How good of an audio setup do you need to be able to hear a difference between FLAC and MP3 320kbps?

[khagskhap]

I don’t notice much of a difference so I’m wondering whether it’s worth it to re-download my 320kbps MP3s as FLAC. I don’t have the greatest audio equipment (above average) but someday I’d like to upgrade if I got the money. Keep in mind I’m not doing this for archival purposes or anything, I just like listening to my music in the best quality I can get with the equipment I have.

 

[lovinthehd]

It's not particularly the system, as long as its adequate, but rather certain audible "tells" that might give you a clue as to whether it's an mp3 (and not all lossy codecs are mp3, there's OggVorbis, AAC, etc). Many simply can't tell the difference, especially casually. If you don't hear anything particularly amiss in the mp3 I wouldn't particularly worry about it. Not all FLACs are the same either, you can even put an mp3 into FLAC if you wanted to (or are a shyster perhaps). FLAC can be various formats of lossless audio....cd (16/44.1) or hi res (24/96 or better).

Usually if you want to run a comparison test, you'd compare something particular (i.e. the same recording) in its lossless form (like a cd) to an mp3 you create from it and compare it blindly in a level matched test. Audacity or foobar2000 is software you could run such conversions/comparisons with if you really want to dive into it. 2L (the Nordic sound) used to have a set of different formats up on their site but I see this right now http://www.2l.no/hires/index.html

 

[BMXTRIX]

This is SO subjective as to be insane.

Some people can hear the difference between a MP3 320 and a CD, but many cannot. That's under CONTROLLED listening environments. This is important as how you listen is as important as to the format itself. Listening to a quality CD, on cheapish headphones while walking through the city is not going to actually give better results than listening to a 128kbs MP3 in the same situation. While a 320kbs is really quite good and may even be indistinguishable on a lot of gear out there, as you get into better gear, a good CD quality track in WAV or FLAC format or a high res. version may be a good way to go if you aren't conserving file space. Frankly, I can't tell the difference in most of my listening, so I don't sweat the details.

 

[lovinthehd]

Just what is your audio setup, tho?

 

[Eppie]

Years ago I loaded a CD WAV file into Audacity and then loaded a 320kbs MP3 file to compare it too. You can overlay the two resulting wave forms for comparison. While the wave forms were not completely identical, the differences were so small so as to be indistinguishable. I would be surprised if anyone could note an audible difference. At 256kbs it becomes a challenge. At 320kbs most people would never know the difference. I've seen lectures from recording engineers where they stated that most people can not tell the difference above 256kbs. Lower compression rates become noticeable at higher frequencies so younger ears tend to be better at this.

One thing to keep in mind is gapless playback. If you like live albums or albums where songs blend into each other (like Pink Floyd), then FLAC tends to do a better job than MP3. I can get gapless playback with FLAC files in certain players but I have yet to use a player that will do gapless properly with MP3 files.

 

[TLS Guy]

I don’t notice much of a difference so I’m wondering whether it’s worth it to re-download my 320kbps MP3s as FLAC. I don’t have the greatest audio equipment (above average) but someday I’d like to upgrade if I got the money. Keep in mind I’m not doing this for archival purposes or anything, I just like listening to my music in the best quality I can get with the equipment I have.

MP3 is not the best codec, but 320kbps is a very decent bit rate and very hard to tell from lossless, especially in the better codecs.
The give away to lossy codecs, is random noise as that defeats them, especially the lower bit rates like 128kbps. The most ubiquitous sources of random noise is applause. As you lower the bit rate it sounds stranger and stranger. In addition look for cymbal crashes, they also start to get a strange "brittle" sound to them.

 

[MalVeauX]

It's not the system so much that you need to worry about being able to resolve minute differences. Even rather budget oriented stuff will be able to do that.

The real difference is simply your ears. Most people simply cannot hear the difference in reality. Our hearing is not good. It's poor really.

You're overall not limiting your experience no matter what your equipment is via MP3 with 320kbps data rate. Any difference is only measurable and frankly not audible for most people (it's hard to say all, because there's always that one person who claims they can, but you know just as well they would fail to be 100% correct in a blind 100 track listening test, but I digress... and I know better than to use absolutes).

That said, capacity is so inexpensive these days, if you're not hurting for storage space, just get lossless and don't even think about it and instead focus on the total system (which includes the room, if using speakers).

I think we all come to this at some point in the audio journey. I put it to rest for myself when I was using (at the time) high end headphones and excellent equipment and actively looking at overlay waveforms and listening A/B style to various places in a track where I saw a difference in the waveform. There were moments where I thought I heard a difference. But using truly blind A/B testing (software) I couldn't recreate that experience in just any track. Ultimately it was my brain, we like to predict things, its what brains are good at, and they're great at being incorrect. I use mostly FLAC because I have no capacity limits at home. But I use MP3 320kbps for my mobile devices that have greatly reduced capacity. It's a personal thing. Knowing you're using compression with your audio while trying to have excellent physical speakers seems like going backwards, but it's not. It's a cerebral game and we can easily fall into thinking that way when not being objective about it. So for some, it's part of the ritual side of things, and if that makes them happy, good for them. You do you.

Very best,

 

[j_garcia]

I hear it in the bass and I don't think you need a super expensive sub to hear it. If you compare a good quality CD to 320k rip, bass will often be less pronounced on the rip. That is my experience.

 

[fmw]

If the music is well performed, I like it even on a car radio. Hearing differences between lossy and lossless formats is challenging to say the least. It is possible but you miss the value of the music by caring about it. My music collection is recorded in 320 MP3 so that I can stream it from hard drive. I tried FLAC and decided it wasn't worth the disk space.

 

[lovinthehd]

I hear it in the bass and I don't think you need a super expensive sub to hear it. If you compare a good quality CD to 320k rip, bass will often be less pronounced on the rip. That is my experience.

I'd think the bass would always be less pronounced rather than just often if it really has such an effect It sounds like it is a measurable difference? Did you level match?

 

[TLS Guy]

I'd think the bass would always be less pronounced rather than just often if it really has such an effect It sounds like it is a measurable difference? Did you level match?

I don't see why using a lossy codec would change the bass. The Achilles heel of Codecs is random noise, as they become totally confused about which bits to discard. Audience applause is the best source of random noise I know of. For me that is the best way to assess codecs. If you use an MP3 128kbs file of applause and compare it to a lossless file of the same clip, then the difference is glaringly obvious. You have to listen more carefully at 320kbs.

 

[MalVeauX]

I hear it in the bass and I don't think you need a super expensive sub to hear it. If you compare a good quality CD to 320k rip, bass will often be less pronounced on the rip. That is my experience.

This is easily tested by looking at a lossless vs compressed version of the same track in Audacity.

I'll save you the time if you're not familiar though: there's no bass difference.

Very best,

 

[j_garcia]

I did not level match, they were played back on the same Oppo 105 though. I did not make any changes when ripping either, all default via media player back in the day. This might actually have been a 256 rip not a 320. On headphones, there wasn't a difference at the levels I listen, but on the main rig, I could hear it.

 

[lovinthehd]

I did not level match, they were played back on the same Oppo 105 though. I did not make any changes when ripping either, all default via media player back in the day. This might actually have been a 256 rip not a 320. On headphones, there wasn't a difference at the levels I listen, but on the main rig, I could hear it.

Was it rips for both cd and mp3? Might not need to level match for that, was thinking more disc player vs ripped file in any case. I've never had that experience but have seen complaints in some looking around that some claim mp3 has too much bass.

 

[Eppie]

Some ripping software will apply normalization, in which case you are no longer comparing apples to apples and need to level match. Crime of the Century by Supertramp for examlpe is notorious for having a wide dynamic range with no compression and sounds much quieter compared to other CDs. I keep FLAC and MP3 copies of most CDs. I use FLAC at home and fortunately Roon will automatically pick the best rip. Like MalVeaux I use MP3 on my phone to save space, and the music player in the Jeep does not recognize FLAC so I need MP3 there as well.

 

[MrBoat]

I forget to notice the differences, more often than not. I have been surprised by MP3s and youtube videos before. Certainly not going to be the defining difference with equipment, really.

So many other things in the way now, such as, remastering of the classics, and how young and musically handicapped the remastering engineer is. If they were born after 1975 or so, all bets are off. Many of the remasters I hear, it seems as if the mixologist was trying to R&B-atize classic rock tunes, or even bluegrass music. I listened to something the other day on the Dot. It said remastered in 2014 like that was a good thing. Mids and highs were way down, bass bloat was way up. This on a band from the '70s that wasn't forward with bass to begin with unless the player actually did a bass solo. This had me say "WTF" out loud, and caused me to give up on streamed music for the day.

Now my question isn't which quality format it is, but what has the recording endured since the modern techies got ahold of it. I mean, look what they have done to the reefer. Turned it into some narco-fiend's daydream with trying to outsmart nature, of all things. Now it's hard to tell any of it apart beyond some stupid fantasy name and flavor they give it.

 

[3db]

All my music is ripped to 320MPs I couldn't tell the difference between it, CD, WAV, or lossless so I chose the format that saved me a ton on disk space.

 

[highfigh]

It's not the system so much that you need to worry about being able to resolve minute differences. Even rather budget oriented stuff will be able to do that.

The real difference is simply your ears. Most people simply cannot hear the difference in reality. Our hearing is not good. It's poor really.

You're overall not limiting your experience no matter what your equipment is via MP3 with 320kbps data rate. Any difference is only measurable and frankly not audible for most people (it's hard to say all, because there's always that one person who claims they can, but you know just as well they would fail to be 100% correct in a blind 100 track listening test, but I digress... and I know better than to use absolutes).

Very best,

A person with normal hearing may not notice the difference- it's not the ability to hear, it's the learned ability to listen for differences. Knowing what to listen for makes far more difference than ability to hear. Some people are more sensitive to certain sounds, even though their hearing is 'average' when tested by an audiologist, some can't hear these sounds even if someone tells them what to listen for. An example of this: a song with a specific instrument, let's say it's a guitar, could be played for a group of people- some can identify the instrument and that's as far as their ability goes but some can identify the brand of the instrument. If the guitar is electric, they can not only identify the brand of guitar, they can name the brand and possibly the model of the amplifier. Some cymbals have loose rivets around the perimeter, to add sizzle-some hear it as what it is- metal pieces rattling in a Brass/Bronze cymbal, others might hear it as an annoyingly distorted sound but they can't identify it as metal on metal. Then, there are the random background sounds, as TLS Guy mentioned- as the level in the recording decreases, bad sound can happen easily, but it's not as obvious if the audio level from the playback system hasn't been increased.

 

[Bucknekked]

A person with normal hearing may not notice the difference- it's not the ability to hear, it's the learned ability to listen for differences. Knowing what to listen for makes far more difference than ability to hear. Some people are more sensitive to certain sounds, even though their hearing is 'average' when tested by an audiologist, some can't hear these sounds even if someone tells them what to listen for. An example of this: a song with a specific instrument, let's say it's a guitar, could be played for a group of people- some can identify the instrument and that's as far as their ability goes but some can identify the brand of the instrument. If the guitar is electric, they can not only identify the brand of guitar, they can name the brand and possibly the model of the amplifier. Some cymbals have loose rivets around the perimeter, to add sizzle-some hear it as what it is- metal pieces rattling in a Brass/Bronze cymbal, others might hear it as an annoyingly distorted sound but they can't identify it as metal on metal. Then, there are the random background sounds, as TLS Guy mentioned- as the level in the recording decreases, bad sound can happen easily, but it's not as obvious if the audio level from the playback system hasn't been increased.

I am in general agreement with most of the comments with the exception of the "bass is not as good" comment.
Not agreeable with that one but I think its been addressed.
@highfigh said it perfectly from where I sit:
A person with normal hearing may not notice the difference- it's not the ability to hear, it's the learned ability to listen for differences. Knowing what to listen for makes far more difference than ability to hear.

I remember a kerfuffle a year or so ago as the estate of Michael Jackson sued record producers who remastered and butchered (so they said) one of his recordings. I happened to have the "remastered" one so I sought out and purchased an original from before the remaster and did an A-B test to hear the butchery. I was confident I would hear the audio massacre after hearing the court testimony.

What I found was I couldn't really tell any difference at all. I mentioned it on this forum and several folks with very very sharp learned ability told me exactly where to listen and for what to listen for. By going back with instructions and time stamps I was able to pick out the differences and shortcomings of the remastered work. I could then hear the small differences. Without that careful guidance however, I simply couldn't pick it out.

So @highfigh has it nailed for me. It isn't pure ability to hear and it isn't the differences in the formats either. If there's a difference that's audible, trained ability to seek it out may show you the differences.

 

[-Jim-]

I too was a skeptic years ago about FLAC (lossless) versus MP3s, and like most audiophiles, I always have been on the lookout for ways to improve. So after blind comparison testing (which drove my family crazy) on my equipment at the time, the difference was audible. Not in your face, but definitely there.

Of course this smacked me up side the head as I was the proud owner of tons of MP3s (every CD my brothers and I had was ripped into that format, and then some). So I began the long trek into making a FLAC library.

One of the problems with going to FLAC, is once you do, you can never go back. At least not in the home, as I find myself noticing the differences instead of just listening to the tunes. It's like listening to Spotify, I enjoy the tunes but it's just missing something. I still use MP3s on USB sticks for the car as they work perfectly fine for that environment.

For those who can't hear the difference, stay with MP3s and be Happy.