one overlooked aspect is how well produced a track is. ive played rage against the machine and dj shadow on a set of super high end, speakers/amp setup. and it sounded bad because you hear *everything*, while on a normal set those nasty crude bits just dont seem to be there.
Can you really tell difference between mp3 and flac ?
- Thread starter R3X
- Start date
Good video, that girl did the same test as the one I have posted but she looks like shes in her 20s and she still scored 4/6 right which is excellent and even the ones she got wrong were still 320k.
As the guy who did the video said once you get in your 40s, 50s things get worse in terms of ear sounding, to which I will politely say sod off
Soldato
I'm much better than you lot. I got all 6 wrong. 
I heard a difference in the second sample of the Jay Z song, the sub bass note rumbles a smidgeon longer, but that turned out to be the lowest quality mp3. I chose 128kbps four times and 320kbps twice.
I don't think my quality of hearing is bad, I hear tons of detail in the music I listen to and I use good quality headphones and IEMS. Perhaps I'd perceive the differences better had I used my headphone amp instead of going direct to my laptop.
I just think that the quality of mp3 is extremely good and that generally speaking, the human ear struggles to discern between mp3 and wav, the differences are not really night and day, they're very small. The highest percentage group in this test all got only 2 out of 6, and only 1.6% got 6/6.
I heard a difference in the second sample of the Jay Z song, the sub bass note rumbles a smidgeon longer, but that turned out to be the lowest quality mp3. I chose 128kbps four times and 320kbps twice.
I don't think my quality of hearing is bad, I hear tons of detail in the music I listen to and I use good quality headphones and IEMS. Perhaps I'd perceive the differences better had I used my headphone amp instead of going direct to my laptop.
I just think that the quality of mp3 is extremely good and that generally speaking, the human ear struggles to discern between mp3 and wav, the differences are not really night and day, they're very small. The highest percentage group in this test all got only 2 out of 6, and only 1.6% got 6/6.
Man of Honour
Don't reduce music to its recorded quality.
I failed the test , do i give a ****
I'm listening to The Jam now, i couldn't tell you what it was recorded at quality wise , but i could tell you where i was 30, almost closer to 40 years ago.
A scratched record, a tangled tape was all part of growing up, made no difference to the music in my day.
Still got the vinyl here.
Music should be about, i dunno, emotions, memories something more than than digital quality.
I last saw The Jam at Brighton in 1982, can i remember the day - yes , do i give at **** at the quality is was recorded at - no
I failed the test , do i give a ****
I'm listening to The Jam now, i couldn't tell you what it was recorded at quality wise , but i could tell you where i was 30, almost closer to 40 years ago.
A scratched record, a tangled tape was all part of growing up, made no difference to the music in my day.
Still got the vinyl here.
Music should be about, i dunno, emotions, memories something more than than digital quality.
I last saw The Jam at Brighton in 1982, can i remember the day - yes , do i give at **** at the quality is was recorded at - no
It is almost completely down to your headphones, for example on good headphones anything at 128-192 sounds frankly bad. 192-320 are passable to good, 320 and FLAC are both good. Also depends on frequency response of headphones.
Once you know the common problems with MP3, it is laughably obvious to spot low bitrate Mp3 from FLAC, most common problems are splashy treble, worse sibilance, worse bass, worse soundstage. Generally it is VERY obvious to me and I pretty much loathe any Mp3 under 192Kbps, most of the time I just don't even bother listening to anything less than 320Kbps or FLAC. Some 192Kbps are "passable" whereas 128Kbps is consistently bad.
Once you know the common problems with MP3, it is laughably obvious to spot low bitrate Mp3 from FLAC, most common problems are splashy treble, worse sibilance, worse bass, worse soundstage. Generally it is VERY obvious to me and I pretty much loathe any Mp3 under 192Kbps, most of the time I just don't even bother listening to anything less than 320Kbps or FLAC. Some 192Kbps are "passable" whereas 128Kbps is consistently bad.
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Soldato
This is another interesting video.
Yeah I can still tell the difference between some 128 recordings to 320/flac, but I gotta admit around 192 not so much.
Soldato
Can’t tell the difference. Picked one lowest quality, two FLAC and the rest 320. FLAC / 320 no difference to me.
AKG702 / Dx3Pro.
AKG702 / Dx3Pro.
Soldato
I want so much to say that there is a difference, but I would also have to admit, that the Placebo effect comes into play.
It also depends on your setup too, both the audio device and the speakers.
For low bit rate MP3's the difference is obviously going to be more obvious than high rate ones, and then it can also come down to what style of music you listen to too!
Rock music for example wont ( in many cases ) show any differences, while a classical / smoother sounding track, might show it.
I have a mate, who swears by FLAC and he says that MP3 are awful, but I taught him about bitrates, and that he was judging MP3 by lower rates, and so I converted one of his albums to 320 and 192 and to 96 to show him that not all MP3 files are encoded the same way. I was also showing him that the smaller the file, the better the compression and space saving, but at the cost of quality. The FLACs were 480Mpbs.
For a giggle, I also converted to a samplerate of 11K and a BitRate of 32 just for a giggle... Interesting! - Reminds me of my SoundTracker days on the Atari ST LOL
He did conceed, that the 320 were very high quality, and I will also conceed that the encoding might have done something because the original FLAC definitely did feel to be better quality? - Whether this was both of us feeling it, or if it truly was better, I guess you can ague that, but the fact is, that the FLAC did indeed seem to be better than the MP3 no matter how high quality we did it, but, the size of the files in FLAC are much larger and even at very high quality, the MP3 are half the size, and not really distinguishable from FLAC... Not really!
Anyway, we had fun and now he had gone to MP3, even though for years, he has sworn by FLAC, and now he has the huge benefit of saving at least 50% of his Storage space.
It also depends on your setup too, both the audio device and the speakers.
For low bit rate MP3's the difference is obviously going to be more obvious than high rate ones, and then it can also come down to what style of music you listen to too!
Rock music for example wont ( in many cases ) show any differences, while a classical / smoother sounding track, might show it.
I have a mate, who swears by FLAC and he says that MP3 are awful, but I taught him about bitrates, and that he was judging MP3 by lower rates, and so I converted one of his albums to 320 and 192 and to 96 to show him that not all MP3 files are encoded the same way. I was also showing him that the smaller the file, the better the compression and space saving, but at the cost of quality. The FLACs were 480Mpbs.
For a giggle, I also converted to a samplerate of 11K and a BitRate of 32 just for a giggle... Interesting! - Reminds me of my SoundTracker days on the Atari ST LOL
He did conceed, that the 320 were very high quality, and I will also conceed that the encoding might have done something because the original FLAC definitely did feel to be better quality? - Whether this was both of us feeling it, or if it truly was better, I guess you can ague that, but the fact is, that the FLAC did indeed seem to be better than the MP3 no matter how high quality we did it, but, the size of the files in FLAC are much larger and even at very high quality, the MP3 are half the size, and not really distinguishable from FLAC... Not really!
Anyway, we had fun and now he had gone to MP3, even though for years, he has sworn by FLAC, and now he has the huge benefit of saving at least 50% of his Storage space.
I am personally appalled by anyone who would take a nice FLAC / CD quality audio and compress it to something like 128Kbps for the sake of a few MB compared to 320Kbps.
I can understand why someone would convert to the best possible encode quality at 320Kbps, because it saves a lot of space compared to FLAC and does not sound massively different most of the time, but anything lower than 320Kbps and you are lowering the audio quality for a pointless reduction in size.
I can understand why someone would convert to the best possible encode quality at 320Kbps, because it saves a lot of space compared to FLAC and does not sound massively different most of the time, but anything lower than 320Kbps and you are lowering the audio quality for a pointless reduction in size.
Soldato
Vinyl does actually sound different, but that's because it's a physical medium - you hear imperfections in the quality of the record, which I think is what most like (I know I do).
There's something very fresh about listening to something that doesn't sound perfect - it increases the amount of stimulation your ears receive (with the hissing + crackling). Of course, this can be synthesised to great effect with digital media, which, for me, has the same effect.
I do not really understand why anyone would want hissing and crackling in the audio though, maybe if you were bought up with Vinyl and you find it nostalgic to hear that, but not sure why anyone would want to add it to digital audio! Oh well "each to his own" as they say hah.
I buy/download/rip all my music in FLAC but that's mostly just because I can. I'm also just as used to listening to lower-bitrate internet radio streams, or 192Kbps DJ mixes/sets, so as long as there's no massively detrimental drop in audio quality or noticeable MP3 hiss I'm not usually too bothered. It's just nice to have music in the best quality as possible if the option is there.
Soldato
High res audio is a bit like high res images. Do you want portability or do you want something which offers more range and flexibility for repurposing later.
I’m no audiophile but it seems a bit like spending 100’s or 1000’s of pounds on a printer, only to print 72dpi images downloaded from Google.
I’m no audiophile but it seems a bit like spending 100’s or 1000’s of pounds on a printer, only to print 72dpi images downloaded from Google.
Soldato
Only if those hi-res images looked identical from the equivalent of 320 bits and onwards.
Thing is though in 2019, there is really no reason for anything less than 320Kbps, 320Kbps is quite good, because it has minimal loss of sound quality, and is approx 1/3rd of the size of a FLAC file. But you can get a 2TB hard drive or a 200GB microSD card for the price of about 5 CD's, there is really no reason to compress music at all.
Definitely no reason to compress to anything other than the best possible encode quality at 320Kbps, after this it is "diminishing returns", slightly less MB's for increasingly bad sound quality.
I also find it a bit irritating how Youtube compresses audio to 96-128kbps, Youtube would be an excellent place for listening to music, if they would increase the audio bitrate to at least 192Kbps.
Definitely no reason to compress to anything other than the best possible encode quality at 320Kbps, after this it is "diminishing returns", slightly less MB's for increasingly bad sound quality.
I also find it a bit irritating how Youtube compresses audio to 96-128kbps, Youtube would be an excellent place for listening to music, if they would increase the audio bitrate to at least 192Kbps.
Soldato
Answer: Depends on bitrate.
Between 320kbps and FLAC, the difference is virtually zero, to the point of placebo*. You can take a FLAC, convert it down to 320kbps, then cut out the difference in the waveform and play exactly what was cut out and see for yourself - it's usually just very quiet garble. When put back into the song you won't hear it at all because the masking effect of the much louder lower frequencies will lower the highest frequencies you will be able to resolve - meaning it disappears even more than singling it out.
* there are sometimes songs where the codecs used do not perform as well and the difference may be noticeable to a trained ear that looks for it (this does NOT mean golden ears, it just means someone deliberately picking apart the songs and has experience in doing so. It's a learned skill). The songs that this may be most noticeable in are songs with a lot of very fast high pitched frequencies, such as frequent use of cymbals. It's still such a tiny difference though and will make no difference to the average user once they're actually listening to the music and not the file.
Between 320kbps and FLAC, the difference is virtually zero, to the point of placebo*. You can take a FLAC, convert it down to 320kbps, then cut out the difference in the waveform and play exactly what was cut out and see for yourself - it's usually just very quiet garble. When put back into the song you won't hear it at all because the masking effect of the much louder lower frequencies will lower the highest frequencies you will be able to resolve - meaning it disappears even more than singling it out.
* there are sometimes songs where the codecs used do not perform as well and the difference may be noticeable to a trained ear that looks for it (this does NOT mean golden ears, it just means someone deliberately picking apart the songs and has experience in doing so. It's a learned skill). The songs that this may be most noticeable in are songs with a lot of very fast high pitched frequencies, such as frequent use of cymbals. It's still such a tiny difference though and will make no difference to the average user once they're actually listening to the music and not the file.
Associate
Depends on the headphone i use really.
Apart from that it is hard for me to tell though.
Apart from that it is hard for me to tell though.
It upsets me when people compress to low bitrates like 128Kbps, for example lets say WAV > FLAC > Mp3 320Kbps, you can do that with minimal decrease to audio quality, and a massive decrease in file size. BUT then people feel the need to decrease the bitrate MORE, just for a saving in file size, for example lets say FLAC > 320Kbps, you just reduced the file size from 30mb to 10mb and lost almost no sound quality. NOW some bright sparks think it is a great idea to save another 5Mb, while pretty much ruining the sound quality at the same time.
So yes 320Kbps I can completely understand why you would do this, although I would still rather just listen to FLAC because the file sizes are relatively small compared to a hard drive anyway. But THEN adding all these nasty audio artifacts and pretty much ruining the sound quality for ANOTHER 5mb decrease in size, when you already just saved from 30mb to 10mb, is just a horrible thing to do and genuinely upsetting to me.
So yes 320Kbps I can completely understand why you would do this, although I would still rather just listen to FLAC because the file sizes are relatively small compared to a hard drive anyway. But THEN adding all these nasty audio artifacts and pretty much ruining the sound quality for ANOTHER 5mb decrease in size, when you already just saved from 30mb to 10mb, is just a horrible thing to do and genuinely upsetting to me.