MP3 or Lossless - almost impossible to tell the difference, apparently

[keybored]

Hearing the difference now isn’t the reason to encode to FLAC. FLAC uses lossless compression, while MP3 is ‘lossy’. What this means is that for each year the MP3 sits on your hard drive, it will lose roughly 12kbps, assuming you have SATA – it’s about 15kbps on IDE, but only 7kbps on SCSI, due to rotational velocicondensity. You don’t want to know how much worse it is on CD-ROM or other optical media.

I started collecting MP3s in about 2001, and if I try to play any of the tracks I downloaded back then, even the stuff I grabbed at 320kbps, they just sound like crap. The bass is terrible, the midrange…well don’t get me started. Some of those albums have degraded down to 32 or even 16kbps. FLAC rips from the same period still sound great, even if they weren’t stored correctly, in a cool, dry place. Seriously, stick to FLAC, you may not be able to hear the difference now, but in a year or two, you’ll be glad you did.

 

[gentlegreen]

Hearing the difference now isn’t the reason to encode to FLAC. FLAC uses lossless compression, while MP3 is ‘lossy’. What this means is that for each year the MP3 sits on your hard drive, it will lose roughly 12kbps, assuming you have SATA – it’s about 15kbps on IDE, but only 7kbps on SCSI, due to rotational velocidensity. You don’t want to know how much worse it is on CD-ROM or other optical media.

Stay away from the brown acid...

 

[grit]

Hearing the difference now isn’t the reason to encode to FLAC. FLAC uses lossless compression, while MP3 is ‘lossy’. What this means is that for each year the MP3 sits on your hard drive, it will lose roughly 12kbps, assuming you have SATA – it’s about 15kbps on IDE, but only 7kbps on SCSI, due to rotational velocicondensity. You don’t want to know how much worse it is on CD-ROM or other optical media.

I started collecting MP3s in about 2001, and if I try to play any of the tracks I downloaded back then, even the stuff I grabbed at 320kbps, they just sound like crap. The bass is terrible, the midrange…well don’t get me started. Some of those albums have degraded down to 32 or even 16kbps. FLAC rips from the same period still sound great, even if they weren’t stored correctly, in a cool, dry place. Seriously, stick to FLAC, you may not be able to hear the difference now, but in a year or two, you’ll be glad you did.

Direct cut and paste from this post in 2009 http://www.head-fi.org/t/451369/why-flac-is-better

weird

 

[mwgdrwg]

I can tell the difference, especially with rock music as it loses some roundness and bass and is a bit tinnier to my wonderfully delicate ears.

 

[Citizen66]

The biggest factor in the quality of sound undoubtedly comes from the equipment it's actually being played on.

And the volume it was ripped at. A quiet 320kbs rip will always sound worse than a 192kbs rip that maintained it's original levels.

 

[UnderOpenSky]

Hearing the difference now isn’t the reason to encode to FLAC. FLAC uses lossless compression, while MP3 is ‘lossy’. What this means is that for each year the MP3 sits on your hard drive, it will lose roughly 12kbps, assuming you have SATA – it’s about 15kbps on IDE, but only 7kbps on SCSI, due to rotational velocicondensity. You don’t want to know how much worse it is on CD-ROM or other optical media.

I started collecting MP3s in about 2001, and if I try to play any of the tracks I downloaded back then, even the stuff I grabbed at 320kbps, they just sound like crap. The bass is terrible, the midrange…well don’t get me started. Some of those albums have degraded down to 32 or even 16kbps. FLAC rips from the same period still sound great, even if they weren’t stored correctly, in a cool, dry place. Seriously, stick to FLAC, you may not be able to hear the difference now, but in a year or two, you’ll be glad you did.

Why does one file get affected and others don't?

 

[mwgdrwg]

...What this means is that for each year the MP3 sits on your hard drive, it will lose roughly 12kbps...

 

[smmudge]

Hearing the difference now isn’t the reason to encode to FLAC. FLAC uses lossless compression, while MP3 is ‘lossy’. What this means is that for each year the MP3 sits on your hard drive, it will lose roughly 12kbps, assuming you have SATA – it’s about 15kbps on IDE, but only 7kbps on SCSI, due to rotational velocicondensity. You don’t want to know how much worse it is on CD-ROM or other optical media.

lol record companies fucking wish that's what lossy means! If someone could write a digital file to actually do that they'd make a killing.

 

[grit]

Its a cut and paste troll.

 

[FridgeMagnet]

It's actually to do with temperature. If you keep your hard drive in the freezer, you will lose lossy file bitrate a lot more slowly, just as with CDs (this is why music on CDs is stored lossless - it allows them to be warehoused more easily without expensive cooling - though note that the bitrate of CD audio will gradually go down, just more slowly. "Lossless" is a bit of a misnomer.)

Anybody who is finding that their MP3s are sounding noticeably worse than they did, say, six months ago should check their fans - it might mean a serious hardware fault.

 

[Hocus Eye.]

It's actually to do with temperature. If you keep your hard drive in the freezer, you will lose lossy file bitrate a lot more slowly, just as with CDs (this is why music on CDs is stored lossless - it allows them to be warehoused more easily without expensive cooling - though note that the bitrate of CD audio will gradually go down, just more slowly. "Lossless" is a bit of a misnomer.)

Anybody who is finding that their MP3s are sounding noticeably worse than they did, say, six months ago should check their fans - it might mean a serious hardware fault.

This makes no more sense than the original cut-and-paste troll.

 

[ska invita]

BUMP!
"All the ghostly sounds that are lost when you compress to mp3"


quote.........
Right now, you’re probably listening to music on your computer. The source of that music — whether you’re listening to an mp3 file or streaming — is a compressed version of a file that was much more detailed, but way larger. It’s worth interrupting your music for a moment and asking: What sounds are you missing?
To get a sense, watch the video above, created by Ryan Maguire, a Ph.D. student in Composition and Computer Technologies at the University of Virginia Center for Computer Music, for a project called The Ghost In The Mp3. It’s a song made with only the sounds that were left out when compressing Suzanne Vega’s “Tom’s Diner” to mp3.
As his site explains,
“‘moDernisT‘ was created by salvaging the sounds lost to mp3 compression from the song “Tom’s Diner”, famously used as one of the main controls in the listening tests to develop the MP3 encoding algorithm. Here we find the form of the song intact, but the details are just remnants of the original. Similarly, the video contains only material which was left behind during mp4 video compression.”
Beyond just creating a great new genre of ambient ghost music, the piece makes a few interesting points. First, these are real, actual sounds that your ear can easily hear. You don’t have to be some snobby audiophile asshole. The sounds are perceptible even through crappy MacBook Air speakers and earbuds. Hm.
Second, mp3 compression was released in the early ’90s, to serve purposes very specific to a time when storing and transferring data was expensive. It was a compromise in regards to how much can be stripped from a song without our ears recognizing the difference — and it worked really well. (If you want to get really wonky, Maguire writes in detail about it on his website for the project, explaining it way better than I ever possibly could.)
But roughly 20 years later, mp3s are still a standard, despite better alternatives existing, and our computers being capable of handling more complex files, which is kind of weird, right? Look at the kind of computer that was standard at around the same time. That’s the kind of machine mp3compression was designed for. Hmm.
Anyway, sorry for interrupting, hope this didn’t ruin the music you were enjoying.

 

[Citizen66]

The whole point of compressing audio or video files is so they can be streamed over the internet though. Otherwise why bother? I think everyone gets that listening to music or watching films in compressed format isn't as great as watching/listening from a high-res format but it's largely amateur works being spread quickly by new media that benefits. Has anyone ever argued against what this guy is saying?

 

[ska invita]

the thing where this consciously annoys me the most is radio streaming, which primarily thanks to bloody mobile phone users means that 96 or 128 is default quality - utter shit. Even DAB is 192 i think. its not as if people are on dial up anymore....

 

[danny la rouge]

BUMP!
"All the ghostly sounds that are lost when you compress to mp3"


quote.........
Right now, you’re probably listening to music on your computer.

No, I wasn't; I don't do that. (Other than to listen to YouTube clips ska has linked to!)

I did like the ambient ghost music, though. Which is funny, because I don't like Suzanne Vega. (And I don't really get her brother, Johnny, either).

 

[Citizen66]

the thing where this consciously annoys be the most is radio streaming, which primarily thanks to bloody mobile phone users means that 96 or 128 is default quality - utter shit. Even DAB is 192 i think. its not as if people are on dial up anymore....

Yeah that would be annoying. When I think of compression I think of CD quality or lossless. Less than 320 44hz again seems pointless. I hope I got my figures right there lol. Is it 44? I can't be arsed to check.

 

[ska invita]

Yeah that would be annoying. When I think of compression I think of CD quality or lossless. Less than 320 44hz again seems pointless. I hope I got my figures right there lol. Is it 44? I can't be arsed to check.

44.1

No, I wasn't; I don't do that. (Other than to listen to YouTube clips ska has linked to!)

I did like the ambient ghost music, though. Which is funny, because I don't like Suzanne Vega. (And I don't really get her brother, Johnny, either).

yeah i dont think that video proves a point particularly - if people cant tell its lossy they cant tell - it is interesting the hear whats been cut though, and it did sound interesting on its own

im sure theres many situations i couldnt tell, but i definitely can tell on radio streams, especially at any kind of volume or on good headphones

 

[Fez909]

BUMP!
"All the ghostly sounds that are lost when you compress to mp3"


quote.........
Right now, you’re probably listening to music on your computer. The source of that music — whether you’re listening to an mp3 file or streaming — is a compressed version of a file that was much more detailed, but way larger. It’s worth interrupting your music for a moment and asking: What sounds are you missing?
To get a sense, watch the video above, created by Ryan Maguire, a Ph.D. student in Composition and Computer Technologies at the University of Virginia Center for Computer Music, for a project called The Ghost In The Mp3. It’s a song made with only the sounds that were left out when compressing Suzanne Vega’s “Tom’s Diner” to mp3.
As his site explains,
“‘moDernisT‘ was created by salvaging the sounds lost to mp3 compression from the song “Tom’s Diner”, famously used as one of the main controls in the listening tests to develop the MP3 encoding algorithm. Here we find the form of the song intact, but the details are just remnants of the original. Similarly, the video contains only material which was left behind during mp4 video compression.”
Beyond just creating a great new genre of ambient ghost music, the piece makes a few interesting points. First, these are real, actual sounds that your ear can easily hear. You don’t have to be some snobby audiophile asshole. The sounds are perceptible even through crappy MacBook Air speakers and earbuds. Hm.
Second, mp3 compression was released in the early ’90s, to serve purposes very specific to a time when storing and transferring data was expensive. It was a compromise in regards to how much can be stripped from a song without our ears recognizing the difference — and it worked really well. (If you want to get really wonky, Maguire writes in detail about it on his website for the project, explaining it way better than I ever possibly could.)
But roughly 20 years later, mp3s are still a standard, despite better alternatives existing, and our computers being capable of handling more complex files, which is kind of weird, right? Look at the kind of computer that was standard at around the same time. That’s the kind of machine mp3compression was designed for. Hmm.
Anyway, sorry for interrupting, hope this didn’t ruin the music you were enjoying.

That really cool. Reminds me of this:



Which is influenced by this (not compression related, but interesting)



Have listened to that last one twice all the way through. Gets very trippy towards the end. It's quite hypnotic.

 

[Sunray]

The whole point of compressing audio or video files is so they can be streamed over the internet though. Otherwise why bother? I think everyone gets that listening to music or watching films in compressed format isn't as great as watching/listening from a high-res format but it's largely amateur works being spread quickly by new media that benefits. Has anyone ever argued against what this guy is saying?

They don't need to bother any more. CD's require 176Ks bandwidth. I have enough bandwidth to support 35 uncompressed CD streams and still watch iPlayer.

 

[Citizen66]

They don't need to bother any more. CD's require 176Ks bandwidth. I have enough bandwidth to support 35 uncompressed CD streams and still watch iPlayer.

Well you have those speeds.

 

[xenon]

Storage too. Streaming is not the answer if your battery's old, signal coverage poor. Music rarely gets listened to in objectively optimum conditions anyway. I have some stuff stored in .flack. Most is MP3 320KPBS or 192KBPS. Never bothered with OGG, WMA or any of those other formats.

 

[Metal Malcolm]

Storage may be fine for some... I do a radio show, and even downloading at 320kb I fill some 4-5 GB of space every week. I'd run out in a couple of months if I used flacs, and for what?

 

[Citizen66]

If you're just a consumer then mp3 is fine as it's the people flogging you the mp3 player that have to cross their palm with silver for the licence. If you're a games producer, for example, especially online games, it seems a bit harsh to be expected to pay mp3 for a licence for works you're making available for free. So the only answer is Vorbis in that context.

 

[Sirena]

It's quite funny to think that a lot of kids listen to worse quality sound than their parents listened to.

Than their grandparents listened to!

Good quality hi-fi had more or less replaced radiograms and dansettes by the very late 60s and pop music FM Radio exploded with the introduction of commercial broadcasting in 1973.

 

[Enviro]

44.1

Still a factor of 1000 out - unless you listen to proper bass music and your system has an excellent response in the 0 - 22 Hz region

 

[xenon]

If you're just a consumer then mp3 is fine as it's the people flogging you the mp3 player that have to cross their palm with silver for the licence. If you're a games producer, for example, especially online games, it seems a bit harsh to be expected to pay mp3 for a licence for works you're making available for free. So the only answer is Vorbis in that context.

I haven't watched the vid TBH. Didn't know that about the mp3 license.

 

[xenon]

On a side note, I wish you could get virtually unbreakable ear bud headphones. I've been put off buying really good ones because invariably the wire gets caught or damaged coiled up in pockets.

 

[Citizen66]

I haven't watched the vid TBH. Didn't know that about the mp3 license.

What vid? I was just making a point about why Vorbis is of greater use than mp3 - it's open source.

 

[beesonthewhatnow]

On a side note, I wish you could get virtually unbreakable ear bud headphones. I've been put off buying really good ones because invariably the wire gets caught or damaged coiled up in pockets.

If you spend more then you are more likely to look after them, use their case etc, no?

 

[Citizen66]

I generally fuck them up by falling asleep with them on.