flac or 320 kpbs mp3?

  On 3/21/2010 at 1:46 AM, Boxing Day said:

I am sorry , but if you rather listen to a shit quality version of a track , you either hate music or are totally ignorant of the magic of lossless formats

the only ignorance here is your dogmatic dismissal of the mp3 format. most people can't tell the difference between 320kbps / V0 mp3s and uncompressed .wav files, myself included.

if you are one of those persons with ultra-sensitivity to compression artifacts and determine that high-quality mp3s are "shit quality", then that's your perspective.

this becomes an elitist "i have better perception of quality in various formats than most" talk very quickly. i don't claim that some people can't tell a difference, but i'd wager that even those who can tell a difference can't tell when listening to a portable player on an airplane.

i had a guy argue with me the other day that FLAC was "crap" and that he could tell a difference.

there's always one.

why on earth would you store lossy fuking data when bandwidth and storage is so cheap

hilarious. tells a lot about a person.

so i just did an ABX test with a V2 and a cd-quality of Autechre's d-sho qub. my result was 10/20 (i was right in 50%). wow.

if anybody cares to try, i made a package for you (windows): http://www.dontlisten.com/test/abx.zip

i listen to 192 or 320 on the whole....im not that concerned with loss of quality until it dips below 192

  On 3/21/2010 at 4:26 PM, Root5 said:

I find that, when it is my own music, 320 usually sounds significantly worse than wav. But maybe that's because I can't master properly.

 

Music with a lot of reverb also loses something noticeable. Especially classical music recorded in a cathedral or a similar space. There is a brightness to the reverb that gets lost in 320. But it is rather subtle and doesn't make that much of a different.

agreed. I keep the master files of all my tracks so I always have the option of listening to them uncompressed.

  On 3/21/2010 at 5:49 PM, kokoon said:

i just checked :)

 

i can actually hear up to 20kHz, but i have to raise the volume above 16kHz quite a lot to hear anything. if i keep the volume constant (set so that 2kHz feels comfortable), then it's between 16kHz and 16.5kHz

 

but seriously, if i pump up the volume, i can hear just a bit below 20kHz!

lol you´re lucky your speakers didnt die.

hearing tests make the most sense when performed at a "normal" volume level. Afaik your hearing is not inly based on the frequencies, but also on the sound pressure, which of course is bigger at a higher volume.

  On 3/21/2010 at 6:55 PM, kokoon said:

so i just did an ABX test with a V2 and a cd-quality of Autechre's d-sho qub. my result was 10/20 (i was right in 50%). wow.

 

if anybody cares to try, i made a package for you (windows): http://www.dontlisten.com/test/abx.zip

you did as good as a coin flip :)

as i said, no need for more than v2.

  On 3/21/2010 at 9:06 PM, GORDO said:

  On 3/21/2010 at 6:55 PM, kokoon said:

so i just did an ABX test with a V2 and a cd-quality of Autechre's d-sho qub. my result was 10/20 (i was right in 50%). wow.

 

if anybody cares to try, i made a package for you (windows): http://www.dontlisten.com/test/abx.zip

 

you did as good as a coin flip :)

 

as i said, no need for more than v2.

i agree with this in the majority of my music listening. but with albums i really love, i prefer not to listen to an imitation of the released work. The CD is already only an dithered imitation of what the artist created, why then discard more data / add processing.

I but a needle between by bumcheeks and rub it on my vinyl, 'cause I really love music.

  On 3/21/2010 at 1:18 AM, JohnTqs said:

  On 3/21/2010 at 1:16 AM, oscillik said:

  On 3/21/2010 at 1:14 AM, JohnTqs said:

i go with 320 kbps. i would only use flac if i could genuinely hear a difference, which i don't. plus is flac even truly lossless?

yes it is truly lossless

 

wouldn't it need to have an infinite bitrate? and isn't that impossible for a digital file to do?

You would need an infinite bitrate (and sample rate) to capture real-world sound losslessly. This format doesn't exist but a lot of people think 48Khz/24bit is generally accurate enough. CD quality (44.1/16) is lossy because it can only reproduce signals up to 22.05Khz at 16 bits of accuracy (2^16 possible voltages to send to the speakers, in steps).

FLAC is called "lossless" because it doesn't lose quality from a WAV file. MP3 is considered "lossy" because it's made to reduce quality in an acceptable way so that it vastly decreases filesize.

well, neither our ears are lossless, how can a digital or analog format be?

What about the influence of earwax on sound quality?

  On 3/21/2010 at 11:17 PM, Enter a new display name said:

What about the influence of earwax on sound quality?

while we're on the subject, what about the density of moisture in the air...how does this factor into sound quality?

also, if you're in a hard water area, does the high end appear brighter and fuller than if listened to in a soft water area?

how about the influence of our brain on sound quality, there's a need for a brain to exist sound, if no brain exists we're just talking about vibrations...

I don't think my ears can detect a difference between 320kbps and a wav file, so 320 would work for me. But I still buy everything on CD and haven't given many mp3s a close listen. You're definitely missing a lot with anything lower than 256kbps.

Real audiophiles obviously sacrifice their 4 other senses so they can fully focus on the listening part. So they basically become paralyzed, their eyes and nose have no purpose to stay on their face, and tasting their own saliva distracts them too much.

Anybody who says they can hear any difference that would effect how much you enjoy the music between 320 and FLAC are either lying for elitisms sake or imagining it.

  On 3/21/2010 at 11:30 PM, AcrossCanyons said:

Anybody who says they can hear any difference that would effect how much you enjoy the music between 320 and FLAC are either lying for elitisms sake or imagining it.

  On 3/21/2010 at 9:39 PM, Adjective said:

  On 3/21/2010 at 9:06 PM, GORDO said:

  On 3/21/2010 at 6:55 PM, kokoon said:

so i just did an ABX test with a V2 and a cd-quality of Autechre's d-sho qub. my result was 10/20 (i was right in 50%). wow.

 

if anybody cares to try, i made a package for you (windows): http://www.dontlisten.com/test/abx.zip

 

you did as good as a coin flip :)

 

as i said, no need for more than v2.

i agree with this in the majority of my music listening. but with albums i really love, i prefer not to listen to an imitation of the released work. The CD is already only an dithered imitation of what the artist created, why then discard more data / add processing.

I understand the sentiment and i'd say i share it with the things i really love, however, that need of purity is just silly if you think about it for 2 seconds. you can never have what the artist instended for the only reason that you are a different person and you'll never be able to understand it as the artist did. the real imitation of the work is in your head, not in the physical/digital medium. and for the most part your brain can fill in any loss of information far more effectively than any copy technology.

  On 3/21/2010 at 11:36 PM, Boxing Day said:

  On 3/21/2010 at 11:30 PM, AcrossCanyons said:

Anybody who says they can hear any difference that would effect how much you enjoy the music between 320 and FLAC are either lying for elitisms sake or imagining it.

 

  On 3/21/2010 at 11:30 PM, AcrossCanyons said:

Anybody who says they can hear any difference that would effect how much you enjoy the music between 320 and FLAC are either lying for elitisms sake or imagining it.

  On 3/21/2010 at 11:41 PM, AcrossCanyons said:

  On 3/21/2010 at 11:36 PM, Boxing Day said:

  On 3/21/2010 at 11:30 PM, AcrossCanyons said:

Anybody who says they can hear any difference that would effect how much you enjoy the music between 320 and FLAC are either lying for elitisms sake or imagining it.

 

 

  On 3/21/2010 at 11:30 PM, AcrossCanyons said:

Anybody who says they can hear any difference that would effect how much you enjoy the music between 320 and FLAC are either lying for elitisms sake or imagining it.

The human ear can nominally hear sounds in the range 20 Hz to 20,000 Hz (20 kHz). This upper limit tends to decrease with age, most adults being unable to hear above 16 kHz. The ear itself does not respond to frequencies below 20 Hz, but these can be perceived via the body's sense of touch. Some recent research has also demonstrated a hypersonic effect which is that although sounds above about 20 kHz cannot consciously be heard, they may induce changes in EEG (electroencephalogram) readouts of listeners or in controlled test environments, though this has been challenged in later studies[citation needed] and there is not yet a scientific consensus.

  On 3/21/2010 at 11:41 PM, AcrossCanyons said:

  On 3/21/2010 at 11:36 PM, Boxing Day said:

  On 3/21/2010 at 11:30 PM, AcrossCanyons said:

Anybody who says they can hear any difference that would effect how much you enjoy the music between 320 and FLAC are either lying for elitisms sake or imagining it.

 

 

  On 3/21/2010 at 11:30 PM, AcrossCanyons said:

Anybody who says they can hear any difference that would effect how much you enjoy the music between 320 and FLAC are either lying for elitisms sake or imagining it.

Knowing you are listening to a lower-quality version of your favourite track should affect you

  On 3/21/2010 at 11:41 PM, AcrossCanyons said:

  On 3/21/2010 at 11:36 PM, Boxing Day said:

  On 3/21/2010 at 11:30 PM, AcrossCanyons said:

Anybody who says they can hear any difference that would effect how much you enjoy the music between 320 and FLAC are either lying for elitisms sake or imagining it.

 

 

  On 3/21/2010 at 11:30 PM, AcrossCanyons said:

Anybody who says they can hear any difference that would effect how much you enjoy the music between 320 and FLAC are either lying for elitisms sake or imagining it.

ha but that's tricky, i remember reading about some blind tests in which the result was that people enjoyed more the crappy mp3 encondings opposed to a lossless one.

Yeah I think we're not there yet for FLAC size, especially anybody who has a good solid size record collection (500+ CD). You need the double space for the backup. FLAC and Mp3 are both open source, so in the future it'll be good. But the popularity of Mp3 make it sure that in the future they will be listenable on any platform (future = say 15 years from now). I decided now for VBR 0, because I am forced to have iTunes where I work and my collection is more than 2000+ albums. To each his own method. I have to say, if I had under 500 albums I would really think about double rips, that is having a FLAC and having a Mp3 version of the same album. At least that would keep me from having to re-rip all my albums in the future.

Always keep a backup in a different physical place, and always keep your original CD's.

It all depends on your equipment really. Some setups are made for MP3s and others for lossless. For MP3's I use V0 and for my flacs I use compression level 8.

  On 3/21/2010 at 6:08 PM, saikobjorn said:

If you've got time and interest for it, here's an interesting video that highlights some audio quality issues in a entertaining and fathomable way.

cheers for the link.