MP3 320 Kbps vs. Lossless

Are you able to perceive the difference between MP3 @ 320 CBR and lossless?

  • I cannot tell the difference.

    Votes: 12 22.2%

  • I can tell the difference. It is not significant enough to keep a lossless collection.

    Votes: 13 24.1%

  • I can tell the difference. It is significant enough to justify lossless collection.

    Votes: 13 24.1%

  • I can only tell the difference when listening with audiophile quality components.

    Votes: 16 29.6%
  • Total voters
    54
  • Poll closed .
B

bore_u2_death

Limp Gawd
Joined
Sep 9, 2010
Messages
357
I want to get everyone's subjective opinion on this. I am creating an audio collection, and am wondering if it's worth the trouble to create a FLAC collection, or an MP3 collection.

If you think that keeping lossless audio is justified only under certain circumstances, please explain what quality of gear would be required to fully harness it.

Thank you.
 
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I rip to ALAC/FLAC because I consider my ripped collection an archive, and HDD space is really cheap these days. 2TB is less than $100.

When I want to move it to a portable device, I just encode to mp3, usually 192 or something. Computers are fast enough where the encode times aren't too bad.
 
I personally do not think you will hear much difference unless you have a decent, clean source, a pair of reference grade headphones or speakers and a clean background, ie power and internal noise is minimal. Say like a $150-200 external DAC, a pair of beyer 880 headphones or something like the WAF-1 speakers being the minimum. Even then the only difference you MIGHT hear is artifacts or compression and a slightly more restricted sound stage and range. Maybe. So if you have the space go ahead. If not, go 320 and reduce it to 192 for portable.
 
I strongly believe it's worth storing your music collection in lossless. This way you can always re-encode it in to the best format for a specific device you might be using in the future.

For example, my current portable is my 32GB iPhone so I batch encode my FLAC library into 192k vbr AAC because thats the best codec available for my iPhone and that bitrate allows me to fit my collection.

If I get a larger player in the future I can then simply re-encode my collection to 256k or 320k from the original lossless copies. Also If some new and improved compressed codec comes out or I get a player or streamer or something that works better with another codec, I can encode my library into that and always have the best quality available.

It only takes my i7 an hour and a half to chew through my ~5000 songs to go from FLAC to AAC.

Transcoding is a horrible horrible thing and can easily be avoided by doing what I do.

Also, I do have a decent set of cans and a headphone amp and I believe that in some types of music and with some great recordings I can indeed hear the difference between 320k MP3 and lossless.

Music is honestly not all that large. My collection is about 5000 tracks and that takes up 128GB utilizing the lossless FLAC compression. A 500GB drive for $35 bucks or whatever will be able to store you about 18,000 songs in lossless.

I really don't see data storage space as any issue here.
 
I can't hear the difference between FLAC and MP3 V0, let alone MP3 320. But I still have all my music ripped as FLAC. The reason is exactly what SirMaster explained: I want flexibility in transcoding to any format and bitrate I want for different purposes. For example, I batch encoded my entire library to MP3 V0 for storing on my work computer (where a 100 GB FLAC collection isn't exactly practical, but I still want the best quality possible), and MP3 V2 for my phone (where I've only got a 16 GB SDHC card to work with). Say MP3 falls out of vogue in a few years and some other lossy format like OGG or AAC is more supported by portable players, etc.? No problem for me... I'll just right click my whole FLAC library in foobar and overnight, I'll have everything in the new format.
 
I'm with 450. I rip to FLAC but for my portable devices I stick with AAC or LAME-VBR MP3 for space reasons.
 
There is a difference but it's best for storing backups of your CD's etc. as people are saying in-case you need to re encoder them. Re-encoding a MP3 can be bad.

For listening it can be very hard unless you have very very good hearing and can hear above 20 KHz. IF you look at a spectrum analyzer you can see the difference.
 
Archiving in FLAC is the way to go, but as for telling the difference, it depends on your audio rig. This difference can be worth several thousands of dollars of audiophile equipment.
 
BK_201 said:
This difference can be worth several thousands of dollars of audiophile equipment.
Click to expand...

Please explain this statement, I am unclear as to what it means.

Thank you so much for your responses so far everyone. I never thought about archiving my music so that I can encode it to my heart's content. Since I only have an iPod Classic, I always take MP3 @ 320, but in the future I would lock myself out of the flexibility to encode my files in different quality presets. And I most definitely wouldn't transcode, since that plain sucks.
 
I rip all my CD's in 320. I have a few in flac, but not that many. I put all the 320 stuff on my itouch and i'm good. Yeah, i can only hold about 800 songs, but that's okay with me. *shrugs*
 
It's highly unlikely that I could tell the difference but I am still migrating my whole collection to FLAC. With hard drive space so cheap now, there's no reason not to have perfect copies of CDs. I don't have reference quality equipment right now... but I very well may in the future, and I'll be ready.
 
Eh, I rip and store FLAC because I like knowing that nothing got lost between the cd and my speakers. That being said, it's definitely more piece of mind then a real SQ difference. I think if I look for it, I can distinguish ever so slightly more depth in Flac than in V0. But in honesty, were I to walk into my room and be informed one of my tracks was playing and to guess if it was playing in V0 or Flac, I would have no idea. Heck, don't let me get a frame of reference and play it once in each format, and I still doubt I would be able to tell which play was which.

But yeah, if you are going to keep your collection in mp3, for the love of god don't store it in 320CBR, there is really no justification for that. Encode it with the LAME codec and there will be no difference between the 320 and the V0 except the 320 will take up more space.

EDIT: Just to note my speakers are Linn Majik 109s. Their setup could of course be better, for one thing they're on a desk instead of stands, but I think they're still good enough to distinguish the difference between flac and v0 if it's really there. Just saying, if you get a reference setup, v0s won't exactly make you feel like you wasted your money.

2nd EDIT: Your poll is missing the option "I may not be able to tell the difference, but find no reason to not keep a flac collection for peace of mind." So I'm not voting.
 
PhantmShado said:
2nd EDIT: Your poll is missing the option "I may not be able to tell the difference, but find no reason to not keep a flac collection for peace of mind." So I'm not voting.
Click to expand...

At the time having peace of mind and having a versatile collection that can be encoded for different devices didn't even cross my mind. Thanks, I'll keep that in mind in the future.
 
I can only tell the difference when it comes to instruments playing ie Miles Davis and its only very subtle.
Using entry level audio equipment for reference:
I have an Energy 5.1 system (RC50s + RC10s + Denon 2310)
Headphones Sennheiser 555 no external DAC

I can't really vote, I keep a FLAC collection whenever I can because hard drives are cheap.
 
I voted i can tell the difference between 320mp3 and FLAC. However there are only a handful of albums i have where this is true (about 20ish), i find it really does depend on how it's recorded in the first place. Most of mine i can't tell the difference or only if i really listen closely and "get into the sound". So i, just as many others, use FLAC as more of a peice of mind option and also because it's easy to rip into whatever format if needed, for me it's 320mp3 for portable use and no less.
 
I can tell the difference between 320 and flac. I don't exactly have audiophile components either. A lot of it depends on how sensitive your hearing is and the quality of the source. Some CDs sound like crap whether ripped to flac or 320. Other CDs, there is a noticeable difference even with $20 headphones.
 
Vexerz said:
I can only tell the difference when it comes to instruments playing ie Miles Davis and its only very subtle.
Using entry level audio equipment for reference:
I have an Energy 5.1 system (RC50s + RC10s + Denon 2310)
Headphones Sennheiser 555 no external DAC
Click to expand...
From what the internet has led me to believe RC10s were only entry level in their price. Heck, if Klipsch hadn't bought and gutted the company I probably would have bought a pair on rep alone and been done with it. Also, external DACs add little SQ to the modern system. A smaller difference than V0 vs Flac if differentiable at all.


PCMusicGuy said:
I can tell the difference between 320 and flac. I don't exactly have audiophile components either. A lot of it depends on how sensitive your hearing is and the quality of the source. Some CDs sound like crap whether ripped to flac or 320. Other CDs, there is a noticeable difference even with $20 headphones.
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Can you please name some cds which could be differentiated with $20 headphones? I'd like to give it a shot.
 
PhantmShado said:
From what the internet has led me to believe RC10s were only entry level in their price. Heck, if Klipsch hadn't bought and gutted the company I probably would have bought a pair on rep alone and been done with it. Also, external DACs add little SQ to the modern system. A smaller difference than V0 vs Flac if differentiable at all.
Click to expand...

Anything less than $2000 is relatively entry level, so point is moot anyway. RC10s at full msrp are still considered entry level in the audiophile world which is where I was basing it from.
Pertaining to this thread, I don't think you can justify spending more especially to mid range ballpark money $3k + just to hear the difference in lossless imo. At the same time, its a good idea to keep FLAC files around for future tech. Hypothetically speaking: say couple years from now apple ipods and next gen smartphones get the ability to play FLAC files.
 
Vexerz said:
Anything less than $2000 is relatively entry level, so point is moot anyway. RC10s at full msrp are still considered entry level in the audiophile world which is where I was basing it from.
Pertaining to this thread, I don't think you can justify spending more especially to mid range ballpark money $3k + just to hear the difference in lossless imo. At the same time, its a good idea to keep FLAC files around for future tech. Hypothetically speaking: say couple years from now apple ipods and next gen smartphones get the ability to play FLAC files.
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$2000 can get you a heck of a headphone setup though.

Sennheiser HD800s can be found for $1000
Pair those with a Benchmark DAC-1 Pre for $1000

With that you could even differentiate between 16/44.1 lossless and 24/96 lossless.

iPods and iPhones already play ALAC (Apple Lossless Audio Codec) which is similar to FLAC in that it's lossless compression. It also provides a similar compression ratio.

Lots of users still buy iPod Classics because they have 160GB drives which is enough for over 5000 ALAC tracks.

Still, FLAC is probably more universal on a PC, but you could easily convert to ALAC, sync to your iPod then then delete the ALAC.
 
SirMaster said:
$2000 can get you a heck of a headphone setup though.

Sennheiser HD800s can be found for $1000
Pair those with a Benchmark DAC-1 Pre for $1000

With that you could even differentiate between 16/44.1 lossless and 24/96 lossless.

iPods and iPhones already play ALAC (Apple Lossless Audio Codec) which is similar to FLAC in that it's lossless compression. It also provides a similar compression ratio.

Lots of users still buy iPod Classics because they have 160GB drives which is enough for over 5000 ALAC tracks.

Still, FLAC is probably more universal on a PC, but you could easily convert to ALAC, sync to your iPod then then delete the ALAC.
Click to expand...

MIght as well go balanced with that setup. It will make telling the differences that much greater.
 
SirMaster said:
$2000 can get you a heck of a headphone setup though.

Sennheiser HD800s can be found for $1000
Pair those with a Benchmark DAC-1 Pre for $1000

With that you could even differentiate between 16/44.1 lossless and 24/96 lossless.

iPods and iPhones already play ALAC (Apple Lossless Audio Codec) which is similar to FLAC in that it's lossless compression. It also provides a similar compression ratio.

Lots of users still buy iPod Classics because they have 160GB drives which is enough for over 5000 ALAC tracks.

Still, FLAC is probably more universal on a PC, but you could easily convert to ALAC, sync to your iPod then then delete the ALAC.
Click to expand...

In the context of his reply to my 1st statement and rebuttal: All speakers/floorstanding speakers, no headphones discussed. ie RC10s RC50s = book shelves and floorstanding. Pertaining to OP though, it might be what I sense he's looking for. Lowest price he would have to go to find that noticeable improvement for lossless.
 
Vexerz said:
In the context of his reply to my 1st statement and rebuttal: All speakers/floorstanding speakers, no headphones discussed. ie RC10s RC50s = book shelves and floorstanding. Pertaining to OP though, it might be what I sense he's looking for. Lowest price he would have to go to find that noticeable improvement for lossless.
Click to expand...

Yeah, that's what I figured anyways.

I would say that if you know what your listening for, you could get a headphone and dac/amp for $500 and hear a difference in at least some tracks.
 
This is kind of like asking if you can tell if AA is on when you are playing Quake 3. Maybe, maybe not.
 
The choice I wanted wasn't in the poll. I can't tell the difference most of the time, but I would go with lossless regardless. Seriously, you only want to do this once. Choosing MP3 over FLAC is just plain stupid.

Then for your portable player, rip it to 256K or whatever your threshold is (from the FLAC) for the quality of the device.
 
Valnar said:
The choice I wanted wasn't in the poll. I can't tell the difference most of the time, but I would go with lossless regardless. Seriously, you only want to do this once. Choosing MP3 over FLAC is just plain stupid.
Click to expand...

I agree with the going with lossless regardless bit.

I can tell the difference, but the difference is not enough to justify a complete lossless collection. I use FLAC whenever I can at home/PC because I know I've got nothing to lose as hard drive space is not an issue, so there's no reason not to get FLAC.

I do however maintain a separate mp3 320 version of my library so I can fit it onto my iPhone. With limited space, I am prepared to sacrifice lossless quality for more tracks. Being on the go listening on the iPhone, there are too many distractions/ambient noise + I'm not really deeply immersed into the music while on the go, so IMO, lossless for portable non-home use is overkill.
 
PhantmShado said:
Can you please name some cds which could be differentiated with $20 headphones? I'd like to give it a shot.
Click to expand...

Two off the top of my head,

Fall Out Boy - Infinity on High
The Chronicles of Narnia - The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe sountrack
 
Just like I would watch hi def content or play at higher res if I can. Even if I can't immediately tell the difference.
 
I have tried this test using my car audio system which almost 2000 watts RMS and cant tell the difference. I had flac files that were converted to .wav vs taking the flac files and encoding them to v0 vbr mp3 files. Granted my audio system in my car isn't exactly all 'top of the line' components which may void the test completely but the fact that I couldn't hear the difference was enough for me to just skip over keeping flac files. I certainly cant hear the difference on my computer speakers either so I dont see the point of wasting the space. I still have all of my cds so I can rip them to flac at a later date if I need/want to but for now I'm satisfied with my v0 vbr files.
 
What Empty_Quarter said. I keep two complete libraries - same content, different bitrate - for stationary and portable use.

One is FLAC, and currently the lossy library is in 256K MP3. The FLAC copy resides primarily on the HTPC, while the MP3 library is parsed on my WHS / synced to my portables.

Because I know that I'll never buy a Korean/Chinese non-phone player again (these morons - or their feedback user base perhaps - still appear to have not cottoned onto why they lost the war with Apple) so I'm currently debating whether to move to AAC for better per-bitrate performance for my lossy library.

The advantage with FLAC of course is that it's CD archival as well, so in the case of the above for example I can just re-transcode when I decide to change a lossy codec - as well as it being a viable backup to all my CD's (currently most of it is in storage).

I think the interesting discrepancy is that the most apparently rabid supporters of FLAC in enthusiast forums tend to be those who appear to use it portably. To me this makes no sense whatsoever - there is no way, even with custom-moulded earphones, that you can tell the difference between FLAC and high-bitrate lossy rips because of the ambient noise. Same goes for even premium car audio.
 
I thank all of you for your responses, and it was enlightening to say the least to find out why some of us do/don't keep lossless music.

I will definitely be keeping a FLAC collection. I didn't ever consider the versatility one gets by keeping lossless audio, and that alone warrants keeping lossless audio.

Cheers!
 
Sorry for the resurrection but i found this and wanted to share it. :p
XnW4f.jpg
 
I couldnt tell the difference till this last version of my car stereo. I went from older kenwood amps and low end JL components/ W0 subs, to all Zapco amps, with a dedicated Zapco DSP and Hybrid Audio Technologies components, with Image Dynamics subs.

I can DEFINITELY hear a difference, and I couldn't before. Don't get me wrong, 320 sounds excellent, but FLAC and just a regular old CD audio file, sound better. The largest difference came when I went to the L1 Pro tweeters, as the softer female vocals, and other high end tones are distinctly clearer between 320 and FLAC/CD Audio.

It sort of sucks, at least half my music is almost unlistenable now. Its strange that a better stereo can make a bad recording (or rip in this case) sound even worse. But I have been slowly but surely either buying the CDs, or DLing them in FLAC and re-burning them to CD Audio so my HU can play them.


That said, I have what at full retail (including the VERY extensive sound deadening and all the custom install work I have done) would likely be a close to $7k stereo if not more. (I work in a high end car audio/custom shop) My wife's car has what would amount to a roughly $1500 stereo (Diamond Audio D6 components a Diamond D3 8" sub in a sealed downfiring box) and Massive amps (massive brand, not size lol) and you absolutely cant tell the difference. In fact I doubt you could tell the difference from FLAC to 256.

So for probably 95% of people, there wont be an audible difference.


UNLESS you are talking about people like us ( [H] members) who tend to use higher end headphones when we are doing any sort of critical listening, in which case, I would bet you could tell the difference on some $250-400 cans.

Also for the record on an Audigy and M-Audio AV40s I cant hear the difference at all.

But I can DEFINITELY tell in my car.
 
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I have to say I never could tell a difference till I bought my first set of custom fit IEM's. Everyone always says they cant tell a difference in the various formats RIGHT TILL they start listening to them on a decent system. Some systems you just will never get good sound from no matter what. A good amp or set of speakers can and will reveal compression artifacts and other faults with low quality rips. you can also find layers to music that you did not know even exist. There are a couple of songs like Space Oddity (David Bowie) or Horse and Rider ( Steve Miller) that have very faint intro drum rolls. Most systems you think there are an extra 10 -15 secs of silence on the start of these tracks because they just cant pick up the faint drumming.

So in the end I would agree with most of the comments. In many ways most average users will never be able to tell the difference in quality levels from source to source that just a fact of life. Some people have convinced themselves there can be no improvement and for those people there wont be. If you have the storage space and/or the audio set up I would say go lossless otherwise stick with MP3s.
 
Ive yet to do an ABX test on 320 and lossless. I was able to pass 6/6 comparing 198 and lossless though. I think Id have a hard time identifying 320 and lossless tbh.
 
SirMaster said:
With that you could even differentiate between 16/44.1 lossless and 24/96 lossless.
Click to expand...

I've found that DVD-A/SACD/etc are often times mixed differently as well so they're not all that difficult to distinguish from CD. I would presume this is also true with more inexpensive setups, but all I've got to test with is a y2 DAC => PPAv2 => HD-650.
 
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