MP3 vs FLAC

probedb · 11 Jan 2011 at 14:08

Durzel said:
I use FLAC (or rather ALAC) on my iPod in the car, but I'm one of those "full of ****" guys with a decent sound system at home and in the car who goes to Sound & Vision shows, etc.

Wow, you must be awesome if you go to S&V shows :rolleyes:

Lossless in a car is pointless unless your car really is silent when you're on the move.

The only reason I use FLAC at home is it's a backup and storage is cheap so why not.

Barzini · 11 Jan 2011 at 14:29

Okay I see now that I misunderstood the ABX test and that you wanted me to do multiple trials on the same track, not doing it on seperate tracks. So, to put this boring topic to bed (and prove Marc2003 is a muppet):

foo_abx 1.3.4 report
foobar2000 v1.1.1
2011/01/11 14:15:23

File A: C:\My Music\Foobar Rips\MP3\Thin Line Between Love & Hate.mp3
File B: C:\My Music\Foobar Rips\Thin Line Between Love & Hate.flac

14:15:23 : Test started.
14:16:00 : 01/01 50.0%
14:16:37 : 02/02 25.0%
14:17:08 : 03/03 12.5%
14:17:39 : 04/04 6.3%
14:18:20 : 05/05 3.1%
14:18:33 : 06/06 1.6%
14:19:10 : 07/07 0.8%
14:19:24 : 08/08 0.4%
14:19:33 : 08/09 2.0%
14:20:11 : 09/10 1.1%
14:20:27 : 10/11 0.6%
14:21:12 : 11/12 0.3%
14:22:06 : 12/13 0.2%
14:22:27 : 13/14 0.1%
14:22:32 : Test finished.

----------
Total: 13/14 (0.1%)

@ prodedb - LAME v.3.98.4 -b 320 -q0

Durzel · 11 Jan 2011 at 15:13

probedb said:
Wow, you must be awesome if you go to S&V shows

I know, thanks!

vonhelmet said:
I was wondering to myself whether an iPod even has the fidelity to play back a FLAC (ALAC, whatever) to it's full potential. Plenty of the iPod decoders have come under fire in the past for poor sound quality.

The headunit I plug it into bypasses the DAC in the iPod, but yeah you're right there. It's obviously also pointless for using headphones on it too.

THMRK · 11 Jan 2011 at 20:54

Nice article here about this: http://gizmodo.com/5273332/the-great-mp3-bitrate-test-+-results

Some also feel that blind testing might be a bad thing, too...

Illusion · 11 Jan 2011 at 21:34

I can tell the difference through my hifi system because for some reason mp3s crackle slightly whilst playing and FLAC files don't.

. Only reason i now use FLAC.

probedb · 14 Jan 2011 at 13:26

Barzini said:
Okay I see now that I misunderstood the ABX test and that you wanted me to do multiple trials on the same track, not doing it on seperate tracks. So, to put this boring topic to bed (and prove Marc2003 is a muppet):

foo_abx 1.3.4 report
foobar2000 v1.1.1
2011/01/11 14:15:23

File A: C:\My Music\Foobar Rips\MP3\Thin Line Between Love & Hate.mp3
File B: C:\My Music\Foobar Rips\Thin Line Between Love & Hate.flac

14:15:23 : Test started.
14:16:00 : 01/01 50.0%
14:16:37 : 02/02 25.0%
14:17:08 : 03/03 12.5%
14:17:39 : 04/04 6.3%
14:18:20 : 05/05 3.1%
14:18:33 : 06/06 1.6%
14:19:10 : 07/07 0.8%
14:19:24 : 08/08 0.4%
14:19:33 : 08/09 2.0%
14:20:11 : 09/10 1.1%
14:20:27 : 10/11 0.6%
14:21:12 : 11/12 0.3%
14:22:06 : 12/13 0.2%
14:22:27 : 13/14 0.1%
14:22:32 : Test finished.

----------
Total: 13/14 (0.1%)

@ prodedb - LAME v.3.98.4 -b 320 -q0

Excellent and thank you for doing the test

You should help out with development on lossy codecs! MP3 is old now but still fine for most of us.

ExRayTed · 14 Jan 2011 at 14:13

With my audigy platinum and my goldring ns-1000 (mid range headphones) I can most certainly tell the difference between flac and high bitrate mp3.On any other hardware medium I can't tell the difference.