# Poll:  Audible Difference between FLAC and 320kbps MP3?



## El_Doug

I left this poll anonymous so that everyone with an ego will still (hopefully) poll honestly. I - and I'm sure the bulk of many of you - would love to get a feel for just how much of a difference FLAC makes to the bulk of digital listeners. 

 Piece of mind is, imho, definitely worth using FLAC; I couldnt stand to know that I was limiting anything in the audio chain, even though I know that I cant hear a difference 
	

	
	
		
		

		
			






 Please leave comments about your experiences! It'd be great to get some qualitative reasoning to back this poll


----------



## AtomikPi

I went for "can distinguish after much time." It was between that and "cannot tell a difference" and I went with the former because I can tell a difference a good percentage of the time, but I find it very difficult and my ears get tired after around five trials plus with some tracks I can't find any difference whatsoever. I think anyone saying noticeably better has never done any ABX tests for themselves because the differences are _very minor_. Of course I'm expecting plenty of posts saying "differences are obvious, you're deaf if you think 320 is good."


----------



## jawang

It completely depends on the song, as well as the quality of the encoding

 On fast songs with very high vocals and lots of instruments playing (the best example would be jpop songs) it is often extremely easy to tell, as there is a usually very noticable clipping on vocals. A popular example would be "float on" by modest mouse, if you listen to an mp3 recording (even if it is 320kbs) you will hear breakup in the singer's voice during the chorus, but it doesn't occur on my cd recording or on my .flac copy

 On most songs, I cannot tell a difference, or I need a LOT of careful listening to tell a difference. 

 On slow songs without many high notes, I usually can't tell a difference no matter how hard I try



 And btw, the main reason why I prefer .flac over mp3s is because it is a "safer" bet. Many many many "320 kb/s" mp3s have had terrible quality in my experience (worse than 320kb/s quality), especially those encoded with a VBR. FLAC files from reliable sources have never given me any trouble


----------



## krmathis

I most probably can not tell a difference most of the time.
 Of course depending on the source material and the MP3 encoder used.

 But for sake of mind I use lossless, to not need to worry about if I loose out of something or not.


----------



## leeperry

I like 128kbits, it makes the sound less agressive and much beytter to my ears


----------



## tendo

I can tell the difference about 50% of the time. It seems like it really depends on the type of music.


----------



## Meliboeus

I voted for the second option: 320k mp3 sound pretty good, on some tracks the difference is there after some ABing but on some others, i have to admit i am not able to tell them apart...especially with badly produced music.


----------



## smoth

After spending many hours ABX testing, I can only tell the difference on a very few recordings. As such, I stick with flac on my desktop, but have an mp3 library that I use for portable devices. After all, how often do you leave the house and go somewhere where it is quiet enough for you to be able to tell the difference.


----------



## Nerull

On my laptop, 320K is plenty...on my main computer rig, it's FLAC, as that computer has much more space. When I used my Rio Karma, I used 320K MP3 as I was unable to discern a difference between that and FLAC. It should also be noted that FLAC and other lossless codecs use much more battery (at least it did on my Rio Karma and iPod). MP3 is a much better solution for portables.

 On main computer rigs though, I don't see why FLAC wouldn't be the best choice (space is cheap these days). Plus it's a nice backup should something happen.

 ~Thomas


----------



## electropop

Depends on the source and components, but usually it's rather distinguishable. Noticeable in the transients (indeed muddy), higher noise floor, poorer dynamics. Sometimes the treble doesn't come out as smooth either..


----------



## Pio2001

Can't distinguish them 99% of the time. But I did succeed an ABX test with a killer sample. So 1% of the time, flac is better.

 At that bitrate, I think that internal clipping occurs more often than quality loss. Internal clipping is when the original is clipped (metal, pop...), and the encoder removes some of the harmonics of the square wave. It makes it oscillate (Gibbs effect), which introduces additionnal clipping, that was not there on the original.
 Setting the internal playback volume to -2 dB, or better, using Replaygain with clipping prevention, solves the problem.


----------



## Currawong

I'm with AtomikPi. I'll notice if I'm paying attention to the fine details, but I have the space for Apple Lossless, so it's easy just to use that universally.


----------



## El_Doug

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *Pio2001* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_At that bitrate, I think that internal clipping occurs more often than quality loss. Internal clipping is when the original is clipped (metal, pop...), and the encoder removes some of the harmonics of the square wave. It makes it oscillate (Gibbs effect), which introduces additionnal clipping, that was not there on the original.
 Setting the internal playback volume to -2 dB, or better, using Replaygain with clipping prevention, solves the problem._

 

that is fascinating! 

 i'll take care to remember this the next time i batch-encode some notoriously over-compressed albums


----------



## Sennshead

I don't know why it is, but I can tell a difference only when I am using VLC media player


----------



## dallan

A little to moderate difference going flac+a little-moderate difference using better interconnects+a little to moderate difference for headphone cables+a little to moderate difference selecting better tubes all equals a whole lot of difference in your system.....out of all of those things, flac files are by far the cheapest.


----------



## avalanche

I can't tell the difference. 

 Though as a caveat, I have only listened to FLAC and 320kpbs out of my laptop out and UE super.fi 5. So I strongly suspect that if I improve the setup, I should be able to tell the difference.


----------



## Beyerfan70

Personally i can always tell the difference between flac and 320 mp3.
 For me there is always miles more detail,clarity and space with flac,no matter whether it's the best or the worst recording flac always sounds better.


----------



## mark2410

can i tell when something not flac? yes but sometimes im really not sure so id have to say 320 is going to be good enough but if i knew for a fact something was in 320 and not flac id just start listening for defects


----------



## Berlioz

I went with "I can distinguish a FLAC file as superior, after much time spent A/B-ing"

 Certainly for classical music, I can distinguish the two relatively easily. Having done an extensive DBT, I can say that it's very very hard, but the differences are there. My amp is almost here, and once it arrives I'm sure that the differences will be more evident.

 Having an extremely clean system is necessary in order to distinguish FLAC from 320kbps.


----------



## krmathis

The different MP3 encoders to not perform equally, so the result (transparent or not) may vary depending on the encoder used.
 Worth making notice of for those performing listening tests...


----------



## haloxt

To me LAME mp3 sounds better than ogg (aotuv b5 version as well) in 250kb vbr and higher. There's more fullness in the ogg format but it seems artificially done, I prefer how LAME seems to degrade mainly drums but retains microdetails.


----------



## salannelson

I can only tell 128/192kbps vs flac.


----------



## Berlioz

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *haloxt* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_To me LAME mp3 sounds better than ogg (aotuv b5 version as well) in 250kb vbr and higher. There's more fullness in the ogg format but it seems artificially done, I prefer how LAME seems to degrade mainly drums but retains microdetails._

 

I agree, LAME is the best mp3 encoder in my experience. It's basically impossible to differentiate the two unless you are into high level gear.


----------



## brotherlen

On my computer, I ripped my mp3 files (320 cbr) from my FLAC files. When played through Foobar, the mp3 files sound a bit flat, almost muffled slightly. I converted some FLAC to ALAC, and both sound flat via iTunes. I think it could be the player and encoding. Maybe it's a placebo?


----------



## haloxt

Banned head-fier tangerine said the same thing about alac vs. wav on his ipod. There might be differences in which format takes more cpu and which takes more hard drive spinning, but who knows if that could alter the sound. Many people on head-fi believe there's an audible difference in ASIO software, maybe what causes the difference between alac and wave is the same. Or all of it could be placebo 
	

	
	
		
		

		
			





. I don't really feel motivated to try to find out if wav sounds better than flac since space is important to me atm, maybe when they have 500gb mp3 players for $300.


----------



## Berlioz

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *brotherlen* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_On my computer, I ripped my mp3 files (320 cbr) from my FLAC files. When played through Foobar, the mp3 files sound a bit flat, almost muffled slightly. I converted some FLAC to ALAC, and both sound flat via iTunes. I think it could be the player and encoding. Maybe it's a placebo?_

 

I think that's due to the player. iTunes has always sounded inferior for me when compared to Foobar. It's a shame; I love the GUI and other features, but SQ wise it's no good. Now I use it only to sample music I'm interested in purchasing, through the iTunes store.


----------



## dallan

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *Berlioz* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_I think that's due to the player. iTunes has always sounded inferior for me when compared to Foobar. It's a shame; I love the GUI and other features, but SQ wise it's no good. Now I use it only to sample music I'm interested in purchasing, through the iTunes store._

 

I agree, Foobar is way superior to itunes in SQ and I am not a long time user of Foobar. Before I got this mac, I did tons of A/B with the two and Monkey Media and Foobar was outstanding in comparison. I did then add the asio which even helped more.

 Now with this mac I don't know what to do. I tried COG to play flac files and it worked at first but then lost all the files and wouldn't except new ones into the player, so I never got to do any a/b tests. The only other thing I have seen for mac that i am aware of is Amarra which when i checked was a $1400. piece of software.....I heard it has come down to about $1000 but still.


----------



## dallan

Actually after this post I saw the Amarra which is $1499. but they do have Amarra mini, which i requested the demo for to check out..hopefully will still have it when the DLlll arrives.


----------



## kchui999

Is flac really worth all the extra space it takes up on a HDD? I find it impossible to tell the difference between flac and 320, and with my music library containing about 10,000 songs all in V0 or 320, it just doesnt seem worthwhile to use so much HD space by storing flac.


----------



## Berlioz

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *kchui999* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Is flac really worth all the extra space it takes up on a HDD? I find it impossible to tell the difference between flac and 320, and with my music library containing about 10,000 songs all in V0 or 320, it just doesnt seem worthwhile to use so much HD space by storing flac._

 

It depends on the quality of your system. You need extremely clean source components and amplification, coupled with precise monitoring, in order to discern a real difference.

 It also depends on the music that you listen to. If it's mostly pop or rap, then going FLAC is arguably a waste of time. Most songs from those genres contain many compressed sounds, and the tracks themselves have their compression increased during mastering.

 If you listen to classical or jazz though, then it may be worth thinking about should you plan to upgrade your system in the future.

 In my own opinion, I think FLAC for portable setups is unnecessary, although I'll probably keep all of my songs in FLAC anyways. I'm yet to hear the JH13's, so I may change my mind about portable setups when I pick up a pair.


----------



## krmathis

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *kchui999* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Is flac really worth all the extra space it takes up on a HDD? I find it impossible to tell the difference between flac and 320, and with my music library containing about 10,000 songs all in V0 or 320, it just doesnt seem worthwhile to use so much HD space by storing flac._

 

It depends.
 * Sake of mind -> Rip to FLAC and you will never need to worry if you miss out of something.
 * Audible difference or not -> You find it impossible, but I doubt you have ABX tested all your music.
 * Storage capacity -> Short on storage space or a lot left.


----------



## Pio2001

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *Berlioz* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_It depends on the quality of your system. You need extremely clean source components and amplification, coupled with precise monitoring, in order to discern a real difference._

 

You're rather an exception here. Usually, mp3 artifacts are so different from hardware distorsion that even high-bitrate, subtle artifacts are audible on cheap, low quality systems. Sometimes, low quality systems may even increase the audibility of the difference, because a good quality system with a flat frequency response allows the psychoacoustic model of the encoder to work in optimal conditions. If the sound reproduction system has peaks in the frequency response, it may reveal noise that would otherwise be masked. 

  Quote:


  Originally Posted by *krmathis* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_* Storage capacity -> Short on storage space or a lot left._

 

Add also
 *Backup speed -> how many hours does it take to backup your music library, and how often do you backup it ?


----------



## Justin Uthadude

Am I crazy? I have some 192k mp3's from cd's that sound better to me than some of my .wav files from other cd's. I'm coming to the conclusion that there's a lot more quality differences in recording quality than I thought.


----------



## leeperry

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *Justin Uthadude* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_I have some 192k mp3's from cd's that sound better to me than some of my .wav files from other cd's. I'm coming to the conclusion that there's a lot more quality differences in recording quality than I thought._

 

well I've had the problem recently, the newest CD from Lee Fields is awfully clipped 
	

	
	
		
		

		
			





 if you watch the waveforms in an audio editor, there's no dynamics whatsoever! it's clipped to death 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




 I've b*tched at the label boss, he told me to buy the vynil if I don't like the CD mastering...unfreaking-believable 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




 then I've found 192 kbits MP3's on the web(legal!) and they sound perfect, no clipping whatsoever...so yeah, depending on the mastering engineer retardness mp3 can sound better than original CD's 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




 in my case, there is no chance whatsoever to get this album in unmastered lossless form(even though I paid for it!)...so mp3 is my only option. it's the same w/ the Portishead NYC live, you can find bootlegs that are far less "loud" than the retail version.

 and then they complain about piracy


----------



## krmathis

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *Justin Uthadude* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Am I crazy? I have some 192k mp3's from cd's that sound better to me than some of my .wav files from other cd's. I'm coming to the conclusion that there's a lot more quality differences in recording quality than I thought._

 

Not crazy at all!
 I find some 96kbps MP3 files to have higher sound quality than some lossless files. Major variances in recording/mastering quality, sadly!


----------



## haloxt

If you prefer lower bitrates of the same file, I think you'd like ogg format even more than mp3. It sounds more cleaned up (flaws AND microdetails) which may suit some people.


----------



## Justin Uthadude

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *haloxt* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_If you prefer lower bitrates of the same file, I think you'd like ogg format even more than mp3. It sounds more cleaned up (flaws AND microdetails) which may suit some people._

 

Curious you say that. When I synch to my portable, I have it auto convert all the flacs to -q7 ogg. Sounds great.


----------



## krmathis

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *haloxt* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_If you prefer lower bitrates of the same file, I think you'd like ogg format even more than mp3. It sounds more cleaned up (flaws AND microdetails) which may suit some people._

 

Nitpicking, but you probably mean Vorbis. 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	



 Vorbis is the audio codec, while Ogg is the container.


----------



## Berlioz

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *Pio2001* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_You're rather an exception here. Usually, mp3 artifacts are so different from hardware distorsion that even high-bitrate, subtle artifacts are audible on cheap, low quality systems. Sometimes, low quality systems may even increase the audibility of the difference, because a good quality system with a flat frequency response allows the psychoacoustic model of the encoder to work in optimal conditions. If the sound reproduction system has peaks in the frequency response, it may reveal noise that would otherwise be masked. _

 

Thanks for correcting me. That's certainly a possibility that I've never considered.

 While I know that a poorly mastered track will sound terrible when heard through accurate monitors, I never really thought that a highly compressed track would sound _better_ on a cheaper setup. Now, I think that there would be different types of errors, some being more exposed, others more hidden, which is basically what you're getting at anyways.


----------



## Young Spade

It depends on the song, encoding, previous (if any) encodings of the same file, the equipment used and the person listening.

 But yea on my portable setup (not too great but I love it) of a 1G Touch -> Copper/gold lod -> iBasso T4 -> PFE 112s, I can hear the difference. I used a 320 mp3 and ALAC file in my quick comparison though.

 They are subtle but I can hear them. (The song was an acoustic piece BTW)


----------



## Real Man of Genius

Amazing how the differences that people hear evaporate once they don't know which format/bitrate they are listening too.
 For the vast majority anyway.


----------



## Satellite_6

"I can distinguish a FLAC file as superior, after much time spent A/B-ing"

 Done with a craptacular standard sound card and fairly good headphones. I'm sure it wouldn't be too hard with a good computer set up. 

 All the ABX's I've ever done have been w/ classical or electronic music oddly enough. I think Vorbis handles classical better than mp3 somehow.


----------



## Vandal

Nearly everyone has said this but it depends on the music. Also some FLAC music I got from a friend has slight noise like a background hiss. I have MP3s encoded to 320 kbps that sound better than these FLACs


----------



## leeperry

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *Vandal* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_some FLAC music I got from a friend has slight noise like a background hiss. I have MP3s encoded to 320 kbps that sound better than these FLACs_

 

if you compress some noisy bootleg to FLAC, against an MP3 from a clean source...the MP3 file will sound better, but in no way it means that MP3 is superior to FLAC. 

 just wanna clear things out to avoid confusion, as I've read several times on newbies blogs that 128kbits sounds "better" than 320...as it filters things out 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




Do 320kbps mp3 files really sound better? Take the test! | NoiseAddicts music and audio blog

 the comments are pretty scary


----------



## Vandal

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *leeperry* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_if you compress some noisy bootleg to FLAC, against an MP3 from a clean source...the MP3 file will sound better, but in no way it means that MP3 is superior to FLAC. 

 just wanna clear things out to avoid confusion, as I've read several times on newbies blogs that 128kbits sounds "better" than 320...as it filters things out 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




Do 320kbps mp3 files really sound better? Take the test! | NoiseAddicts music and audio blog

 the comments are pretty scary 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	


_

 

Lol. I'm not exactly a newbie and even my cheaper speaker rig can tell the difference between 128, 192 and 320 kbps. But yeah, I know one person who bought an HD 650 and hasn't amped it because he only uses 128 kbps MP3


----------



## leeperry

hah, I can't stand MP3's...but 128kbit takes the crowd! oh yeah, it filters things out ok 
	

	
	
		
		

		
			





 I like how record companies make mp3 previews in 32kbit, just to be damn sure that noone enjoys it: Kung Fu Super Sounds (CD) Kung Fu Super Sounds [DWCR 002] - £11.99 : De Wolfe Shop, The Place to Buy A Selection of Music from De Wolfe Music


----------



## eduj

On my system with iMac/iTunes ALAC (not Flac,i don't use Flac) always sound better than 320kbit Lame MP3s


----------



## GreatDane

I can distinguish a FLAC file as superior, after much time spent A/B-ing.

 Sometimes not so much time.


----------



## John64

My reasoning is basically that I own the CD, hard drives are cheap why wouldn't I use flacs. For travel I do keep a VBR256 AAC copy of my music on my Ipod. I keep meaning to redo it with lame one of these days.


----------



## atothex

I only tried once, when my equipment was worse, and I had a very difficult time.


----------



## xnor

First of all I want to say: great topic/poll.

 It's my considered opinion that for the majority of songs it's impossible to tell a difference between flac and 320 kbps MP3.
 Some listening tests (e.g. on hydrogenaudio) have shown that 192 kbps VBR MP3 can give the listener a completely transparent audio experience for most of the songs tested.

 I use flac for archiving and ~250 kbps VBR MP3s (lame encoder quality V2) for my portable player, MP3 CDs ...


----------



## roker

I keep most of my most precious songs in Lossless, such as songs I use for critical listening, favorite songs (or most played), and favorite artists. While I've started downgrading the rest of my lossless files to 320 as I don't see the point in having lossless files of music I don't care about.


----------



## rhythmdevils

if it's so subtle that you have to sit and A/B and try to find a difference, then it doesn't matter at all! 

 I use losless just for peace of mind cause I might as well, I can burn a cd, and re-import it as many times as i want. But I don't feel bad about anything over 200


----------



## koven

320 and flac sound the same to me... <192 is a different story tho


----------



## Chef

Depends on the set-up, and the song. Obviously if there is a weaker link than the source, you will not be able to tell. Obviously if the song is very simple, you will not be able to tell.

 Often classical music bit rates do not go that much higher than 360 anyway, even when in flac. But there is a lot of music which goes up to 1200. It's up to your equipment whether it can make use of the extra 900 kb/s, or if it just gets lost in translation.


----------



## thoppa

I did quite a bit of AB testing several years ago and found that I could hear the differences between lossless/WAV and most types of compressed music with compression of more than about 4 to 1. Above that, for me, it very much depends on genre and the original recording. I very often can't tell for files better than 4 to 1 but that's the genre/recording more than the file format I think. Anyway, once my ear got used to hearing the differences, I couldn't live with them. I have a few 96/24 files recorded from DVD-A and re-sampled from DSD SACD. The jump up from 44/16 is there but again, very much depends on the recording and genre. I wish there were more SACD recordings out there. My other big wish is for a 500Gb memory card in my phone. Does Santa read this forum ?


----------



## charlie0904

depending on the music complexity. 

 i don't think one can differentiate a pin drop audio flac and a 320kbps one.


----------



## vhbaske

To me FLAC sounds with less volume than the original SACDs when I rip the SACD to FLAC (I have compared these a/b) . Flac files tend to have more spatial sound than other files. Also, the clarity of instruments and voice is much real. However, I have heard some very good MP3 files at 128K that sounds awesome, if they were originally recorded with quality. I think that it is very difficult to identify FLAC, MP3, OGG, or Monkeys or Hippos if they have quality.
 I get very confused when trying to explain this, many of you know...


----------



## northmotion

I cant seem to get rid of the distortion in the little bell sounds and bass in radiohead's 'Kid A' unless its in flac. even when its ripped in 1411kbps. maybe its just me.


----------



## Antony6555

With electronic music, it is difficult (sometimes impossible) to tell. With acoustic music, it is more obvious (I notice it most with classical)


----------



## Mr. B

I can almost never tell the difference, but my gear isn't anything to write home about and I haven't spent any significant amount of time trying. I am in the process of shifting my collection to FLAC however. I have the disk space and someday I'll have a system able to make full use of lossless audio.


----------



## iriverdude

I typed 

 DEL *.mp3 /s

 in my music server directory. Got sick of mp3 sound quality, for poor quality albums can't notice too much but still thin sounding, like listening to PC speakers. For quality albums it's pretty obvious.


----------



## lost_in_dreams

i can hear the difference but it takes effort..good quesion and poll.
 if the poll had asked i dont hear a difference 100 percent of the time..then it would have a different result..then then that would be a different poll


----------



## Prog Rock Man

I am in the majority who cannot tell the difference 99% of the time. But 99% odf the time I am not listening to my music with a view of trying to hear a difference. Sometimes I will change to an album on itunes that sounds flat and it will be one that is a lower bit rate download. 

 The main reason why I am not so fussed about bit rates and think that it not a major issue is because of Spotify. I have the premium service so I get it at 320 instead of 160kbps. Spotify uses Ogg Vorbis. More importantly I prefer the Spotify to itunes lossless. It has more weight and dynamic.

 So many replies have rightly said that kit plays an important part. I would add the codec used is also important.


----------



## slytown

I prefer the sound of FLAC, but I like how easy the distribution is with MP3. I listen to a lot of unknowns who can't get major label deals. MP3 is pretty much all they have.


----------



## JimVincible

The vast majority of my music is .mp3 
 I did a double-blind test between 320kbps .mp3 and .alac for Oasis' "Wonderwall" and failed miserably. After many attempts, I could not discern any difference whatsoever. Obviously, the original recording quality has a major impact.

 Red Hot Chilli Peppers' "Californication" album (their best one, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise) was mastered at absolutely terrible quality. It clips so badly that I can't even listen to it on my headphones. Lossless only accentuates this problem. I _wish_ I could find a remastered version of that album...


----------



## hortoholic

I probably cannot. Although it makes me feel good that everything is in lossless and a great pair of cains gives it soo much depth. Although I have heard bad Cd's by the way they were mastered.


----------



## Jupiterknight

On my desktop rig and home audio I can hear a difference in maybe one out of ten songs, probably depends on the level of the production and compression. On my portable players I can't hit the same 1/10 rate except that some of flac files are more consistent in sq than the mp3 format.
 I think that most portable players has a chipset and software meant to convert flac or decent ripped mp3 files the same sonic way. But again it doesn't nessarily happens..


----------



## Sabin0786

Can't tell the difference at all here


----------



## Prog Rock Man

Here is an interesting article about the 'difference' in bit rates and SQ.

AVI Hi-Fi - a passion for sound engineering

 This quote caught my interest 'Audiophiles who talk of how awful compressed music is, are listening with their eyes. They couldn’t differentiate a 320kbps AAC file from a CD in a blind listening test to save their lives. And if they can hear 256kbps, they’re straining to hear artifacts, playing the most vulnerable passages over and over to identify problems when they should be listening to music.'


----------



## haloxt

Very funny website, alienate people who like cd quality and vinyl while trying to sell speakers.


----------



## chinesekiwi

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *JimVincible* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Red Hot Chilli Peppers' "Californication" album (their best one, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise) was mastered at absolutely terrible quality. It clips so badly that I can't even listen to it on my headphones. Lossless only accentuates this problem. I wish I could find a remastered version of that album..._

 

You can eliminate the clipping via Replay Gain but you cannot restore the compressed or lost dynamics of the recording.


----------



## 120717

I actually tried a/bing a muse album flac vs 320 on my (oh no he didn't) stock buds.
 There was a difference.
 Nuff said.


----------



## Modifiedz

Sound quality is obvious on my Logitech Z-5500 Surround, and any pair of phones. Quality always goes first for me. I would rather have 100 of my favorite songs in Lossless directly off a CD than 500 of my favorite in MP3 (or AAC) @ 320kb, (if I had to choose). The crispness of the Highs, and Tight Bass just isnt there for me on MP3's.


----------



## Prog Rock Man

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *haloxt* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Very funny website, alienate people who like cd quality and vinyl while trying to sell speakers._

 

The owner of AVI is a very opinionated man, who alienated a lot of people on the What Hifi forum by his holier than though attitude.


----------



## Bojamijams

I voted, but the problem with a question like this, is that its source dependant.. if you have a mid-fi source system you cannot hear a difference.. even if you have a hi-fi source.. or amp.. or headphone.. or ICs... you might not be able to hear a difference unless ALL those components are hi-fi.. if you have even one weak link in the chain, it ruins everything downstream and you might not tell a difference

 But.. there is one.. trust me on that.. I've heard it.. but with only the essence stx as my source right now (and its IC amp) I cannot tell a difference.. with a REF-1 DAC and Phoenix amp with balanced HD650's.. there is a difference.


----------



## El_Doug

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *Detrex* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Would a HiFiMAN feeding via line out a Lisa III which in return is feeding a pair of JH13 Pro's or Shure SE530's lead me to hear the differences easily?_

 

it would indeed be a very very very revealing system 
	

	
	
		
		

		
			





 it will not guarantee that you can hear a difference, but it will provide you with the best chance of hearing a difference


----------



## Shike

For me it very much depends on what I'm listening to. There's some 128cbr samples that sound fine. Other times 320cbr isn't enough. Generally speaking if 320cbr is going to cut it, 192vbr seems to work just as well (I'm quite insulted by the fourth option's bias).


----------



## smurfz

So far, I'm having trouble telling which is better. Sometimes, I hear a difference, but I can't say which is better in AB tests. As someone said earlier, more I repeat the test, more tired my ears get, and harder it gets!

 I've been searching through my CD collections (usually Classical,Jazz,Vocal,Rock), and buying more CDs in search for ones that I can tell the difference.

 Do people actually have some examples of the songs that they preferred FLAC over 320kbps mp3 in an AB test?


----------



## haloxt

I think songs with long decay and lots of different sounds, but songs you can listen to for hours on repeat so you don't get fatigued. If you really want to hear a difference, I'm sure some people could recommend some headphones they think will make 320 sound like a thorn in your side.


----------



## jjinh

Can't hear any difference on my setup


----------



## TheOtus

Tested once, and failed to tell which is which... The difference really is very slight. Much is up to the system also though, was using portaPro from the hp-out of my PC´s crappy sound card. This really doesn´t stop me from buying CD´s though. xD And if we go to lower bitrates, the difference quickly starts to show. Most of the time 192 - 256 kbps is enough, but has clearly space for improvement.


----------



## Sorry About Your Wallet

I have tried to listen to both 320 and flac/alac, i honestly just think its a psychological thing where your mind just tells you flac is better. So pretty much, even if you cant hear the difference, i just use flac just for the "piece of mind."


----------



## Happy Camper

Yes but not worthy of re-ripping a catalog. At 50+, you accept compromised senses and are less obsessed with perfection.


----------



## krmathis

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *Sorry About Your Wallet* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_I have tried to listen to both 320 and flac/alac, i honestly just think its a psychological thing where your mind just tells you flac is better._

 

That is where an ABX test can come handy, eliminating the part where you know what you are listening to and have corresponding expectations.


----------



## TheOtus

Well it´s easy to test on PC really... Two identically named files, exact same length. Then random the playlist.


----------



## smurfz

I've been buying more CDs, doing more tests and research, but without much luck. However, I was able to find some thoughts on this topic in various places. Of course, I can't verify whether they are true or not, since I haven't found a sample that I've persistently selected lossless over 320kbps MP3, but here they are:

 - I may have more chance of hearing the difference with excellent classical recordings. That may be because orchestra music generally covers a large dynamic range. Not that I've been able to find a paper on what is the dynamic range of 320kbps MP3 what will the compression do with signals that have a information at every level.

 - Re-sampling, and the quality of resampling sw/hw. So I'm making sure that my MAC outputs in the same sampling rate as the source. But of course, everything I have are 44.1 khz.

 - SACD (96khz 24bit)version (direct DSD mixdown) may sound better than CD (resampled to 44.1/16). But of course, I don't have a SACD. But thanks to some of the thing's that I've read, I now have some uncertainty about this as well.

 Sciences/technicalities aside, I'm still looking for someone to tell me: Here is a CD/Track/Time that you should test. Or maybe even post a 30second flac sample. Who knows may ears may not even be able to hear the difference while others can.


----------



## astroid

I would bet my house that no one here could differentiate between 320 mp3 and flac on a random selection of tracks.
 Its easy to say "i can hear a difference" , its only when you attempt to prove it that suddenly it sounds the same.


----------



## TheOtus

Most likely so... Making difference takes a lot of listening and is harder on some tracks of course.


----------



## mgrewe

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *TheOtus* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Well it´s easy to test on PC really... Two identically named files, exact same length. Then random the playlist._

 

You can even do 3 files. One FLAC, one 320, and one 128. When I ran this test, I used AIFF, 256 VBR, and 128 on a mid-fi set up and on a well recorded track I instantly could tell 128. 256 VBR was a little bit tougher, but could distinguish between the two 96% of the time. Knowing what to look for makes a big difference.


----------



## charlie0904

guys, so how about the losseless 16bit/44.1khz and 24bit/96khz or 192khz?

 is there significant difference?


----------



## smurfz

Apparently the dynamic range capable within 16/44.1 is enough for our audible range. But, who knows without hearing for yourself?

 I've downloaded some free samples of 24/96 FLAC and 24/192 DXD WAV files (need to figure out how to play this monster). When I get some time, I'm planning on testing this out as well. I will downsample 24/96 to 16/44.1, play that on a Lenovo via optical out, 24/96 will be played from my MACBOOK (USB). May be even switch them around as well. That way, I should be able to do a proper AB test.

 Will report back to this thread with my findings along with 320kbps mp3 vs FLAC test.

  Quote:


  Originally Posted by *charlie0904* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_guys, so how about the losseless 16bit/44.1khz and 24bit/96khz or 192khz?

 is there significant difference?_


----------



## MD1032

I don't think you'll hear the difference. 22 khz. is more than most peoples' hearing range anyway, and I doubt the waveform shape will make a difference at that frequency.


----------



## Charles_1985

I have been doing a lot of listening with 320Kbps MP3s vs directly from CD/FLAC. My MP3 encoding process goes like this: EAC (properly set up) import CD to .WAV > LAME 3.97/98

 I cannot tell a difference. I genuinely tried but no dice. I listen to trance/electronica and have a lot of well mastered CDs but not once could I tell which was the CD and which was MP3. I found I was not enjoying the music while listening that closely.

 If I would have been able to I would be re-ripping all my CDs right now lol.


----------



## plaidplatypus

There are small differences but not enough to worry about unless you are archiving. What really gets me though, is that I can hear tiny differences between .wav and lossless; totally illogical but my obervations were confirmed by a mafia member.


----------



## Aynjell

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *jawang* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_A popular example would be "float on" by modest mouse, if you listen to an mp3 recording (even if it is 320kbs) you will hear breakup in the singer's voice during the chorus, but it doesn't occur on my cd recording or on my .flac copy_

 

I'll try this test tonite.

 I am not sure if I can hear the difference in question but I will look into it, I may not be able to come to a conclusion tonite, my senses are dimmed as I have a cold.

 That being said, I have heard a difference when playing music through foobar upsampled to 96khz or 192khz from CD quality files. It wasn't good.

 Also, I could hear a difference between WMP and foobar. Not sure how to describe it, but the difference was worth my suffering through foobar's terrible ui (no offense, but I hate it).

 Rhythmbox just trumps everything, though.


----------



## CodeToad

Music sounds more "realistic" with flac. Spatial cues, slight reverberations etc all add up. Do you really think dropping 2/3 of the info is unnoticeable?

 One thing I have noticed is that mp3's distort MORE on lesser equipment and thus artifacts are MORE noticeable. Actually with better equipment it seems more forgiving but clearly there is a difference.


----------



## Ko Nectic Jazz

I hear the difference between mp3 and lossless for sure, especially because I listen to this kind of music... 

L-NE

 And as I listen to this outdoor and in subway, I only can use closed circum cans.


----------



## swbf2cheater

It really depends on how the song was made in the studio. Some songs just sound awesome regardless of which you use, some don't. IMO nothing beats lossless WMA :\
 Why bother use flac at all? Idk really. Im too lazy to find a freeware and actually use it to rip or convert my music to FLAC. Im just fine with lossless or the highest quality WMA I can get.


----------



## Aynjell

I had to relocate my attempt to differentiate to probably tomorrow or Saturday. I've had a fierce cold.


----------



## complin

For me FLAC wins hands down everytime for serious listening. MP3 is fine for casual listening where you are not concentrating that much on the music say on the train, in the car or office.
 For me MP3 sounds very compressed and lacks real dymnamics. Also much of the subtle detail is lost, presumably thrown away in the in the conversion.
 The attached link takes you to an objective comparison in Stereophile of the different digital formats, and this illustrates why the formats sound different. 
Stereophile: MP3 vs AAC vs FLAC vs CD


----------



## stang

I voted "I cannot tell a difference 99% of the time". Yes, see my sig 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




 Even though I have "good" equipment (portably wise), I still cannot tell a difference 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




 I still use .wav on my main rig (home rig) just for peace of mind im getting the best quality possible for what equipment I have. FLAC I never use because there is almost no support for it (especially on my iPod and Walkman AFAIK).


----------



## Patrick82

In my system WAV vs FLAC is a bigger difference than FLAC vs 320 mp3 because WAV takes 0% CPU power while both FLAC and mp3 take 1%. My trance music doesn't have much high frequency information, I like to listen to the midrange resolution the most.


----------



## haloxt

Well now I've seen 2-3 people say there is a difference between uncompressed and compressed lossless 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




. If you are interested, there's a free software called cmp and cplay (csic memory player and cisc ASIO player) that tries to increase efficiency of computer audio playback, reducing cpu usage, storing music in RAM to deal with hard drive I/O interference, replacing explorer.exe with another shell with much less overhead, etc. You have to use them together to get the most out of it, or reconfigure cmp to work with another ASIO media player such as winamp, foobar, or media monkey. Many people using cmp+cplay have used it with emu cards.

 main site: cMP² | Main / HomePage
 to use cmp with other player: cMP² | CMP / 11CMPShell
 cue creator (necessary for accessing music with cmp+cplay): cMP² | CPlay / CueSheets

 It's a real pain in the arse to set the software up, but if you need any help getting cmp+cplay to work or setting it up to work with foobar or winamp etc let me know I can guide you through it. If you want to do the BIOS tweaks it mentions you're on your own 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




.


----------



## krmathis

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *Patrick82* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_In my system WAV vs FLAC is a bigger difference than FLAC vs 320 mp3 because WAV takes 0% CPU power while both FLAC and mp3 take 1%. My trance music doesn't have much high frequency information, I like to listen to the midrange resolution the most._

 

So the consumed cpu power is more important than the data bits it decode?


----------



## anetode

The USB version of the new Beatles box set includes both 24bit/44.1khz flac & 320kbps lame 3.98 cbr. So, while going through and re-tagging the mp3 files, I was listening to their flac counterparts. Throughout Revolver I was hearing details I've never noticed, even recording errors. Wow, I thought, the new mixes really do take advantage of the expanded dynamic range. After Revolver I was about to put the next album on when I noticed that I had accidentally queued up the mp3 version instead of the flac one.

 So, yes, I've been able to hear small differences, mainly vocal distortion, between lossless and mp3, but even in serious listening I wasn't able to tell the difference with the Beatles. Although these are forty-year-old recordings originally mixed in mono with "kid at the candy store"-style gusto and limited dynamic range.


----------



## Patrick82

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *krmathis* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_So the consumed cpu power is more important than the data bits it decode? 
	

	
	
		
		

		
			



_

 

Yes, FLAC playback or upsampling makes it worse. This is the reason why my dCS Elgar Plus DAC and dCS Verdi Encore sounded so bad. It's because they upsample to 2.8224Mhz. The upsampling itself makes it crazy silky smooth but it adds edginess/harshness on top of the signal because of extra wattage = more AC noise. I could not fix this problem in any way. I found that using EMU0404 USB with an undervolted Asrock 330 nettop gave purer and better sound. However, the EMU isn't shielded (plastic case) nor grounded and it's very light and sensitive to vibrations, so I need to use tweaks to compensate for those flaws. I use RGC-24 Ground Conditioners, Magix levitation feet and power conditioning. Overall it's better than dCS and cheaper as well.


----------



## leeperry

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *Patrick82* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_I found that using EMU0404 USB with an undervolted Asrock 330 nettop gave purer and better sound. However, the EMU isn't shielded (plastic case) nor grounded and it's very light and sensitive to vibrations, so I need to use tweaks to compensate for those flaws. I use RGC-24 Ground Conditioners, Magix levitation feet and power conditioning. Overall it's better than dCS and cheaper as well._

 

wow, great advices here! thanks Patrick


----------



## eruditass

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *jawang* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_It completely depends on the song, as well as the quality of the encoding

 On fast songs with very high vocals and lots of instruments playing (the best example would be jpop songs) it is often extremely easy to tell, as there is a usually very noticable clipping on vocals. A popular example would be "float on" by modest mouse, if you listen to an mp3 recording (even if it is 320kbs) you will hear breakup in the singer's voice during the chorus, but it doesn't occur on my cd recording or on my .flac copy

 And btw, the main reason why I prefer .flac over mp3s is because it is a "safer" bet. Many many many "320 kb/s" mp3s have had terrible quality in my experience (worse than 320kb/s quality), especially those encoded with a VBR. FLAC files from reliable sources have never given me any trouble_

 

I'm curious as to the clipping occurs when you run the files through MP3GAIN. Usually when it runs out of bits it doesn't clip (typical manual clipping actually requires more high frequency components and bits.) but rather removing the high frequency overtones and components

 And yeah, if you get a bad encoder, 320 Kbps can be notably worse! This is why I tend to go with VBR as it is usually a good LAME encode. Do you know which encoder gave you terrible quality with VBR (you can find a program that reads that info if it was saved)


----------



## Patrick82

I forgot ERS Paper! But with ERS Paper the improvements become bigger the more you wrap in your system. If you wrap only the EMU the improvement will be subtle (I just tried it). But if you have already wrapped everything else, the improvement will be huge. It's the same thing with Magix, the last component you levitate will give the biggest improvement because it was a bottleneck. I have done this experiment many times, it's always the last thing you tweak which gives the craziest improvement. With Magix and ERS Paper, it's everything or nothing. I used 100+ sheets of ERS Paper to cover everything.


----------



## DanD

For me it's between I can't tell the difference and FLAC sounded superior. It's all down to the encoder and the type of music IMO. There is type of music that the encoder just suck at even at 320kbps, eg the classical genre. If the enconder did it's job properly I can't tell the difference, if it didn't I ussually can tell straight away once I listen to the original.

 That's just the problem with lossy compression, sometimes it worked, sometimes it doesn't. Lossy video compression is the same.


----------



## donovansmith

I find well encoded MP3s and AAC files to be quite difficult to distinguish from the uncompressed or lossless compressed source. AAC in general seems to be more transparent than MP3 in general, especially given that pre-echo is less of an issue with AAC. The LAME project has done an excellent job trying to tackle MP3's issues though and made it a quite close competitor to AAC. For me, 256Kbps AAC is more than good enough and I think it'd still be just fine even if I had audio equipment that was much higher-end than what I have now.


----------



## donovansmith

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *anetode* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_The USB version of the new Beatles box set includes both 24bit/44.1khz flac & 320kbps lame 3.98 cbr. So, while going through and re-tagging the mp3 files, I was listening to their flac counterparts. Throughout Revolver I was hearing details I've never noticed, even recording errors. Wow, I thought, the new mixes really do take advantage of the expanded dynamic range. After Revolver I was about to put the next album on when I noticed that I had accidentally queued up the mp3 version instead of the flac one.

 So, yes, I've been able to hear small differences, mainly vocal distortion, between lossless and mp3, but even in serious listening I wasn't able to tell the difference with the Beatles. Although these are forty-year-old recordings originally mixed in mono with "kid at the candy store"-style gusto and limited dynamic range._

 

I noticed that you noted that the FLACs were 24-bit. That's a significantly higher resolution than MP3, which is supposed to have a dynamic range and resolution equivalent to 16-bits. I'd be curious as to the results if you converted the FLACs into 16-bit files and compared again. I imagine the 16-bit versions would be much closer to the MP3s, if not indistinguishable.


----------



## leeperry

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *Patrick82* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_I forgot ERS Paper!_

 

riiight


----------



## Patrick82

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *leeperry* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_riiight 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	


_

 

ERS Paper is the best value in audio, I made a new thread: http://www.head-fi.org/forums/f21/my...videos-460403/


----------



## tmars78

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *swbf2cheater* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_It really depends on how the song was made in the studio. Some songs just sound awesome regardless of which you use, some don't. IMO nothing beats lossless WMA :\
 Why bother use flac at all? Idk really. Im too lazy to find a freeware and actually use it to rip or convert my music to FLAC. Im just fine with lossless or the highest quality WMA I can get._

 

I am in the same boat as you. Maybe we're the same people. I use WMA lossless, and I cannot hear a difference between that and listening to the cd. I have plenty of hdd space, so how large the files are really isn't a problem. 

 And I did that test on that one link where they asked to tell the difference between 320 and 128 and I got it right. I do not have the best setup, but I easily could tell the difference.


----------



## Stoin

I cannot tell a difference 99% of the time.

 That's because there isn't too much of a difference between them for a lot of music, and much of the time I'm not listening that closely. However it's that 1% that means I keep all my music lossless.

 A difference I notice a lot more easily is CD to High-res. Those 24-bit 96kHz/192kHz files instantly sound better with certain recordings (Neil Young live, acoustic recordings; well recorded classical...)


----------



## EddieE

I've only ever done a close comparison with WAV and LAME VBR MP3, and I really couldn't tell the difference. Maybe my ears aren't as good as some others here.

 I'd been listening to an album quite regularly in WAV for over a month and knew it pretty well then got around to ripping LAME MP3 and it sounded 100% identical first time, going back and forth between the two versions, still identical.

 If there's a difference, it's too subtle for me to hear. I only have lossless now of CDs I lend to people, in case they never come back to me.


----------



## mabus627

depending on what im listening to i can distinguish between the two fairly well, but this only occurred when listening to Yoko Kanno's GITS:SAC:2nd GIG OST


----------



## PiSkyHiFi

I am in the "I can only pick 'em at 192 or lower" category and I find it a little disconcerting that some want the maximum linearity you get with FLAC/WAV anyway.

 The linearity present is due to the way we want preserve the signal, without realising that this is an interpretation of the original sound in the first place.

 If the original sound is a live acoustic environment, the placement of the mic is what is represented by ultra-linearity. Stereo micing is an attempt to capture a "I am in the room" experience to bring to your ears, so spatial positioning is important, however much can go wrong here in terms of getting the signal to perfectly match someone sitting in the room sitting perfectly still in exactly one spot - only when the recording has those properties covered does the question of ultra-linearity become important. Some may be aware that losing linearity is not necessarily a less true reproduction of the original, but they just like it linear anyway.

 I don't like ultra linear, I know if I was in the room, I wouldn't be sitting perfectly still, I would be getting different ambient reflections whenever I moved from the unique objects that fill the space and locations of sound sources - I do not want to reproduce all of this linearly, it would not be a true representation of my desired sound experience.

 So, I am saying that FLAC is ultra-linear, but that is not the way I want my sound experience anyway - its too artificial. Encoding to high rate MP3 may drop some information, but if this information is not a true representation of that original sound, then you are losing information that came with a high degree of uncertainty anyway.

 Basically, maybe losing some ultralinear properties could place you in a more approximate location in the room for acoustic recordings, which maybe considered a more accurate representation of the original sound.

 Its true that if you have a few mics set up and you use math to convert to the frequency without compression, you could wear a VR headphone headset that reproduces a linear signal from the carefully combined frequencies of all sources. You can't do this without a frequency domain interpretation, since it is arguably a more representative format of sound.

 The linear interpretation is the aberration to an acoustic recording, unless you intend that no objects in the room move at all.

 So, I quite like the interpretation high rate MP3 gives to some recordings, and would consider it a more accurate representation of the original environment given spatial uncertainty maybe desirable.

 As for electronic recordings and artificially created stereo spaces, well, its just how I feel about it that matters, not how linear the signal is.

 High rate mp3s - the frequencies you can possibly hear are all there, its not as if just because the file size is so much smaller, its somehow less true - as if making the linear filesizes bigger would continually gain more information about the original source.

 end rant - give me full spectrum sound with accurate voicing and some spatial sense with a little uncertainty to it and I'm there!


----------



## ninjikiran

I am not an audiophile but most of the time FLAC or any other lossless audio ripped directly or made as a lossless before being printed to CD sounds better. 

 Usually it is the case imo, but there are exceptions. MP3's encoded properly can reach the point where the differences are barely noticeable. Problem is most mp3's are not encoded as such. When I was an encoder for fansubs(a long long time ago) groups used similar codecs (DivX 3.1 for instance) but the difference between a good encode and a poor encode were vast even if they were a similar size.

 Some recordings sound bad regardless of format though...


----------



## PiSkyHiFi

I feel these are separate goals:

 1. Achieve highest signal integrity.
 2. Achieve highest transducer integrity.
 3. Achieve most faithful/enjoyable musical experience.

 I think the problem with matching #1 and #3 is not just in bitrates, but also in the questions of how faithful is the signal to the original sound environment anyway - the purest signal is only representative of a single point in the room for each mic - this itself maybe a futile goal for truly achieving #3.


----------



## TheRH

I will have to admit that if you are not heavily involved in the music that you can not tell the difference between the two. But when it comes down to it I can tell the difference.


----------



## PiSkyHiFi

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *TheRH* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_I will have to admit that if you are not heavily involved in the music that you can not tell the difference between the two. But when it comes down to it I can tell the difference._

 

This is it. This is exactly why I posted my article about the physics of sound and the math of signals.

 I believe one may be heavily involved in linear accurate sound, where you can spot the difference between FLAC and high rate Mp3, but this is not necessarily any more or less accurate a reflection of the music.

 The problem is that its possible to be into the music enough to not be concerned about precise spatial sound positioning and more concerned with timbre, dynamics and full-spectrum frequency response. This could mean that someone heavily involved in the music may benefit from decoupling their ears from the forced locality of an ultra linear source and it may feel more like a live acoustic recording they have experienced where there was a lack of this precise spatial locality.

 Add in the uncertainty principle and ultimate linearity becomes an unachievable goal that is further away from a real sound space.

 I hope that makes sense to you, it is not easy to find the right words to express this - I get frustrated by those trying to knock high rate Mp3s when I feel it is only in very specific recording spaces that the difference is important one way or the other, I think for 90% of good quality recordings the differences are irrelevant and accurate signal and transducer integrity becomes the only factor in getting close to the original sound-space. In terms of spatial sense, most recordings are artificially linear and of those that are not, only a few require things to be stationary. For artificially created sound-spaces, if it is a requirement that everything stay perfectly still, FLAC is good, otherwise MP3 can give the fake environment a touch of uncertainty which many ears will find more pleasing.

 Mathematically, there is enough detail in a high rate Mp3 to achieve the same level of timbre, dynamics and full-spectrum frequency response as the FLAC to the same degree of uncertainty as a room filled with moving objects.

 Corley.


----------



## TheRH

Corley,

 I do not think I could have said it better. As an audiophile in the Houston Audio Society we do critical lsiting for certain details. Although for the most part just as with the 320 vs FLAC the difference is almost inaudible with regular listing. And when it comes down to it, is about enjoying the music not pin pointing every detail.


----------



## analogsonar

320 sounds good but a large part of the file is missing. ? It might depend on the equipment. I have A/B'd a few files using fubar, most recently Tool's undertow 320 and flac, the difference is mostly in space and air, more punchy, etc. It could also depend on the recording, alot of new stuff is recorded onto hard drives so that could reduce dynamic range or the difference may be more obvious on speakers than headphones.


----------



## PiSkyHiFi

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *TheRH* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Corley,

 I do not think I could have said it better. As an audiophile in the Houston Audio Society we do critical lsiting for certain details. Although for the most part just as with the 320 vs FLAC the difference is almost inaudible with regular listing. And when it comes down to it, is about enjoying the music not pin pointing every detail._

 

You did go further than to state you can tell the difference between the 2, you implied that only those "heavily into the music" can do so.

 For many, being into sound can at times, go against being into music.

 I see it all too often in this thread, people making difficult to prove assertions and combining it with ego, I think much of it is done precisely because it can be difficult to prove especially with regards to what individuals hear. When I read these, I see this connection and this person loses a little credibility in my mind.

 I'm sorry if I am being blunt, I only hope that with your statement above, you are about enjoying the music not pin pointing every detail.

 The biggest problem I think we may agree on is that with great music and/or sound, words really fail to express the emotions.

 To quote Frank:

  Quote:


 "Talking about music is like dancing about architecture." 
 

Corley.


----------



## TheRH

Exactly, it is all about the music. When I am on my computer or listing to my stereo I do FLAC, main reason is hard drive space is almost irrelevant these days. So why not rip in FLAC. Now when I am on the go ( Sony Walkman) I want to preserve as much detail as possible now that I have some real IEM's ( Klispch S4's) and I can tell the difference in lower bit rates. And to address what you said, it is not blunt but rather the truth. 95% of the time it is about listing to and immersing yourself in the music and enjoying whatever it is that you have on.


----------



## Yngwie

I've never noticed a difference. But my only headphones are Sennheiser HD280's, so I'm not really much of an audiophile.


----------



## PiSkyHiFi

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *TheRH* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Exactly, it is all about the music. When I am on my computer or listing to my stereo I do FLAC, main reason is hard drive space is almost irrelevant these days. So why not rip in FLAC. Now when I am on the go ( Sony Walkman) I want to preserve as much detail as possible now that I have some real IEM's ( Klispch S4's) and I can tell the difference in lower bit rates. And to address what you said, it is not blunt but rather the truth. 95% of the time it is about listing to and immersing yourself in the music and enjoying whatever it is that you have on._

 

That's all well and good, but it does sidetrack my point a little - my point being that the extra detail you store in FLAC may be sonically equivalent to a completely different dataset coming from a mic sitting 1 foot away from the original mic's location. Hence the extra detail you get puts you in exactly 1 spot in the room.

 In fact, the 2 datasets may look completely different in the time domain and remain sonically pretty spot on, only the frequency domain interpretation would show you how similar they really are. Without compression, the frequency domain interpretation is lossless.

 Adding more precision to the dataset by using a higher bandwidth ADC process will increase the high frequency cut-off point further beyond what we can hear and otherwise just localise the sound more, which in most cases can not be faithfully reproduced as the same location, just reproduced as some uncertain location very precisely.

 The extra precision in the frequency domain will affect the faithful reproduction of relative volume of different frequencies. By compressing this dataset slightly, you may lose consistency in both frequency response and phase locality. When I say frequency response, I mean its all there, just a calculable error in relative volume of different frequencies. The spatial locality loss is due to the loss of phase information, putting you in an uncertain location in the original soundspace.

 The loss of some "punch" in MP3 is probably due to the inability to accurately recreate the onset of sound from exactly 1 point in space.

 Its miniscule in high rate MP3 and although detectable with good equipment, the question of whether this is a less faithful reproduction of the original sound-space depends on other factors like how the sound-space is intended to be reproduced with respect to locality using either speakers or headphones.

 In the case of "punch" the original sound-space may have reflective surfaces that will color any impact and you may actually experience a greater sense of impact if their respective locations are uncertain - i.e. the error in position may create slightly less or more of an impact for different sounds.

 All done now. Back to Ry Cooder.


----------



## Bilavideo

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *krmathis* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_I most probably can not tell a difference most of the time.
 Of course depending on the source material and the MP3 encoder used.

 But for sake of mind I use lossless, to not need to worry about if I loose out of something or not. 
	

	
	
		
		

		
			



_

 

Bingo! We have a winner!

 Whenever I have a choice, I go with the highest bitrate I can. If lossless is available, that's what I do. But when it comes to the hearing part, I have never heard any difference between the two. I can hear it when the movie reel is out of balanced and the title music sounds like an LP on a badly-balanced turntable. I can hear it when the headphone cups are reversed. I can hear it when sounds drop out in a recording that was layered one track too many. I just don't hear a difference between 128k and 1 meg.


----------



## DaveBSC

It depends on the production quality of the source. FLAC on a terrible sounding record like "Death Magnetic" is pretty much pointless, it's already been ruined in the mixing and mastering stage and there's no going back. 

 If the production is at least half decent though (as opposed to a solid brick wall that is the current standard for mass market pop and rock) FLAC is definitely an improvement over 320 or 256+ VBR mp3.


----------



## plonter

I never tried ABing flac and lossy before,but i always use losless files (cd at home or flac in portable) for the sake of mind and knowing that I don't compromising anything in the chain.
 anyway..the difference exists,whatever we can hear it or not. and i believe that one shouldn't compromise if he doesn't have to. losless formats were invented for using with a low space machines, so if you have a low space DAP lossless is a must...but today all the majority of players have more th an enough space for handling lossless files.

 even if the recording is bad..you ought to hear it as it is...IN LOSELESS!


----------



## dasmb

I've always found mp3 at any bitrate to have trouble with percussion -- cymbals and high hats especially. So much depends on the accurate timing of those transients, and the MP3 format just doesn't have the tools to model them.

 From that perspective, Lossless is a winner. It's the best you're going to get from a given source forever. It's even a winner on bad recordings -- remember, your lossy encoder can't always tell what's desired noise and what isn't. I recently dubbed an old 10 inch of Champion Jack Dupree, and you could easily tell the lossless from the lossy when the guitar started battling record noise. On the lossless, the two were equals; on the lossy, one or the other would lose out as if at random.

 Of course these are all personal trade offs, which is why I couldn't vote in your poll. I'd never use FLAC because the iPod doesn't support it (which was due to playback constraints...FLAC took more resources to decode than ALAC) and I'd choose AAC over mp3 because it handles transients and highs without sacrificing portability. Others choose Monkey or Ogg Vorbis or WMA10, choosing more advanced technology.


----------



## PiSkyHiFi

If you have a DAC with 120+ S/N ratio and a really good quality amp to match with high current and a great set of cans with high grade cables, maybe around 2-5% of recordings may reveal something different in 320 Kbps MP3 and FLAC versions. I think if you are missing one of these in the chain, you are probably ascribing incorrectly the effects of using MP3 compared to FLAC..

 I found one recording that did it for me in the very low level background noise of the original analog component of the recording equipment used to make it - the noise was dithered in the 192Kbps MP3 version, not random as it is was on the FLAC version.

 For me, its still noise - it shouldn't be there, but it is - choose your flavour of noise but this one cannot be served sans noise.

 Maybe we need a special "added analog noise" module to make some high end DACs sound more like vinyl.

 I am listening John McLaughlin's "Floating point", hearing quite precise artificial spatial positioning, beautiful crisp snappy percussion and solid strong bass with well designed analog to midi to analog instruments - sounds perfect in a LAME encoded extreme setting variable encoding, does not need anything more to get all the details here.

 Listening to my new Little Dot Mark V with John's "Live at Festival Hall" practically put me on stage with the musicians, hearing nuances in their respective playing styles and getting a feel for the shape of the instruments - from MP3 format. Trilok Gurtu has one of the most diverse range of percussion instruments here - all comes through very clearly in MP3.

 I still really like Mp3s and only use FLAC for a few reference recordings to help establish realistic limits to combinations of equipment and encodings.

 Long live Mp3! but please, no lower than 192 Kbps!
 FLAC ? If the recording is not up to it - you will always have to deal with files 4 times less efficient to handle in every step.
 PCM encoding is useful in the studio where more mixing is required just like when using more bits to reduce mix errors creeping in.


----------



## K_19

I do feel that it matters, but mostly only with more revealing rigs and equipments... it wasn't as noticeable until I got my current Pico -> WA6 ->K701/HD650/RS1 rig, where the separation between the two rates has become very evident IMO. Before with my old Hotaudio DAC -> EF1 I did not find that there were too many differences at all.

 Also, I'm sure this was mentioned already in this thread (I didn't read through it all), but the quality of original recording plays a big factor. For example, I've had instances where I've had a decent LAME 256kb mp3 beat out my Oasis (what's the story monring glory) FLACs in perceived quality and overall enjoyment... as many of you might now that particular recording, as well as most of Oasis albums, were mastered very poorly. So there are many other factors to consider in the overall equation.


----------



## gbacic

It also matters how they are incoded, you can have terrible encoded 320 and really good 192 or 256 (such as itunes AAC) and the lower bitrate will win.
 It's just safer to go with FLAC 'cause you know it will be CD quality and you won't have to worry about it being a crappy rip.


----------



## tarkovsky7

I don't even have great audio equipment, just shure 420 buds and AKG 240 headphones, and I can tell the difference between 320 ACC and Apple Lossless every single time on either set of headphones. On the 320 ACC, speaking in non-technical term, all the ambience seems to have been removed: the echo-gone, the careful layering of instruments-gone, the bass losses its punch. 
 Interestingly enough, I find when i listen to 320 AAC I have to turn the volume up to a high level to get any type of visceral reaction from the music; I can listen to lossless at a low volume and get a visceral reaction from the music. 
 I find it suprising that on a hi-fi audio forum that most people can't tell a difference with equipment that is superior to mine. I think the differences in our perception must have to do with how we listen to music and experience it; the people who can't tell a difference I suspect are just listening to all the instruments, and sure they sound clear and seperated but don't notice the "studio production qualities" of the music.


----------



## PiSkyHiFi

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *tarkovsky7* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_I don't even have great audio equipment, just shure 420 buds and AKG 240 headphones, and I can tell the difference between 320 ACC and Apple Lossless every single time on either set of headphones. On the 320 ACC, speaking in non-technical term, all the ambience seems to have been removed: the echo-gone, the careful layering of instruments-gone, the bass losses its punch. 
 Interestingly enough, I find when i listen to 320 AAC I have to turn the volume up to a high level to get any type of visceral reaction from the music; I can listen to lossless at a low volume and get a visceral reaction from the music. 
 I find it suprising that on a hi-fi audio forum that most people can't tell a difference with equipment that is superior to mine. I think the differences in our perception must have to do with how we listen to music and experience it; the people who can't tell a difference I suspect are just listening to all the instruments, and sure they sound clear and seperated but don't notice the "studio production qualities" of the music._

 

After my efforts here to clarify what is mathematically and physically feasible, I am surprised by this comment. Quite simply, I don't believe you.

 Its possible you have unique ears that don't fit the psychoacoustic models used in audio compression - hard to tell what that really means for your hearing though.

 To say things like all the ambiance has been removed suggests one just has to listen for missing ambiance - I have and found it present in both MP3 and lossless.

 The bass loses its punch ? I can show that sometimes the bass will gain punch as it has variance either way.

 I hear floors in "Studio Production Quality" of music most of the time - its a fact of life when listening to modern recordings that they are crafted and all reveal their makings in high rate MP3, AAC and lossless.

 I believe its possible to actually quantify this stuff properly using math, I have good felling for it, maybe its about time I sat down and did the correct comparison without regard to unique ears and see if I can state my case with objectivity. I hope I can find the time for this.

 Enjoy the music,

 Corley.

 P.S. I am keen to hear your source for this comparison, if there's a way you can upload a 10-second byte in both AAC and lossless to somewhere - hey I'll even make a space for you - just let me know, I would appreciate hearing the source that reveals.


----------



## tarkovsky7

In a side by side A/B experiment, I can tell the difference between 320 ACC and Apple Lossless after 20 seconds well over 90 percent of the time. My previous claim that all ambience is lost in 320 ACC is obvious hyberbole; but, a lot of ambience is lost-enough for me to notice almost every single time. Not only is ambience lost, but the lossless also sounds much more "stable"; maybe, there is a slight variances in volume of certain frequencies or position changing in certain frequences in a 320 ACC, or simply artifacts that i hear. This is especially true of the low and high frequencies. 
 I don't claim to have "golden ears," in fact, I'd be shocked if i dont have some hearing loss; i'm almost positive it's the different ways we listen to music.


----------



## PiSkyHiFi

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *tarkovsky7* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_In a side by side A/B experiment, I can tell the difference between 320 ACC and Apple Lossless after 20 seconds well over 90 percent of the time. My previous claim that all ambience is lost in 320 ACC is obvious hyberbole; but, a lot of ambience is lost-enough for me to notice almost every single time. Not only is ambience lost, but the lossless also sounds much more "stable"; maybe, there is a slight variances in volume of certain frequencies or position changing in certain frequences in a 320 ACC, or simply artifacts that i hear. This is especially true of the low and high frequencies. 
 I don't claim to have "golden ears," in fact, I'd be shocked if i dont have some hearing loss; i'm almost positive it's the different ways we listen to music._

 

I propose a test, would you be willing to take part ?

 1. The test will be 2 samples of the same section of music, 1 will be straight FLAC encoded PCM, the other will be converted to 320 Kbps AAC and then back to FLAC. Both samples will be recreated using a filter that will use double precision floating point to change the base sample rate and its amplitude to a pre-determined different sample rate and volume somewhere within 2% of the original encoded sample - the same rate and volume change will be applied to both samples - this is just make it difficult to compare the data to an already known lossless copy of the audio.

 2. I will provide a download location for these 2 samples A and B.

 3. Subject to do ABX testing using the 2 samples, or if they are dishonest, mathematical analysis.

 4. Let me know which one you think is the lossless.

 5. Maybe I'll make a few samples of different music styles this way, then once the test is done, I can open source the code that made the samples for others to scrutinize and we can see how accurate our ABX testers do in a more objective test.

 What do you think ? I'll even take requests.

 I think you may make a good test subject for this.

 Looks like the sample length will be around 20 seconds and there will be an approximately 1 second fade in/fade out.

 Corley.


----------



## tarkovsky7

Sure, I'd be willing to particpate in this test; just let me know when and were you post the samples. If i can, i will be willing to give a detailed and specific list of difference between the two samples.


----------



## PiSkyHiFi

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *tarkovsky7* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Sure, I'd be willing to participate in this test; just let me know when and were you post the samples. If i can, i will be willing to give a detailed and specific list of difference between the two samples._

 

I will produce some samples that cannot be determined as either lossy or lossless using FFT software so that the test can only be verified by the code that created the samples.

 You will have to be a little clearer on music choices - I am looking for up to 10 samples, if you don't specify, I will choose my own and try to be diverse.

 If you pass the test, your detailed and specific list will carry much meaning.

 I'll need some time to prepare the work - thanks for being a test subject.

 Corley.


----------



## the search never ends

I also had to go with (after much time)..........many modern recordings forced mr to 
 choose that answer. However well masterd stuff is not hard usually.


----------



## tarkovsky7

Maybe it would be best to limit your samples to rock and hip-hop since thats pretty much all i listen too.

 Thanks,

 Andrew


----------



## tarkovsky7

On second thought, maybe it would be best to make the samples as diverse as possible.


----------



## anetode

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *tarkovsky7* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_I don't even have great audio equipment, just shure 420 buds and AKG 240 headphones, and I can tell the difference between 320 ACC and Apple Lossless every single time on either set of headphones. On the 320 ACC, speaking in non-technical term, all the ambience seems to have been removed: the echo-gone, the careful layering of instruments-gone, the bass losses its punch. 
 Interestingly enough, I find when i listen to 320 AAC I have to turn the volume up to a high level to get any type of visceral reaction from the music; I can listen to lossless at a low volume and get a visceral reaction from the music. 
 I find it suprising that on a hi-fi audio forum that most people can't tell a difference with equipment that is superior to mine. I think the differences in our perception must have to do with how we listen to music and experience it; the people who can't tell a difference I suspect are just listening to all the instruments, and sure they sound clear and seperated but don't notice the "studio production qualities" of the music._

 

Focusing in on individual instruments, the overall soundstage and things like that requires both perceptual and cognitive function. After years of critical listening your brain has developed unique ways of interacting with your sensory nerves and it processes auditory information through different "circuits" depending on your listening preferences at the time. It would indeed be surprising for you to find out that you may be hearing the same waveform in different ways on different occasions


----------



## MD1032

I would be highly interested to see the results of that test, but it absolutely must use more than one file, otherwise you could simply "guess" correctly. I would suggest using more like 20 files of the same piece of music and that the subject does not have on hand. That's like the minimum...if it were me, it would be done in person because you could always measure the differences.


----------



## googleborg

I tested a few tracks using foobar abx plugin, can tell the difference only after abxing them, and only on high frequency things like hihats and cymbal crashes, the rest sounded identical to my hears though my hifi. I still rip to lossless though 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




cd:


----------



## Skylab

I actually don't care whether I can hear a difference between lossless and lossy - actually ripping CD's in with a lossy codec is a bad idea, IMO, for the following reasons:

 1. The fact is that lossy coding DOES remove musical information - whether audible or not
 2. Disc space is now DIRT cheap, so there is no reason to use lossy coding when ripping CD's - if you rip using lossless, you can easily transcode to lossy later if you need to for portable use
 3. Archiving in lossless means that if a new, super-great lossy codec comes along later (which it will), you don't need to re-rip to take advantage of that - you just transcode from the lossless files you have.

 So bottom line - I find the debate interesting, but only in the context of what kind of files to put on your portable. For ripping, using anything other than lossless is silly.


----------



## Junliang

To me.. 
 I will just rip to lossless, to prevent myself from losing out on any details 
	

	
	
		
		

		
			





 But to be frank, if you want me to a/b it, I cant tell most of the time =(
 Some 320kbps and flac or alac simply sound similar, there is a definite difference, but I cant tell whether this difference implies song A is lossless or not, as it makes both of them unique, like comparing wav lossless against apple alac.

 but heck, just get the highest form of uncompressed audio and stop worrying is what I would say.. 
 the difference might be small and might be only engraved onto your "sound" memory after time, but we are pursuing high quality audio, yes ?

 but for some music, there is certainly very audible SOUND QUALITY difference, and not mere different sounding, but SQ differences.

 Well, some of my friends claim that they can differentiate them easily, but oh well, it cant be helped, so why fret over it ?


----------



## St3ve

I voted "I cannot tell the difference 99% of the time". Put it down to the insensitivity of my ears and/or equipment, but I doubt I could honestly tell the difference if tested.


----------



## Pepito

I listened to "Hotwax" by Beck ripped at 320kbs using HD555's for over a year. I then re ripped Odelay to FLAC. With 320kbs, I couldn't tell that Beck had recorded two slightly different singing tracks and mixed them on top of each other ("two" Beck's singing the same song at once.) 

 FLAC is noticeably better with my ears.


----------



## Pariah1

Easily can tell a difference between lossy and lossless, always could, even when I had junk headphones and just a stock computer sound card. Now with better components (and more trained ears) it's very easy to pick out the better quality whether I'm using cans or speakers/sub.

 And yes, I've been tested blindfolded by my gf and another friend and picked the FLAC over the lossy at least 9/10 times on both cans and speakers. 

 It's FLAC or silence for me.


----------



## MadMan007

If there was a n option between 2 and 3 I would have voted for that. The reason I rip to FLAC is not for better SQ or transparency per se but rather because if I'm going to go through the hassle of ripping I want to *archive* my CDs as well. Lossless is the only way to do that.


----------



## Skylab

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *MadMan007* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_If there was a n option between 2 and 3 I would have voted for that. The reason I rip to FLAC is not for better SQ or transparency per se but rather because if I'm going to go through the hassle of ripping I want to *archive* my CDs as well. Lossless is the only way to do that._

 

AMEN - more people need to understand that! With disc space so cheap, it's crazy not to rip lossless. You can always transcode to lossy later for portable use.


----------



## Nachkebia

Indeed, FLAC ripped directly from CD always sounds noticably better. I switched my whole library to FLAC and APE and could not be happier. I have two TB drives and both I full. I need to get me some more TB`s. People who buy expensive cans and listen to 320 files are missing out...


----------



## Deep Funk

Some recordings are easy to recognize. Some aren't. FLAC, WAV-lossless etcetera are the best way to get the most out of your music.


----------



## tunarat

I'm new to this forum because I haven't really been into headphones for 35 years. Current living events have renewed interest (necessity) in the field. My hearing has obviously diminished over time. That being said, in my opinion the difference between mp3 320 and flac rips is not at all subtle. Again, my perspective is only from listening to "speakers" in mid to high end systems, not headphones. SET setups seem to lose a lot of what makes them special in lossy formats imho.


----------



## mikeymad

Where I have been able to tell the difference between the FLAC and 320 was the soundstage. FLAC it is all there (most of the time), at 320 it starts to fall apart, and below that it pretty much goes away. Almost all other aspects for me are okay from FLAC to 320. But this one aspect (if there is a soundstage to the music) points it out to me every time.

 Cheers,


----------



## vinnievidi

I'd have to admit that most of the time I cannot distinguish between 320 and lossless--really only with songs that I know inside-and-out. But I do agree with earlier posts that it's safer and maybe more future proof to rip in lossless.


----------



## kenta

I believe the ability to distinguish the difference between FLAC and 320-kbps mp3 depends strongly on the equipments used as well as the person. 

 If your gears are quite linear, nutral and dynamically fast, you will hear a spot in the SQ. You will realize something is unusual and missing. This is caused by the compression algorithm which eliminates the small details in the music which should be not be able to reproduce anyway when the normal equipments are used. However, the higher quality gears can reproduce these fine details, if the details are eliminated in the first place, it will result in an unrealistic experience. 

 Telling which one is mp3 and FLAC, IMO, can be told from its naturality which is likely to exist in FLAC or lossless format rather than in a compressed one.

 Nevertheless, the mp3 compression is vary. With a good algorithm, which intelligently erases the actual details which are extremly hard to hear at first place, the end result can be really impressive. I am afterall love to rip things in FLAC at most of the time, but not hesitate to try to convert them from time to time in mp3 for a transport gear.


----------



## Bilavideo

I rip lossless just in case, but I have yet to hear a difference between 256k and lossless.


----------



## Trysaeder

All my music on my clip+ is 320 since I want to save space and I won't be able to hear the difference while outside.
 On my computer I leave it as flac but I don't mind 320 at all.


----------



## danroche

A few years ago I was of the opinion I could tell the difference between even high-bitrate MP3 and uncompressed. A series of blind tests I conducted for myself convinced me otherwise. At about 192kbps my ability to reliably tell which is which drops off a cliff, and I found this is the case regardless of the quality of equipment - artifacts are usually apparent regardless of whether I'm listening with earbuds or on a boutique set of speakers.

 Above 192, I found I needed to actively search for "killer samples" where I'd be able to find any audible artifacts, and was only able to do so by literally Googling "killer samples." I discovered then that pretty much all of the established killer samples (read: they've proven to reveal themselves in numerous DBX's with numerous test subjects) are in very "synthetic" areas of music - particularly synth-heavy techno or other forms of music where lots of square and complicated waveforms are thrown at the encoder all at once. Usually, there would be a longer reverb trail that would breathe a bit in the presence of lots of other square wave activity, or a particularly other-wordly series of percussive hits that would reveal some pre-echo with the volume cranked up.

 I was unable to find ANY classical music where these kinds of artifacts were encountered at the higher bitrates. I'm guessing part of this is that classical music doesn't throw that kind of challenge at an encoder.

 What was really interesting here was that ALL of the artifacts above, say, 200kpbs were VERY ACUTE and subtle. There was nothing broad and aesthetic along the lines of "oh, the soundstage was damaged" or "there was less shimmer in the highs" - it was very temporal around certain moments of the music where a load of stuff was going on all at once.

 The best thing about it was that, were I not provided with both uncompressed and compressed samples to compare, I would have never spotted the artifacts. The reverb trails would just seem to blend in, or the 'pre-echo' would sound like a pre-planned part of the music.

 So in summary, I rip to 192kbps AAC. And I don't look back. Hi-Fi or Audiophile recordings ripped this way retain their identity and flavor. I will never, as long as I live, think of what I could be "missing" by ripping this low.

 Looking back to my earlier days I know that if I WANT to hear the difference between FLAC and even 320kbps MP3, my brain will oblige and make me hear something. It doesn't mean it's there.


----------



## neptius

When you own headphones like HD 800, T1, D-7000, with excellent amp and other accessories, then the FLAC is right format for you, because these headphones are very detailed, with perfect dynamics ... so lost of quality will show you more concretely as lower models or other devices, so I notorially do FLACs from CDs.


----------



## n3rdling

D7000 isn't detailed at all 
	

	
	
		
		

		
			





 I have tried doing an ABX test between a 320 kbs MP3 and FLAC and couldn't tell the difference. I'll try again, but I wouldn't be surprised at all if I don't hear a difference.


----------



## Cru321

It's really hard to tell the difference... It's probably because of my "less than audiophile" equipment. Unamped ADDIEM from Powerbook G4... Sounds good enough for my needs though.


----------



## AtomikPi

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *danroche* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_What was really interesting here was that ALL of the artifacts above, say, 200kpbs were VERY ACUTE and subtle. There was nothing broad and aesthetic along the lines of "oh, the soundstage was damaged" or "there was less shimmer in the highs" - it was very temporal around certain moments of the music where a load of stuff was going on all at once._

 

I'm glad you're saying this as I think one of the most important things to recognize is that even in the small percentage of high bitrate mp3's aren't audibly transparent, any issues are generally very subtle and have no impact on timbre, transparency (meaning clarity rather than indistinguishable from lossless), soundstage, and so on. Of course, at lower bitrates, this doesn't hold true.


----------



## danroche

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *AtomikPi* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_I'm glad you're saying this as I think one of the most important things to recognize is that even in the small percentage of high bitrate mp3's aren't audibly transparent, any issues are generally very subtle and have no impact on timbre, transparency (meaning clarity rather than indistinguishable from lossless), soundstage, and so on. Of course, at lower bitrates, this doesn't hold true._

 

AtomokPi,

 Amen, brother. If I may get a little bolder here, I tend to think suspect that anyone dismissing higher-bitrate MP3s or other lossy compression schemes using broad, aesthetic terms are speaking from expectation bias more than anything else. LAME and the various AAC coders out there are very, very, very good at their jobs, and I think there likely doesn't exist a song in which every frame and second will trigger artifacts resulting in such clear, across-the-board degredation or loss of transparency.

 When it comes to low-bitrate encoding, it really is amazing how far the science has come since I first got into this game back in 2001-ish. Anyone who has iTunes owes it to themselves to try ripping one of their favorite discs using the new AAC-HE settings in I think iTunes 9.2. ~80-90kbps file sizes, and VERY surprisingly high quality songs. While I don't expect people to start archiving their libraries in this format (some clear artifacting IS there) it might make them start reconsidering if something like 192-256kbps AAC is in fact good enough for their listening needs.


----------



## Young Spade

I think it has mostly to do with how detailed your equipment is. You're probably not going to be able to discern the difference with an iPod to some... I dunno.... UE Super.Fi 5. But if you're using a s:flo2 with an amp and Triple.Fi 10s you're probably going to hear it. 

 Meh I could hear it with a 5G iPod // LoD // iBassoT4 // PFE 112s. Barely and only when it was perfectly quiet but I could hear it.


----------



## PiSkyHiFi

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *danroche* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_AtomokPi,

 Amen, brother. If I may get a little bolder here, I tend to think suspect that anyone dismissing higher-bitrate MP3s or other lossy compression schemes using broad, aesthetic terms are speaking from expectation bias more than anything else. LAME and the various AAC coders out there are very, very, very good at their jobs, and I think there likely doesn't exist a song in which every frame and second will trigger artifacts resulting in such clear, across-the-board degredation or loss of transparency.

 When it comes to low-bitrate encoding, it really is amazing how far the science has come since I first got into this game back in 2001-ish. Anyone who has iTunes owes it to themselves to try ripping one of their favorite discs using the new AAC-HE settings in I think iTunes 9.2. ~80-90kbps file sizes, and VERY surprisingly high quality songs. While I don't expect people to start archiving their libraries in this format (some clear artifacting IS there) it might make them start reconsidering if something like 192-256kbps AAC is in fact good enough for their listening needs._

 

I have just returned to head-fi after getting too personally involved with trying to argue with the man with the golden ears. I'm a supporter of what your saying here, I started encoding back in 1999, I moved around a lot, and despite what people say about size of file not being an issue, back then for me, it was.

 A lot of my collection is in 192Kbps MP3 format, I have since reacquired some particularly good recordings in FLAC and I have done experiments and found pretty much the same as you, only very particular recordings for specific reason can I tell the difference over 192KBps - and there is sooo much in those MP3s where bad reproduction equipment would completely overshadow any high bitrate encoding artefacts. The effects are different, but a bad amp just annoys me more than an encoding I can't fault with my ears.

 I use LAME's extreme MP3 setting by default now, it works well for all my devices, and I can't pick it at all even on my best gear.

 I just wanted you to know that I really appreciated reading your posts - I have been enjoying my music so much, I didn't want to return here in a hurry to only find glory seekers.

 I find it hard to forgive people who overstate their abilities, even if we should give them the benefit of the doubt since everyone's ears are their own. It still gets on my nerves.

 I can't test anyone online by providing samples and asking them to pick them, since a visual aid will spot the difference easily. Please see the linked image for a comparison I did of a sample from Joe Jackson's "You can't get what you want, 'til you know what you want" - one of my best recordings.

http://corley.kinnane.net/sample_FFT...AC_Compare.png

 You can see from this, time is down the y-axis and just the highest frequencies between 18000 and 22050 Hz reveal the structured decoding of the 320 Kbps AAC compared to the almost random dithering near the limits of what linear PCM can achieve. I'm certain I can't consciously hear anything this high myself - although I can still hear the oscillator on a PAL CRT - that's around 15Khz I believe.


----------



## aristos_achaion

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *Skylab* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_AMEN - more people need to understand that! With disc space so cheap, it's crazy not to rip lossless. You can always transcode to lossy later for portable use._

 

To add to this--

 320 is pretty big. Not as big as FLAC, but it takes a fair amount of disc space.

 Now, disc space is cheap: you can get 1TB hard drives for ~$100, and that's going down fast. However, portable players are still pretty tiny, especially with the widespread move to flash...64GB players are a bit of a rarity, and 32GB SD cards probably run more than the player.

 Thus, you probably have several orders of magnitude more space on your computer than on your portable. Also, if you're using your portable portably (travelling, commuting, &c), you're probably willing to accept a lower quality encoding than you would in the controlled environment of your home or office.

 Thus, my opinion is that you can use your portable space more efficiently by storing your music in FLAC on your computer (which will probably run no more than 200- to 300GB, unless you're one hell of a pirate), and transcoding that to your lowest acceptable bitrate for portable use (which for me is 192kbps, a rate I consider unacceptable for desktop listening).


----------



## mnagali

_I cannot tell a difference 99% of the time_... and if I did, it's because I was trying really really hard to find the differences when A/B'ing songs I've had for years/really familiar with. I've decided on *Lame -V0 VBR* with my equipment. The only upgrades I foresee in the next year or two will be to an E7 and possibly some more universal IEMs, so doubt I'll have any regrets


----------



## FallenAngel

After some testing with good recordings (personally ripped and encoded using EAC to FLAC and Lame to 320kbps CBR and V0 VBR), I can usually tell the difference between FLAC and MP3, but not between V0 VBR and 320kbps CBR. Really depends on the recordings though - if you listen to Timberland, you'd be hard pressed to tell the difference between 192kbps and FLAC.


----------



## aj_brown_99

i find that on headphones i can tell the difference sometimes but not always, but on my speakers i find the difference quite evident. i stick with FLAC whenever possible.


----------



## Head Injury

Okay, I voted 99% of the time I can't hear a difference. And this may be all in my head because I didn't have two of the same file to compare, but over the weekend during my first experience with the rig in my signature, I swear every MP3 had fizzy, undefined highs and every FLAC had sharp, clear, detailed highs.

 Next week I'm going to test it with like files. Maybe ABX, maybe regular old AB. If I can finally hear a difference, I'll be both thrilled and horrified. I can hear my HDD screaming in agony already.


----------



## Ypoknons

I think, from some very non-scientific testing, that I can hear a difference. But I don't sweat it, I'll use flac where there's archival value and 320kbps when I just want to listen to it, even 256kbps mp3 if it happens to come that way. Poorly made recordings are a much bigger pet peeve.


----------



## DrBenway

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *Ypoknons* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Poorly made recordings are a much bigger pet peeve._

 

They certainly are for me, too. Think of that old expression: you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. If you start with a lousy recording, a FLAC version of the file will be nothing more than a faithful representation of a lousy recording.

 That said, I still think that lossy compression is an idea whose time has passed. Storage is cheap. Bandwidth is cheap. What's the point?


----------



## Head Injury

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *DrBenway* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_That said, I still think that lossy compression is an idea whose time has passed. Storage is cheap. Bandwidth is cheap. What's the point?_

 

Not having to spend crazy money on a 32GB SDHC card 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




 Portable audio is still too limited for FLAC unless you don't mind only carrying around a few favorite albums or a pocket full of flash.

 But yeah, for stationary storage, it doesn't matter. I have plenty of space left. And if I run out, I just have to pop in another $75 1TB hard drive. One of those drives can hold about 150,000 minutes of FLAC, or 2,000 full CDs. At $5 a CD, you're paying $75 to store at least $10,000 worth of music. Like a drop in a bucket.

 I'd pay 5 cents more per CD knowing it's lossless, even if I can't hear the difference.


----------



## mmd8x28

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *DrBenway* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_They certainly are for me, too. Think of that old expression: you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. If you start with a lousy recording, a FLAC version of the file will be nothing more than a faithful representation of a lousy recording.

 That said, I still think that lossy compression is an idea whose time has passed. Storage is cheap. Bandwidth is cheap. What's the point?_

 

Well people like me who have 3k+ songs on my list, and a 32GB iPod touch, can't possibly fit all my songs in lossless.. Not to mention, I've used the Apple store, and haven't had that choice of lossless. (Though i might go and repurchase the Gorillaz Plastic Beach on CD if not, something better, because the iTunes version has clicks and pops in their audio).


----------



## DrBenway

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *mmd8x28* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Well people like me who have 3k+ songs on my list, and a 32GB iPod touch, can't possibly fit all my songs in lossless.. Not to mention, I've used the Apple store, and haven't had that choice of lossless. (Though i might go and repurchase the Gorillaz Plastic Beach on CD if not, something better, because the iTunes version has clicks and pops in their audio)._

 

Do you really need to carry everything around with you all the time? I have only 8GB of storage in my Clip+, and about 150 GB of music on my hard drive. Not to mention thousands of CDs and LPs that I can rip as needed. 

 I find it useful, actually, to have to decide every few days/weeks what I want to carry around with me. I'm forced to make decisions about what I want in my pocket. Doing so allows me to really concentrate on my music, rather than just hitting shuffle and letting the player decide what I want to hear.

 Since i rarely go more than a few days without access to my PC, I can refresh the selection on my Clip+ regularly. It just doesn't seem like a hardship to me not to have absolutely everything available all the time. The 8GB in my Clip+ provides me with more than enough to choose from, as long as I don't go for weeks without refreshing the selection.


----------



## mmd8x28

I do need it all. I like to shuffle it all, like a personal radio full of gold.


----------



## haloxt

Mp3 players ought to have external hard drive or flash slots. I've swapped hard drives on my h120, not very fun though so I eventually just stuck with one hard drive 
	

	
	
		
		

		
			





. But if they made a slot to insert more drives it would help a lot by allowing people to buy multiple cheap drives rather than one super expensive drive.

 But now that I think about it, how else do those stupid mp3 player companies make money except by charging for irreplaceable hard drives. I'm going to keep upgrading the hard drive on my h120 (now h180) until something vital in it fails 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




.


----------



## Skylab

I had a 240GB drive installed in my iPod 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




 So plenty of room for lossless.


----------



## Ham Sandwich

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *Skylab* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_I had a 240GB drive installed in my iPod 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




 So plenty of room for lossless._

 

Still not enough room to hold all of your Grateful Dead. ::tiedydsmile::


----------



## Skylab

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *Ham Sandwich* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Still not enough room to hold all of your Grateful Dead. ::tiedydsmile::_

 

True Dat


----------



## Young Spade

I would love to have all of my music with me but sadly, I can only carry 8 GB (more if I ever buy a card :/)


----------



## aj_brown_99

skylab do you keep all of your music in apple lossless? i just got an ipod and am having to deal with my 300+ gb of FLAC music.


----------



## Skylab

Yes, I keep all my computer music in Apple Lossless. I use dbPoweramp to transcode the FLACs I download to ALAC for use in iTunes. This is a lossless process.


----------



## Justin Uthadude

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *DrBenway* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Do you really need to carry everything around with you all the time? I have only 8GB of storage in my Clip+, and about 150 GB of music on my hard drive. Not to mention thousands of CDs and LPs that I can rip as needed. 

*I find it useful, actually, to have to decide every few days/weeks what I want to carry around with me. I'm forced to make decisions about what I want in my pocket. Doing so allows me to really concentrate on my music, rather than just hitting shuffle and letting the player decide what I want to hear.*

 Since i rarely go more than a few days without access to my PC, I can refresh the selection on my Clip+ regularly. It just doesn't seem like a hardship to me not to have absolutely everything available all the time. The 8GB in my Clip+ provides me with more than enough to choose from, as long as I don't go for weeks without refreshing the selection._

 

so what kinda doctor are you... a mind reader?
 anyway, thanks for typing my answer 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




.
 .


----------



## ROBSCIX

I make FLAC lossless out of my CD's and put the originals away for backups.
 I prefer losslesss in both idea and sound quality.


----------



## Ham Sandwich

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *aj_brown_99* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_skylab do you keep all of your music in apple lossless? i just got an ipod and am having to deal with my 300+ gb of FLAC music._

 

I do FLAC for my computer listening but do MP3 for the iPod. That choice was more or less made for me due to the media player software I choose to use. I use J River Media Center. It doesn't do ALAC (well, technically it can but it doesn't support ALAC very well and doesn't write to the tags).

 So I do FLAC for home listening and have J River Media Center convert the FLAC files to MP3 when I sync the iPod. J River does that part well.

 Not ideal for audiophile cred but good enough for me. I'm not that picky about the portable for ultimate audio quality. The iPod does do gapless with the LAME encoded MP3 and that's much more important to me than doing lossless SQ on the portable.


----------



## ROBSCIX

I think quality takes a back seat to storage size when talking about portable players.


----------



## Skylab

Not for me - with 160GB available on my classic and now 240gb on the iMod iPod


----------



## Pepsi

There's probably is a difference between the two, but if it takes this much analysis and concentration i think it's fair to say the compare and contrast is very marginal. Like Krmathis i just go with lossless for the simple peace of mind. If i were to choose something like my portable music player, 320 would suffice.


----------



## DuffyDidIt

They sound much better in a direct comparison on my polks and sony cheap headphones headhpones.


----------



## Hero Kid

"I cannot tell a difference 99% of the time"

 For that very reason I archive all my music in FLAC wherever possible. 
 However I convert all my FLAC's to LAME encoded -V0 mp3's for portable listening.


----------



## JxK

Since reading through this entire thread is daunting I'll just post a few thoughts.

 I truly think that most people, given a proper AB*X* will find it almost impossible to tell the differences between 320kb/s mp3 and FLAC. Of those who can, it will only be through extremely critical listening and repetition of short song segments, basically the type that is no longer enjoyable. I'll add that for portable use 320 is a waste of space. V0 VBR mp3 sounds similar enough that I doubt there are 10 people in all of headfi's thousands who could ABX it from 320, and V0 has the benefit of being 50% smaller in size.

 The only time when mp3 isn't enough is mainly with harpsichord music. I'm not sure why it is, but for some reason harpsichord just destroys mp3. Some treble in certain heavy metal songs mp3 doesn't do a great job with, but it's nothing compared to the travesty that is harpsichord. If anyone could explain why that is, it would satisfy a personal curiosity.


----------



## nick_charles

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *JxK* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_The only time when mp3 isn't enough is mainly with harpsichord music. I'm not sure why it is, but for some reason harpsichord just destroys mp3. Some treble in certain heavy metal songs mp3 doesn't do a great job with, but it's nothing compared to the travesty that is harpsichord. If anyone could explain why that is, it would satisfy a personal curiosity. 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	


_

 

I took a segement of Bach's BWV 529a Concerto in G major after Sachsen-Weimar and ran it through a frequency analyzer. While most music is centred on the 1k - 4K range with **rapidly** diminishing harmonics, the segment I ran showed a smooth and gradual decline in energy from -58db at 3K to -76db at 19.2K so that when the Mp3 encoder (Lame 3.97 VBR 0) hacked it off brutally at 19.4K the FR fell off a cliff. I do not suggest that many folks would be able to consciously actually hear much of the lost frequencies, but it does remove a lot of energy from the original wave form this may itself be audible ?

 But only a DBT would show if this might be a factor. You could nudge the level up a tad to adjust for this.


----------



## leeperry

I don't have the slightest interest in lossy audio, but I always use this harpsichord song to check for middle ear resonances EQ: YouTube - The Stranglers - Golden Brown

 if it sounds good, everything will IME.


----------



## JamestheRipper

i think that its been pretty well justified but i really think it comes down to the specifics, ie artist, genre, production etc.
 i find the two biggest factors to be the genre of music and the original production.
 if im listening to relatively complex music with very good production (eg power metal), i can tell the difference, reasonably easily.
 if im listening to some techno produced by someone sitting in their room playing around with audio clips, or listening to something not particularly complex like rap or hip hop (which is basically just a synthesised beat and a little bit of singing [which has also been modified by computers to give the smoothest transition from note to note]) then i cant tell the difference.

 the only major difference for me is when im listening to a FLAC vs x<192 mp3 (im not sure in what codec though).
 my set up is westone um3x and a cowon s9. (i dont have a desktop just a laptop [sony z11wn/b] and i cant tell the difference between 320mp3 and flac when using the laptop as a source).

 i am in the process of gradually getting all of my music into flac, just on the off chance it will sound better for a specific song. hard drive space isnt really a major issue.
 the thing which i cant stand about mp3s though, is when they have been compressed poorly and the files are jumpy or have loops or they just sound awful.


----------



## Aynjell

Heh, I have all my music stored on my NAS in flac, and mp3v. The mp3 means I can stream to my 360 without twonky transcoding it every single time it's needed, and the flac is my 1:1 backup copy.


----------



## smurfz

It's been a while since I posted on this thread. But I've finally managed to get my gears sorted out to do my first A/B testing.
   
Conclusion: I can't tell the difference. Yet..

*Setup:*
*Source*: The Four Seasons by Amandine Beyer & Gli Incogniti - 24bit 96khz FLAC
*Track*: 5 Concerto Pour Violon RC372
*A*: Xfi-USB -> Toslink -> DAC1
*B*: USB -> DAC1
*Headphone*: HD650
  The MP3 file was encoded by XLD using -q 2 down-sampled to 44.1kHz

 First, I played the same lossless file to make sure that there weren't any differences. Indeed, I couldn't hear any.
 Then I played the different files and then swapped them around a few times.

 I can pick out 192kbps MP3's fairly reliably, but only in places where there is a wide dynamic-range. Interestingly, I seem to pick out the details in the lower frequencies. In the sections where there are only violins, I can't tell the difference even with 192kbps vs lossless.
   
  Just out of interest out there:
  96kHz 24bit FLAC: 109MB
  320kbps MP3: 12MB
  192kbps MP3: 7MB
   
  I would love to hear from more people on the samples that they could hear the differences.
   
  Whenever time permits, I will do some more..


----------



## spahn_ranch

To my ears, and I do trust them all the way on this, the difference in detail retrieving, overall sound quality and enjoyment is most of the time greater between ALAC processed by Amarra vs ALAC by itunes, than it is between ALAC and lame 3.97b v0 by itunes.
 That's on a mid-09 MacBook Pro with 4GB RAM and a regular spinning HD. Some are also claiming, and among those the code creators, that there's more sound quality to have on a machine optimized for music use only, equipped with an SSD.
   
  *shrug* and FWIW,


----------



## smurfz

I don't understand how it can produce better details when:
  - FLAC/ALAC are defined codecs
  - Bit-perfect output 
   
  But nevertheless, I'm convinced enough to give it a go. I just signed up for a demo. 
   
  Will report back if there are any revelations with my setup.


----------



## spahn_ranch

The only official explanation I've seen from Sonic Studio (Amarra) is something along the lines that there are _always_ floating point calculations going on in digital audio, and that Amarra's calculations spit out more decimals than other players do. Which means I suppose, that a bit is a bit is a bit: not necessarily, or even simply not.
   
  Be it as it may with that, and I wouldn't have a clue about the science, the claim of more decimals rings true with what I'm hearing: significantly less edginess, or digititis, _and more detail_, which indicates it's indeed not a snake oil smearing process. Imaging, timing, openness; it's all up by a leap, plenty enough to leave any placebo for dead.


----------



## aimlink

Quote: 





spahn_ranch said:


> To my ears, and I do trust them all the way on this, the difference in detail retrieving, overall sound quality and enjoyment is most of the time greater between ALAC processed by Amarra vs ALAC by itunes, than it is between ALAC and lame 3.97b v0 by itunes.


 
   
  I checked out Sonic Studio and Amara and all I could say was 'good grief.'  The price!!  Wow!


----------



## Head Injury

Quote: 





spahn_ranch said:


> _and more detail_, which indicates it's indeed not a snake oil smearing process.


 

 How exactly? The illusion of more detail is probably one of the most common symptoms of snake oil.
   
  The easiest way to prove it's not snake oil is an ABX test. Which is very, very easy with digital files like this. If you've got Windows handy just download Foobar and the ABX plugin and load the two files up.


----------



## smurfz

Quote: 





head injury said:


> How exactly? The illusion of more detail is probably one of the most common symptoms of snake oil.
> 
> The easiest way to prove it's not snake oil is an ABX test. Which is very, very easy with digital files like this. If you've got Windows handy just download Foobar and the ABX plugin and load the two files up.


 
   
  Thanks for this. I will do my further tests with this setup.
  
  I've just spent an hour or so testing the demo version of Amarra Mini. Since it has on-off button where it will bypass Amarra, it's like A/B testing. But there is a bit of a gap/delay while switching, so it is not as easy to do A/B testing.
   
  So far, in most situations, I can't hear the difference. A very few times, I thought I heard a difference, but I couldn't reliably pick what Iiked more.


----------



## smurfz

Great news!
   
  Finally, I've been able to hear the difference between lossless and 320kbps MP3.
  I've been testing with Foobar+ABX. I have found a section where I can reliably (100% out of 8 ABX tests). I stopped after that.
   
*Source*: The Four Seasons by Amandine Beyer & Gli Incogniti - 24bit 96khz FLAC
*Track*: 5 Concerto Pour Violon RC372
*Section: *1:50 - 2:04
   
  Initially, I was looking for a better filled sound stage in various bass strings section strikes (which helped me pick out 192kbps vs 320kbps mp3). But this time, I wasn't hearing the differences there. So I started looking elsewhere and found harpsichord. There, I picked out the differences in the details while there were fairly high amplitudes of bass and violins. Once I found it, it was easy to pick it out reliably.
   
  I will test with some other types of music and report back with the findings.


----------



## spahn_ranch

Quote: 





head injury said:


> How exactly? The illusion of more detail is probably one of the most common symptoms of snake oil.
> 
> The easiest way to prove it's not snake oil is an ABX test. Which is very, very easy with digital files like this. If you've got Windows handy just download Foobar and the ABX plugin and load the two files up.


 

  
_Illlusion_. Which is not what I'm saying.
   
  The kind of spiked brightness detail fitting the description of illusion would be rather tiring, whereas this detail is quite the opposite and sweet as music naturally is. Detail is improved all across the spectrum and ABX - should you actually need it - is as easy as described by smurfz.
   
  It's been about a year since the first talks of Amarra on various audio fora. Most of it not on this one. Amarra isn't the only show around either; I've run a demo of Vinyl 3 as well which I also find sounds better than itunes. The full version of Amarra is very expensive; for me the value of the mini version covers and far exceeds its not negligible price tag.


----------



## Head Injury

Quote: 





spahn_ranch said:


> _Illlusion_. Which is not what I'm saying.
> 
> The kind of spiked brightness detail fitting the description of illusion would be rather tiring, whereas this detail is quite the opposite and sweet as music naturally is. Detail is improved all across the spectrum and ABX - should you actually need it - is as easy as described by smurfz.


 

 I'm not talking about brightness. I'm talking about believing one hears more detail based on placebo. You switch to one sighted file, believe there's some significant improvement in detail based on the codec, then switch to the other sighted file. A few things happen when you switch back: you already concluded that the first file sounds more detailed whether it does or not, so you fully expect the second to sound less so; audio memory is so weak and short that by the time you start listening you can't even remember what the detail sounded like; taking those two things in mind, your brain tricks you into thinking not only that you're right, but that you remembered more detail in the other file even if you didn't.
   
  He ABXed lossless vs. 320kbps, not iTunes vs. Amarra. I'm not talking about lossless vs. lossy. I fully expect there to be some audible, but often small, difference between those two. It's no good claiming ABX is easy if you haven't done it. So sorry, but I can't go by your word and the trust you place in your ears. Ears are too tricky.


----------



## aimlink

Quote: 





head injury said:


> He ABXed lossless vs. 320kbps, not iTunes vs. Amarra. I'm not talking about lossless vs. lossy. I fully expect there to be some audible, but often small, difference between those two. It's no good claiming ABX is easy if you haven't done it. So sorry, but I can't go by your word and the trust you place in your ears. Ears are too tricky.


 

 Well, poor old me who hears differences in cables, cannot hear a difference that others claim exist when using Pure Music Player (an iTunes plugin).  I'm now very skeptic about Amarra.  The thing is that a DBX test isn't hard to carry out.
   
  I did sited testing on 256Kbit and lossless.  I'm getting better and better at hearing the differences.  In the past, I genuinely couldn't most of the time.  I should revisit 320Kbps since the last time I fiddled between them, I couldn't tell the difference.


----------



## nick_charles

Quote: 





smurfz said:


> Great news!
> 
> Finally, I've been able to hear the difference between lossless and 320kbps MP3.
> I've been testing with Foobar+ABX. I have found a section where I can reliably (100% out of 8 ABX tests). I stopped after that.
> ...


 


 Did you do the encoding yourself. I ask because Linn samples are notorious for there being actual differences between lossy and lossless samples apart from just the format. If you do the mp3 encoding yourself you remove this problem. Also 10 is better statistically, 20 is better still as it is more reliable, lucky runs of 8 are rare but not impossible. Still I also found a track where I could differentiate high bitrate mp3 and lossless in a DBT (17/20) and as you say once you find a telling artifact it is hard to not hear it, I was at 4/7 then it just clicked and I went 13/13, fun isnt it. In my case it was a source track that was recorded consistently very close to clipping and the mp3 encode seemed to exacerbate this..


----------



## spahn_ranch

Quote: 





head injury said:


> I'm not talking about brightness. I'm talking about believing one hears more detail based on placebo. You switch to one sighted file, believe there's some significant improvement in detail based on the codec, then switch to the other sighted file. A few things happen when you switch back: you already concluded that the first file sounds more detailed whether it does or not, so you fully expect the second to sound less so; audio memory is so weak and short that by the time you start listening you can't even remember what the detail sounded like; taking those two things in mind, your brain tricks you into thinking not only that you're right, but that you remembered more detail in the other file even if you didn't.
> 
> He ABXed lossless vs. 320kbps, not iTunes vs. Amarra. I'm not talking about lossless vs. lossy. I fully expect there to be some audible, but often small, difference between those two. It's no good claiming ABX is easy if you haven't done it. So sorry, but I can't go by your word and the trust you place in your ears. Ears are too tricky.


 
   
  To be certain, there's nothing at all to be sorry about. It's not like I'd be asking anyone to trust anything or anyone but their own ears and judgment. 
   
  Re ABX and placebo,
  I've said my piece on placebo. I also did reply to your suggestion of ABX, with a nod to how easy it is setting that up Amarra. Conducting such tests and the real benefit of them is indeed a whole nother matter; but again, to my ears the sound quality is too far apart for placebo, and likewise for ABX to be meaningful. Personally, at this point, I have other hobbies and expenses, and the money is too big to spend on something I'd have to ABX.


----------



## Head Injury

Quote: 





spahn_ranch said:


> to my ears the sound quality is too far apart for placebo, and likewise for ABX to be meaningful.


 

 It's not meaningful to you right now, but definitely meaningful to everyone else. How long would it take to do a 20 trial run? Say a 10 second clip, probably only 30 seconds a trial if the differences are a big as you claim. Ten minutes of your time. If you don't want to share some short and simple results, forgive me for calling you a victim of placebo, and forgive me for saying that your impressions hold little bearing down here in the Science pit.


----------



## haloxt

Quote: 





head injury said:


> forgive me for calling you a victim of placebo


 

 Or maybe he's just lazy? No offense to anyone, but sometimes all this demanding people of proof reminds me of the sort of roadblocks in research into animal intelligence, man thinks he is so smart because he fails to train intelligence into animals. Or in this case, man thinks he is so smart because he can't induce cable believers to prove it.


----------



## Head Injury

Quote: 





haloxt said:


> Or maybe he's just lazy? No offense to anyone, but sometimes all this demanding people of proof reminds me of the sort of roadblocks in research into animal intelligence, man thinks he is so smart because he fails to train intelligence into animals. Or in this case, man thinks he is so smart because he can't induce cable believers to prove it.


 

 I'm sure he's lazy or busy or something. I wouldn't want to test something the minute I'm asked to. However, that doesn't change the fact that he's wrong until he proves himself right. With something so easily tested, and with supposedly such marked differences in sound, ABX results will speak much louder than sighted beliefs.


----------



## spahn_ranch

Quote: 





head injury said:


> It's not meaningful to you right now, but definitely meaningful to everyone else. How long would it take to do a 20 trial run? Say a 10 second clip, probably only 30 seconds a trial if the differences are a big as you claim. Ten minutes of your time. If you don't want to share some short and simple results, forgive me for calling you a victim of placebo, and forgive me for saying that your impressions hold little bearing down here in the Science pit.


 
   
  How could 10 hours of my time possibly help anyone more than 10 minutes of their own would, in a matter such as this? Might it be safe to say that no one in this here saloon need be told how much the demo is.


----------



## Head Injury

Quote: 





spahn_ranch said:


> How could 10 hours of my time possibly help anyone more than 10 minutes of their own would, in a matter such as this? Might it be safe to say that no one in this here saloon need be told how much the demo is.


 

 Ten minutes, not hours. Was that a typo or are you just a very patient listener? 
	

	
	
		
		

		
			




   
  I don't have a Mac so I can't rip with Amarra. Though if you want to upload the Amarra and iTunes ALAC files somewhere, or clips of them that you think best represent the sound difference, then I'd be happy to do a 10- or 20-trial ABX on them. Just don't cry tin ears if it comes back negative. Unfortunately I think it's easy to be biased in a blind test when _expecting_ no differences like I do. Of course, anyone else will Amarra or the demo is encouraged to try, too.
   
  However, you're the one making the claim that it sounds better, so regardless I would still like to see you do a test at some point.


----------



## spahn_ranch

Quote: 





head injury said:


> Ten minutes, not hours. Was that a typo or are you just a very patient listener?
> 
> 
> 
> ...


 
  Minutes is right on; I should have said _even_ 10 hours. Lest I forget all about it up here in the wondrous heaven that is Amarra... if you can call me victim of placebo, tin ear is the least I can cry, fair enough? :wink back at ya:
   
  But sincerely, I'd be happy to spend well over 10 minutes arranging what you suggest, if it could be done. Amarra doesn't rip the bits, it only plays them.


----------



## Head Injury

Quote: 





spahn_ranch said:


> Minutes is right on; I should have said _even_ 10 hours. Lest I forget all about it up here in the wondrous heaven that is Amarra... if you can call me victim of placebo, tin ear is the least I can cry, fair enough? :wink back at ya:
> 
> But sincerely, I'd be happy to spend well over 10 minutes arranging what you suggest, if it could be done. Amarra doesn't rip the bits, it only plays them.


 

 Oh sorry! With the thread being about lossless vs. lossy, I thought you were comparing files ripped by one and the other. I think it was the word "processed" that confused me. The ABX plugin and Foobar will be of no use then, though a blind test with a friend shouldn't be too hard. But I will direct you here and say that you're not alone, though many there (and the only ones who seem interested in proving it one way or the other) don't believe there can be a difference if the players are bit-perfect.
   
  I'm also going to say that $995 for an audio player is ridiculous


----------



## spahn_ranch

Quote: 





head injury said:


> Oh sorry! With the thread being about lossless vs. lossy, I thought you were comparing files ripped by one and the other. I think it was the word "processed" that confused me. The ABX plugin and Foobar will be of no use then, though a blind test with a friend shouldn't be too hard. But I will direct you here and say that you're not alone, though many there (and the only ones who seem interested in proving it one way or the other) don't believe there can be a difference if the players are bit-perfect.
> 
> I'm also going to say that $995 for an audio player is ridiculous


 

 Would you have me jump into that thread? I'm in the "I'm just saying" camp on this; that's where I belong, as do probably most folks on the outside of Sonic Studio. The bits will have to do the talking, because I can't.
   
  Is it _just_ $995 now? It was $1500. One can give that a lot of names beside ridiculous. But it's a pro price tag, for those requiring 24/192. Amarra is based on what's apparently known as Soundblade with the pro crowd. The Mini is much cheaper than that and handles anything up to 24/96, which was requested by and should be an excellent alternative for real people.
  As per a recent newsletter, the v2.0 due June 15th will spawn another version, Junior, which plays up to 16/44.1 and is priced $80.


----------



## smurfz

Quote:


nick_charles said:


> Did you do the encoding yourself. I ask because Linn samples are notorious for there being actual differences between lossy and lossless samples apart from just the format. If you do the mp3 encoding yourself you remove this problem. Also 10 is better statistically, 20 is better still as it is more reliable, lucky runs of 8 are rare but not impossible. Still I also found a track where I could differentiate high bitrate mp3 and lossless in a DBT (17/20) and as you say once you find a telling artifact it is hard to not hear it, I was at 4/7 then it just clicked and I went 13/13, fun isnt it. In my case it was a source track that was recorded consistently very close to clipping and the mp3 encode seemed to exacerbate this..


 
   
  Yeah I did encode them myself using XLD which uses LAME. I used 320kbps CBR High Q (-q 2), Stereo, down-sampled to 44.1khz.
  But you're spot on with spotting the artifacts. My count of 8/8 was after I found it. I stopped after 8 because my ears were so tired of listening..  
  I must say listening out for artifacts aren't really about enjoying the music. But I needed to make sure that there is no placebo in lossless with the setup that I have.
  I think I will go and just listen to some good music for a while before I get back into testing again. (-:


----------



## vhbaske

Well, on an Ipod you can see this:  when you convert mp3 files to m4a and you convert FLAC files to m4a the FLAC files sound with more volume than the mp3.  Maybe the iPod has better ears than us.


----------



## Zembobo

I don't understand what you are saying here...why would you change your setup (cables, tubes, interconnects, etc) when going from one format (flac) to another (320k)?  It seems like you are trying to add things up that really wouldn't change.  Ceteris paribus I would still agree that FLAC is a better option.  Space is cheap and FLAC is becoming more compatible with digital devices.  Plus, you don't run into the "copy of a copy" degradation like you do with any compressed format.


----------



## Zembobo

Please entertain the possibility that the difference you're hearing is psychological.  This is not an attack on your post so please don't read too much into this 
	

	
	
		
		

		
			





 but try having a friend play one format and then the other without telling you the format and see how many times out of 50 you can guess it right.


----------



## Young Spade

^ He's basically saying to do a Blind test to see if you can tell the difference; a lot of people suggest to do these things with cables and audio codecs. My opinion is though; if you can hear a difference or think you do, then what's the problem?

 I used to use all FLAc until I got my iPod and of course, it can't playthat. I'm converting all of my music to 320kbs because the differences are minimal and I need the extra space.


----------



## tmars78

Quote: 





zembobo said:


> Please entertain the possibility that the difference you're hearing is psychological.  This is not an attack on your post so please don't read too much into this
> 
> 
> 
> ...


 


  you don't even need to have a friend to do it. Foobar has an ABX plug-in.


----------



## Dexon

Quote: 





tmars78 said:


> you don't even need to have a friend to do it. Foobar has an ABX plug-in.


 

 How to make it work? I got this message 'Failed to load DLL: foo_abx.dll Reason: The specified procedure could not be found.' It seems there's no documentation for the plugin. I'm using v0.9.5.6. version.


----------



## nick_charles

Quote: 





dexon said:


> How to make it work? I got this message 'Failed to load DLL: foo_abx.dll Reason: The specified procedure could not be found.' It seems there's no documentation for the plugin. I'm using v0.9.5.6. version.


 

 You need to download the plug-in, http://www.foobar2000.org/components/view/foo_abx extract the dll from the zip file and put it in the folder with the other dlls, (the foobar2000/components folder) 

 Then when you start FooBar select two tracks and right-click and the ABX option appears under Utilities


----------



## l3dz3pp3lin

Great... so where are the POLL results?
   
   
         BTW i have a BIG collection of jazz, classical, and rock (mainly 60's and 70's) which is encoded in mp3 320 from CD's
   
              ... i'll soon be getting Asus Xonar Essence STX and Sennheiser HD 558
   
                       .... so my question to you guys is, with that kind of music and hardware, FROM YOUR EXPERIENCE, would it be much of a differnece between mp3 320 and FLAC, or is it very little to none in most cases?
   
   
        Thank You


----------



## barleyguy

Quote: 





zembobo said:


> I don't understand what you are saying here...why would you change your setup (cables, tubes, interconnects, etc) when going from one format (flac) to another (320k)?  It seems like you are trying to add things up that really wouldn't change.  Ceteris paribus I would still agree that FLAC is a better option.  Space is cheap and FLAC is becoming more compatible with digital devices.  Plus, you don't run into the "copy of a copy" degradation like you do with any compressed format.


 

 mp3 does not degrade when copying.  It only degrades if you reencode the file.  Copying just makes a copy of the same bits from one place to another.


----------



## Angelbelow

For the most part I cant really tell as well. However, Ive never really done a serious and blind test to compare them side to side.
   
  Ultimately I have the space to spare and I dont want to look back and regret not going for FLAC so I strive to keep my collection on FLAC files.


----------



## Hongook

Quote: 





angelbelow said:


> For the most part I cant really tell as well. However, Ive never really done a serious and blind test to compare them side to side.
> 
> Ultimately I have the space to spare and I dont want to look back and regret not going for FLAC so I strive to keep my collection on FLAC files.


 

 that's exactly my thought process as well.


----------



## plonter

I came back to flac (on my dap) after experimenting a little with v0 mp3's.    the mp3 were fine..sounded great.  I didn't compare flac vs mp3 so i can't tell if i hear a difference,and probably i will not     but i still decided to come back to flac just for the great feeling of having cd's in the palm of my hand.  
  I also listen to my cowon j3 with a full size cans like the denon AHD-5000 and the grado RS1 so i prefer my music to be lossless in order to maximize the sound quality.  this way i know i do the best i can,and the rest depended on the original quality of the recorded cd.


----------



## mikeaj

In a few rare spots in certain tracks (i.e. otherwise not) I can ABX distinguish between LAME MP3 -V1 or sometimes -V0 vs. lossless, with somewhat reasonable accuracy.  I have to listen very carefully, find the exact spot, crank the volume up, have little distractions, and so on, and then I can get it like 80% right.  Others have better hearing and gear than me though.
   
  Generally I think you need to going with bitrates even lower than that to be able to get distortion artifacts that are actually jarring or that could be noticed in normal listening.  If you're never done any blind testing, most of the differences you think you hear probably aren't there in reality.  If you listen to the same track twice and try to hear differences, you will usually hear differences--even if they don't exist.
   
  Lossless codecs are great for archiving and playback purposes, so why not?  For portable use I transcode to Vorbis -q8 with the latest aoTuV build.  It's a variable bitrate codec that averages somewhere around 256 kbps depending on the music, so kind of similar to LAME -V0 except with better perceived quality (but higher encoding time).  I've never been able to tell that apart from lossless and I'm sure it's way overkill for noisier listening environments.


----------



## Freeze

Thanks for submitting your answer. The correct answer is *Clip #F.*
  You selected *Clip# F* …Congratulations!
  Clip #x is encoded at 320kbps (30359 votes)
 Clip #x is encoded at 128kbps (33785 votes)
   
   
  http://www.noiseaddicts.com/2009/03/mp3-sound-quality-test-128-320/
   
   
  was pretty easy to hear the difference with westone 3's between those 2 but look at that more people picked the 128k file. Guess i just got some golden ears.
   
  changed the numbers to letters as to not spoil it for anyone
   
  if you know to be listening at the treble since thats where music info is lost you have an advantage. If you didn't know that it'd be hard to tell the difference.
   
  320/v0  vs flac tho honestly is really hard to tell in most songs only a few select songs benefit from it  128 vs 320 is easier  than 320 vs flac


----------



## keanex

I'm happy with V0 until portable media players have "unlimited" storage. I like having my library with me. I choose V0 because I can't ABX it from FLAC so there's no point taking up the extra space.


----------



## MarioImpemba

A private audio forum I belong to did a double-blind 320kps vs Flac ABX and could not accurately distinguish differences.
   
  I absolutely cannot discern an audible difference with the same source material encoded to v0 vs. Flac over speakers due to the listening environment and quality of gear.
   
  Doubtful that would change given better gear, but will try again once my headphone set up arrives.


----------



## Bostonears

I have all my CDs ripped to FLAC (for use with my Squeezeboxes at home) and also converted to MP3 VBR -V0 LAME (primarily for use with my iPods, where storage space is a limited).
   
  I have compared the two formats back and forth many times using my best home audio equipment with both speakers and headphones. I only hear a subtle difference between the formats on albums that are really well recorded and mastered. (When there's an audible difference at all, it's most noticeable in the sound of cymbals.) I estimate that the two formats are indistinguishable on more than 90% of my albums. Nevertheless, I intend to keep all my music as FLAC files for archival purposes. Even if new compressed file formats emerge in the coming years, I'll always be able to generate them from the lossless FLACs.


----------

