FLAC vs 320 kbps
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- ukit
http://www.stereophile.com/featu…
So was reading this article on the effects of lossless/ lossy compression on music listening.
Can you hear a difference? Do you care enough to hunt and buy/ download your favorite music in FLAC or WAV instead of MP3? Or is 320 "good enough?"
- ukit0
And yes, this is a first world problem:D
- d_rek0
I'm a bit of an audiophile and I've always prefer lossless quality audio - especially from digital rips. Once you've trained your ears to listen to how compression affects music you can't not hear it from then on out. The second I hear washed-out dithery cymbals or muddy low-end bass i typically trash a rip.
- d_rek0
The only problem with FLAC is that it's still not as widely supported as i'd like. Example: iTunes. For iTunes you must use a third party app to enjoy FLAC audio. However, listening to FLAC audio through items is buggy and the amount of memory that it consumes is disconcerting.
The other problem with FLAC, and you may not really have much of a problem with this, is that it takes up more space than compressed music. For me personally it's not much o an issue since I have hundreds of gigabytes of available freespace on my music hdd's.
Still.. after all is said and done i'd much rather enjoy music the way it was intended to be enjoyed: clean, crisp and without compression.
- inkpink0
i've pondered this very much the last year or so and come to the conclusion that 320 or even a nice v0 vbr is more than adequate for my audiophiling needs. i convert FLAC to 320 with LAME encoder and i'm happy. nice balance of quality and quantity (file size).
some friends claim they can hear diff on high end systems, but i can't really. also depends a lot on the type of music.
- fugged0
I honestly can't tell the difference @ 320 kbps. But I would have to agree with d_rek, since I assume it's no different than seeing the compression artifacts in images and video that drive me insane that everyone around me is like, "What?"
I wish iTunes had support for FLAC. Actually, come to think of it, given how shitty iTunes is performance wise, I can only imagine what that experience would be like...
- inkpink0
fluke works fine with itunes.
- Ruffian0
I usually download FLAC's and convert them to ALAC.
- Ruffian0
It also depends on the recording. I listen to a lot of rock and indie where the actual recording quality is not top notch. Then 320 is fine.
- CyBrain0
I don't hear the difference and I think this is comparable to looking at jpegs vs. tiffs or PSDs.
Also, files that don't play in iTunes or on my iPhone are a dealbreaker.
- CyBrain0
I'd also like to hear an 8bit version of Sgt. Pepper.
- acescence0
if you can't hear the difference you need a better sound system.
- drgz0
I define quality of music in other terms
- Ruffian0
^
That plus it depends a lot on the production quality and type of music you're listening to. It's amazing to hear all the small and crisp details that would otherwise be lost in the low quality sound.