[sancco]

So I've been noticing that, for exactly the same album, a lot of lossless is more heavily compressed than MP3.
Top: mp3 / Bottom: lossless cd rip
 

 
Can anyone clue me in what's going on here?  Is it likely the mp3 was a pre-mastered version, or from a different country's release or something?

 

[linglingjr]

Quote:

 Is it likely the mp3 was a pre-mastered version, or from a different country's release or something?

Wait so are you saying that the mp3 was ripped from a source other than the CD you're directly comparing it to?

 

[sancco]

Yeah well I'm not sure.  That's the thing.

 

[stv014]

They are probably the same master, but the MP3 version is slightly quieter, and has some higher peaks because of the processing performed by the encoder/decoder. It is in fact because of this slight increase in peak levels that the level is attenuated by a small amount (often more at lower bitrates), so that clipping is avoided.