[The-One]

To be honest, I'm actually quite annoyed at this. And I thought this day would never come. I've had some good equipment for a while and though I could say FLAC sounds better, but I've always wondered if it was all just my head.

Today, my DAC was modified/upgraded to a Wolfson WM8716 chip along with some opamp upgrades and new power source but I think the new Wolfson chip made the most difference and was just the last straw.

Lower bit rates sounds muddy and the highs sound harsh, the bass is more monotone and bloated and it's like there's a veil there throughout and doesnt' sound smooth. Of course, some files are better than others, and it's progressively better from 128 to flac.

But I started my music collection and audio equipment hobby like 6 years ago, then 128kbps was fine cos I had cheaper and more basic equipment early on, and so my music collection is a mix of bit rates from 128k to flac as it grew bit by bit through the years.

Anyone else annoyed when they found out they can definitely hear the difference and it's not just placebo?

You can see the equipment I now use in my sig. I also measure and EQ my sub's bass on my laptop. I suppose by this stage, i've hit the bottle neck in music file quality

 

[SR-71Panorama]

enjoy starting over from scratch.

 

[MrGreen]

take some double-blind tests for hydrogenaudio

 

[Al4x]

i dont eever want to notice!

i have a huge mp3 library and having a laptop more limited by space, cant be dealing with FLAC

 

[ronnielee54]

Quit trying to hear and just concentrate on the damn music. I think some people spend to much time trying to analyze their gear and don't listen to the music.

 

[necropimp]

when you know what to listen for you can pick out the lossy track almost 100% of the time

i'm only using lossy now because of HD space... eventually i'll stop talking about putting my music onto a dedicated external drive and actually do it then i'll move to monkey's audio with embedded cue sheets

 

[ronnielee54]

When you have used some of the crappy gear that I have used in my 55 years you learn to just enjoy the music. I guess the thing is I don't treat this as a hobby and don't consider myself an audiophile. I just like the tunes.

 

[Stoin]

Just wait until you move to 24-bit.

 

[ricksome]

I'll go with post # 7. Enjoy the music !!!

 

[iriverdude]

Del *.mp3 /s
Del *.aac /s
Del *.ogg /s

 

[limpidglitch]

Not annoyed. Still in blissful ignorance, and I intend to keep it that way.

 

[dan1son]

Wait I'm confused... you had 128kbps mp3 files? I'm so sorry....

 

[XxATOLxX]

You could always move up to Lame VBR MP3.

To be honest, I can't hear the difference between a VBR and a FLAC.

 

[vagarach]

I only notice the lower quality of <256kbps mp3s when I listen to lossless files, it's like a breath of fresh air! Tracks like Massive Attack's Angel really highlight the shortcomings of mp3, but like XxATOLxX mentioned, using VBR helps a whole lot.

That said, some of the iTunes 128kbps AAC files from the old days sound really good.

 

[FallenAngel]

You can definitely enjoy music at 128kbps and it can sound very good, but once you hear the same song in lossless, you'll realize you only heard half of the recording at 128kbps.