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Flac vs Mp3 Quality

7K views 39 replies 13 participants last post by  AudiocRaver 
#1 ·
Is it worth to download huge size flac over small size mp3 playing on 2.1ch speakers and headphone?does it make any difference to music quality experience?
 
#2 ·
Yes it does, FLAC maintains all of the original quality. MP3 is a compression format and when you compress you remove bits. The more bits you remove the less dynamic and crisp the recording will sound. mp3 sounds just fine if you keep the bitrate high (above 256kbs) but anything lower and the highs really start to get crushed and you start hearing noise.
 
#3 ·
I agree with Tony in that the more bits, assuming a good recording in the first place, the better the end result. However, this will be very dependent of what equipment will be used as well as what the listener finds important.

Personally, with space being so cheap, I would always go go for the least destructive recording
 
#4 ·
Agreed, if you listen on a hifi system or through a good pair of headphones, go with the least destructive compression -- that is, lossless compression like flac or alac. For background music low-bitrate mp3 is probably fine, but for any serious, focused listening on a hifi system, I would expect (though haven't personally tried it) that even 256 kbps mp3 is audibly lower fidelity than flac.
 
#8 ·
Anything below 256Kbps.

The lower the bit rate the more audible .mp3 compression is. Technically, "compression" is the wrong term, though. It's actually "bit-rate reduction", a way to use less bits per second to represent audio. 128Kbps .mp3 uses less than 1/10 the data in an original CD rip. In other words, it's thrown away 90% of the original data. Small files, fast to download, takes up less storage space, sounds awful.
 
#7 ·
Like the others have said, FLAC is worth it.

But it also depends on your speakers/headphones, hearing, the mp3 encoder & bitrate, etc. If you don't, or can't hear the difference you might not care about it. It's quite possible that an mp3 encoded with LAME set at -V 2 (which would result in a bitrate of maybe ~200 kbps + or -, depending on the type of music) would sound exactly like the CD. I say ~200kbps, but that setting uses VBR so sections of the music may be encoded at 32kbps or up to 320 kbps.
 
#10 ·
I would understand thinking that flacs are big if we still had dialup and small hard drives...but broadband is pretty much everywhere (although it's still terrible throughout most of the US) and 2-4TB drives are relatively cheap.

flac is of course better and worth it. Lossless = perfect copies. With that being said, I don't mind having mp3s on my phone or in the car. mp3s encoded with lame using the v2 or v0 presets sound just fine to me.
 
#11 ·
I ripped my CD collection to a hard drive at 320Kbps. I did a quick a/b comparison between teh CD and teh mp3 and I could not tell a difference when the SPL averaged between 70 - 75 db
 
#14 ·
AAC has a low pass filter and tends to chop everything above about 16K to keep the rest of the file at a better quality.
 
#15 ·
Another myth raises it's ugly head.

Here's the experiment, easily duplicated if you like.

Generate a 20Hz to 20KHz, 20 second sweep. Audition will do it nicely. Generate the file at 16/48 or 24/48. Looking at the original file, notice the amplitude over the entire 20 seconds. Play the file and observe the meters don't change for the entire length of the file.

Import the file into iTunes.

Generate an AAC version. I tried 320Kbps, 256Kbps, and 128Kbps. Anything below that doesn't really interest me, but you can try anything you like.

Locate the generated AAC versions, open them in your editor of choice, Audition or Audacity, or whatever. Look at the amplitude over the entire length of the file. Then play the file while watching the meters.

I see not even .1dB variance from 20Hz t0 20KHz for any of the three bit rate AAC files.

Myth busted. AAC has no such 16KHz filter at any reasonable bit rate.
 
#17 ·
Very possibly a myth but I've tried AAC and my preference is 256 VBR mp3 set at high quality. The same song defiantly sounded better in the high end using mp3 VBR
 
#27 ·
Does it do the same thing with the sweep at different rates? I wonder why it is looking like a LPF. My understanding of the coding is that it should not do this, but maybe most lower bit rate implementations are? Or is this an artifact of the sweep rate interacting with the windowing?
 
#28 ·
I dunno. The sweep was slow, a 14 second 10KHz to 24KHz linear, the idea being 1KHz per second, so I could verify without doing an FFT that the response was actually correct.

I tried a sweep at 10x the rate (1.4 seconds), it shows the same LPF, though the FFT resolution starts to fail a bit so the plots aren't as nice. Same cutoff frequencies though.
 
#34 ·
I understood third-party just fine. I took your previous post to mean iTunes allows for external encoding options, something similar to EAC's external command line options. After a quick Google lookup, as you said it looks like something sort of similar is available. Looks like it's been possible for a long time actually...?

Anyway, sorry to others following this thread for getting off-topic.
 
#37 ·
Interesting answers here, informative to be sure.
I would think that 320 would be the low bit rate selection imho as anything below that seems to have a forced midrange as if the tops and bottoms are lopped off and the midrange sounds strangely enhanced.
Never the less, I guess I think that as fast as things are changing and improving, I tend to rip at a higher rate, FLAC or Apple Lossless because I believe I can hear a difference and space is cheap. But even if my hearing does not stay sharp, I think, and this is where I am not sure, but I think that once the file is changed, it cannot be brought back to its original state. Also isn't it easier on the computer to rip at a higher bit rate and not have to work so hard trying to compress bits ?
 
#39 ·
Interesting answers here, informative to be sure.
I would think that 320 would be the low bit rate selection imho as anything below that seems to have a forced midrange as if the tops and bottoms are lopped off and the midrange sounds strangely enhanced.
The bottoms aren't lopped off, at lower sampling frequencies the top is taken off somewhat, questionable how audible that is. Limited frequency response isn't the big problem though.

The artifacts of low a bit rate are hard to describe in words, I would encourage everyone to deliberately create a few files at 64Kbps and listen for the exaggerated effects. Mostly they occur mid band, not as enhancement, but as a swishy character, and as bit rates go lower, sharp attacks are altered and almost seem to have their timing skewed. If you've heard recordings reversed, it's sort of like that, but not quite. See what I mean? Hard to describe. Make a few low rate files and listen. Once you've heard the artifacts you can pick them out easily.
Never the less, I guess I think that as fast as things are changing and improving, I tend to rip at a higher rate, FLAC or Apple Lossless because I believe I can hear a difference and space is cheap. But even if my hearing does not stay sharp, I think, and this is where I am not sure, but I think that once the file is changed, it cannot be brought back to its original state. Also isn't it easier on the computer to rip at a higher bit rate and not have to work so hard trying to compress bits ?
As mentioned, lossy compression is a one-way street. You can't un-loss it. Since much of the damage becomes audible in the mid band even those with hearing loss can hear the lossy artifacts. I also find I can hear artifacts even when material is played very quietly.
 
#38 ·
You are correct that you can never recover the lost information from a lossy compression - another reason why transcoding lossy files is a bad idea.

Regarding how hard your computer is working when it comes to compressing music, it really shouldn't make a difference as to what level of compression you are using (ie maximum vs minimum lossless compression) unless your computer is super duper old and can't handle it.
 
#40 ·
My MP3 Listenability Threshold:

To clarify:

There are some older, rarely-accessed tracks in my library - tracks that I either cannot find the source for or that I use so seldom that re-ripping is not worth the trouble - that are in mp3 format. On the occasion that I access one, the 320K and 256K tracks are very listenable and I can usually "tune out" any subtle artifacts and enjoy the music. Tracks at 192K are usually enjoyable as well, with a bit more "tuning out." Tracks with encoding at 128K or below are almost always distracting enough that I will not even bother with them, just erase them on the spot.

Any more, I never rip to any kind of lossy compressed format. All new rips are flac &/or wav.
 
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