder what I might be lacking. Is it the earphones? The player? Or the genre of the music I am listening to (which is EDM).

Any suggestions? TIA!

 

[billybob_jcv]

The best advice I have for you is to stop reading the forums where people claim to hear night & day differences between FLAC & good quality MP3 files.

Welcome to the club of those of us not blessed with golden ears that are able to hear the differences in recordings made during a full moon and an amplifier made from unicorn semen...

 

[Head Injury]

  Hey all,

So I've been trying really hard to notice a different music experience when it comes to listen to Flac files or even just 320 mp3 files. Currently I have a Fiio X3 that I recently bought. I'm trying to differentiate the output when listening to Flac and regular low quality mp3 files but so far I am not noticing any differences. I have the ATH CKS77X IEM.
There seems to be a lot of things to consider in order to differentiate High and Low quality music. I wonder what I might be lacking. Is it the earphones? The player? Or the genre of the music I am listening to (which is EDM).

Any suggestions? TIA!

You aren't lacking anything. Very few people can actually hear a difference between lossless and high bitrate lossy. The ones that think they do usually are just doing sighted listening, and will fail a properly controlled test. It's nothing to be ashamed about either, these lossy codecs are made by very smart people for the singular purpose of making them sound as lossless as possible. Not hearing the difference just means they're working as designed.
 
If anything, you're lacking a knowledge of what to listen for. The differences don't manifest themselves the way people usually claim, with larger soundstages or deeper bass. At very high bitrates, the differences are in compression artifacts in minute details like the leading edge of notes. The best way to hear them, if you really want to (why?), is to separate a short passage of complex treble, like mass string instruments or a cymbal crash. Then turn the volume up and get ready to listen to these couple seconds on repeat for a long time, comparing with the same passage in lossless. Once you've trained yourself to recognize it you might hear it during normal playback, if you're (un)lucky. Better gear might help, but 90% of it is just learning what the difference is and how to recognize it.
 
There's usually a discussion or test or two on the subject in the Sound Science subforum if you want to learn more.

 

[dsdeiz]

Aww, yeah. I was hoping it would not end in something that depends on the way people hear. But anyways, thanks for clarifying that. I guess I should stick with MP3s. Now I'm wondering what might be a good quality of mp3. Normally I don't consider those "bitrate" stuffs. I just grab any mp3 files. Recently I came across different ones i.e. 320, 128, etc. I'm not entirely sure which one to choose and the difference from the them.
 

if you really want to (why?)

 
Yeah, not much. Just curious what the fuss is all about cause I read in some articles and forums saying that Lossless is pretty much better that regular mp3s.
 

There's usually a discussion or test or two on the subject in the Sound Science subforum if you want to learn more.

 
I'll check it out. Thanks!
 
Lastly, wondering if my gear is decent enough. So far I'm liking it but I'm not sure what might be the experience for better gears.
 
TIA!

 

[billybob_jcv]

By far, the most significant change that can be made in any audio system is to change the output device (the speakers or headphones). You can make radical changes in the sound you hear by changing the brand/model of the headphones - much more than any difference in the source encoding or the difference between two good quality amps or DACs.

The X3 is a good DAP. I would be thinking about the sound you hear and what you might like to hear differently. Want more bass? More treble? More smooth? More V-shape? Change the headphones...

 

[dsdeiz]

The X3 is a good DAP. I would be thinking about the sound you hear and what you might like to hear differently. Want more bass? More treble? More smooth? More V-shape? 

 
Ah, fair enough. I might change my headphones soon as well. Currently it has "focus" on bass and through some reading, I've learnt that boosts on these aren't really recommended since you're won't be hearing how the output was originally created in a studio. Dunno if there is any truth in these though.

 

[billybob_jcv]

What matters is what *you* hear and whether *you* like it.

 

[Jean Corriveau]

 By far, the most significant change that can be made in any audio system is to change the output device (the speakers or headphones).

 
I agree until a certain point. I've been building professional car sound systems for 4 years now and I learned from very talented techs. One of the first rule they taught me is everything starts to the source. The speakers only play what they are asked to play. I had the chance to deeply experiment that theory by building all kinds of sound systems and it is true. Once you have a decent source that plays files that are decently encrypted the biggest difference in your audio system will then come from the output.  

 

[Head Injury]

   
I agree until a certain point. I've been building professional car sound systems for 4 years now and I learned from very talented techs. One of the first rule they taught me is everything starts to the source. The speakers only play what they are asked to play. I had the chance to deeply experiment that theory by building all kinds of sound systems and it is true. Once you have a decent source that plays files that are decently encrypted the biggest difference in your audio system will then come from the output.  

Most sources are audibly transparent, and I'd wager the real audible differences between a $100 DAC and a $10,000 one are smaller than the difference between any two speakers or headphones. I'd up that wager to any two speakers or headphones of the exact same model, but there's too many high-end boutique DAC designers intentionally coloring their equipment to wow the consumer.
 
The source first theory is an old relic. It may have applied to a degree back in the days of turntables, but has no place in modern digital audio. IMO, etc.
 
Don't take this as a personal attack or anything. I just think you, and the techs who taught you, were mislead by audiophile truisms and a dose of expectation bias. The hobby is full of stuff like this, it's easy to be deceived. I believed it too for a couple years until the reverie was broken and I started trying to figure out why everything sounded the same.

 

[Jean Corriveau]

Like I previously said once you have a decent source then to go for a high-end source won't make the big difference but I assure you in car sound system the stock head units are the biggest achilles heel of the whole system (in 90% of the cars). This is not like comparing the iPod Classic to the Fiio X5. And I am precisely talking about car sound system just because @billybob_jcv said the most significant change that can be made in any audio system is to change the output device. I have many previous projects in mind while typing this message. One of them being my S2000. I installed my Focal PC 165 but didn't change the head unit yet since I was still waiting for it to arrive. The result was a worse sound than with the stock speakers. And the same thing happened with the S2000 of one of my customer who first went only for new speakers (Rockford Fosgate T165).

 

[billybob_jcv]

Ahh, semantics - it will get you every time. Yes, when I wrote "any audio system", I was thinking of any reasonably good quality system, and I was saying it with the knowledge that the OP already has an X3 DAP. Sure, if your source is an AM transistor radio from 1954, and you are trying to feed it into an LCD-3, then improving the source will certainly improve the system dramatically. But that's not the context of this thread. Changing the X3 for a HiFiMan 900, or a PC full of 32bit/192K files, isn't going to have nearly the impact on the resulting sound as changing from a Fostex TH900 to a Grado GS1000, or for that matter, changing from the Grado SR60 to a Sennheiser HD429.

 

[Jean Corriveau]

Well now I can totally agree with you. By the way I didn't mean to play with words to prove you wrong. For some reason I just got stuck on that word and applied it to what I know best and it didn't concur. 

 

[AlrightMister]

   
Ah, fair enough. I might change my headphones soon as well. Currently it has "focus" on bass and through some reading, I've learnt that boosts on these aren't really recommended since you're won't be hearing how the output was originally created in a studio. Dunno if there is any truth in these though.

You are even less likely to hear the difference between a good 320k mp3 and lossless with a bass heavy monitor because lossy compression gets most of its space savings by losing data in the upper frequencies, i.e. 15-20khz. With bass heavy phones you are already hearing less of this information, then add in the fact that as we age we become significantly less sensitive to sound in this freq range. If you really want to hear the difference you can. Get some very analytical(IMO painful) cans and do lots of A/B(no fun) listening. I always try to get my music in flac  and rip to flac but for the above reasons 320k mp3 is fine by me.

 

[cel4145]

Now I'm wondering what might be a good quality of mp3. Normally I don't consider those "bitrate" stuffs. I just grab any mp3 files. Recently I came across different ones i.e. 320, 128, etc. I'm not entirely sure which one to choose and the difference from the them.

The higher the number, the bigger the file, and the more music information preserved from the original--so the higher the quality. 320k or 256k (or 256k variable) are all good choices, with 320k having the edge (although you might not be able to tell any difference).