Is there any audible difference?

Who cares. It's available, storage space is not an issue, why not download it?

>>57606836
Compared to youtube rips?

No, none at all.

>>57606836
To most people on most devices, no. However, storage space and bandwidth is no longer an issue for most people so you may as well store your music collection in a perfect format and convert it to MP3 if you ever have any need to.

>>57606836


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.

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.

>>57606853
>why not download it?
Because most of it is fake?

File: 1333985418111.jpg (20KB, 280x315px) Image search: [Google]

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>>57606885
I nostalgia'd hard

>>57606894
[citation needed]

>>57606836
It heavily depends on the audio material and on the listener. But generally a FLAC rip is exactly what was on the CD, without any loss of data. If you intend to alter audio data and then recode to a lossy format, a lossless source is always strongly preferred, as data/quality loss is unavoidable otherwise (think of copying analog tape audio over and over).

>>57606885
It depends of the quality of the hard drive. You bought cheap dd anon. Even your flac will decay.

>>57606836
for the gorillionth time: it's not about an audible difference in quality, it's about the principle of not needlessly throwing away that could come in handy in cases outside what you currently consider.

Do you store your images in 80% jpeg when you could just as well use lossless tif or png?

>>57606836
Between what? FLAC and MP3s? Depends on how shitty the MP3 is encoded, but generally: No.

FLAC is used as an archive format. If you encode MP3s into other formats you'll heavily degrade the sound which is in fact noticeable. Hence if you want another format than MP3, use FLACs. If you only want MP3s, you don't really need it per say unless you want the best possible quality by encoding the MP3 yourself.

You should never use MP3s unless you absolutely need to (indie artist giving out MP3 samples of their music). They have a gigantic filesize, have shit latency and are generally horrible. Use Opus instead.

>>57606836
No, unless you're under 12 years old. Kids usually have much better hearing than adults.

>>57606836
If you burn music cds and play them on a hifi stereo system there is most definitely a difference.
Due to rotational velocidensity.

>>57606885
Is this real?

>>57607163
very

>>57607163
Apparently it's audible but not measurable.

>>57607163
It's a meme pasta, retard.

>>57606836
No, audiophiles are literally subhuman.

>>57606894
>That's what plebs actually believe

No audible diff between at-least V2 LAME and lossless. Maybe you'll find a rare sample which the mp3 encoder messed up, but that is mostly a thing of the past.

Where's the frothing at the mouth audiophiles who defend this shit?

>>57606885
Topoto keko

>>57606836
Barely.

You only notice it when you're in a quiet room with headphones on and even then it's negligible. But I like having flac because I just want to have the whole original thing stored away.

>>57607010
this is why people use ZFS on illumos or BSD systems for storage

>>57606885
100101001,2?

>>57611088
LOL You guys are hilarious.

>>57606836
Nope. mp3 @ 320kbps is the best sweet spot.

>>57606885
And definitely do NOT encrypt them. One bit off and those files will be unreadable.

>>57606836
The .mp3's sound deeper/"muddier".

To human ears: There is no discernable difference between things like 48Khz 320kbps mp3/ 192kbps opus and 192Khz 32-bit FLAC.

Bats, dogs, cats, and machines would be able to immediately tell there's a difference in sound quality.

>>57606836
Hearing the difference now isn't the reas-

>>57606885
Oh.

>>57606836
Difference to what? To the source? No, by definition they are identical. To a lossy-encoded copy? That depends on the lossy-encoded copy.

Under almost all circumstances (i.e. except with certain 'problem samples' like harpsichord or castanets which can reveal flaws in many popular lossy codecs' DCT or masking capabilities), properly-encoded lossy audio (e.g. LAME --alt-preset-standard or, in recent versions, -V2) is perceptually transparent - you can't hear a difference.

However you never, ever, want to lossy-encode something twice or more, because there is likely to be audible generation loss if you do that. If you want to encode it to something else later (say, Opus 128kbps), perhaps to fit more on a small storage device, or because you're doing a podcast, or anything like that, you'll need a lossless source.

Given that, if your goal is archival, lossless copies have an advantage over lossy ones. Just not an immediately audible one.

>>57606836
Yeah there is a difference but it's not worth it. Seriously, it's a waste of time and money to find flac files and buying expensive speakers and headphones.

"I ONLY download FLAC trust me I hear a difference in everything through my laptop speakers and £55 headphones hooked directly to my motherboard" - 99% of people who download FLAC

FLAC for archiving MP3 for general use.

For the average joe (meaning most everyone including YOU on /g/) you should look at it more as a file size thing. Just go MP3 then you can fit more on your phone/mp3 player/hard drive

>>57606836
Compared to what?

>>57606836
For the same reason that image you posted is a .png.

iTunes doesn't support FLAC so it's a meme all the way

>>57614550
aac or vorbis for general use (if you're going from flac), depending on your player.

>>57606836
The creator itself literally says flac is only for archiving

>>57614593
aac and vorbis are deprecated audio codecs

>>57614594
Surely you can listen to it too but like all lossless media, its purpose is to store the original. People who lossless nature of the file into audibility and especially into a matter of audio gear are generally clueless. I think anon here >>57612140 provided a decent enough answer.

I want to add that the lossy to lossy encoding, while something you should avoid if possible, isn't going to make an audible difference in all cases either. Like always with this same question it depends on the encoder used and its settings, content being encoded, data rate and most importantly how skilled the listener is. Gear matters some but not much as its limitations are different to those what lossy compression creates. Both fail at reproducing the original signal but in a very different manner so generally you'll be fine testing the audibility with very modest headphones.

>>57606836
It's guaranteed to not be audible. Shitty lossy encodes aren't. Good lossy encodes might be fine, but they come with no guarantee. FLAC does. The filesize isn't a huge issue.

>>57606836
>Is there any audible difference?
Between FLAC and what? 32kbps speex? Yes

>>57614661
>People who lossless nature
People who tie in* the lossless nature

>>57607092
>Depends on how shitty the MP3 is encoded, but generally: No.
In other words: Depends on the age

MP3 encoders of 10 years ago were significantly worse than the MP3 encoders of today

>>57612140
This anon is spot-on

>>57612140
I can assure you at reference levels you can hear every fault in a lossy encode.

>>57614775
>at reference levels
??

>>57606854
youtube is actually pretty decent 384kb\s

>>57612140
Good explanation.

For my needs I have reencoded everything flac to Wavpack (hybrid). You get two files; one is a version with lossy compression similar to mp3/ogg/whatever, small enough to put on mobile devices in large numbers. When used together with the second correction file you have a lossless copy for home use or everywhere where storage space is not an issue.

So blah.flac becomes blah.wv (lossy) plus blah.wvc (correction). Compatible players automatically look for the wvc file in the same folder as the wv file.

Might not be the solution for everyone, but I like it.

FLAC capture of a lossy audio source, such as for example if an album was just released on Spotify would be the ideal format since transcoding to another lossy format would fuck up the quality.

Lossless has so many advantages, even with lossy mastering and what the fuck not.

>>57614889
assuming you upload wav audio since that's the only lossless format youtube supportes muxed

>>57606885
eery tiem

>>57614791
I have no idea what they mean either, they're talking nonsense.

ABX or GTFO, to paraphrase HA, etc.

Maybe they have it confused with ReplayGain volume/peak levels somehow?

>>57614889
it's 128 kb/s

>>57615532
it's 128kb/s at 480p and lower
720p and higher it goes to 384kb/s

you can clearly hear the change

>>57606836
You won't hear a difference with your 10$ earpods, but with my modest 800$ equipment i can hear difference between Something About Us in mp3 and in FLAC 44.1/16

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>>57615816
no

>>57615979
As an ex-audiophile: you literally can't. I sold audio setup on ebay because of an abx test I did with 320k mp3 and flac. There's 0 audible difference.

Escape the audiofool meme life while you still can, do the abx test.

>>57617388
his misconception seems to be based partly on 5+ year old information anyway

youtube has been using DASH and variable streaming for ages now, the old “720p for max audio quality” and “&fmt=22” etc. is long, long gone

>>57617424
>sold audio setup because his overkill bitrate was transparent
yep, you sure were an audiophile

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>>57615044
>>57615532
>>57615816
This article says Youtube uses AAC averaging 126kbps

https://www.h3xed.com/web-and-internet/youtube-audio-quality-bitrate-240p-360p-480p-720p-1080p

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>>57606836
No, use FLAC only for archivage.

Also fun fact, the new LAME (mp3) is now transparent even with inedible frequencies above 20 KHz...

>>57606885
Everytime

>>57607163
Yes. If you tape magnets to your DSL line it will also make it faster. You should try it.

File: FLAC vs MP3 VBR vs MP3 CBR320_.png (2MB, 2766x647px) Image search: [Google]

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>>57619420
This. MP3 VBR is perfectly fine. FLC only if further processing is required.

>>57614661
>I want to add that the lossy to lossy encoding, while something you should avoid if possible, isn't going to make an audible difference in all cases either.

This.
I occasionally do mp3@320-opus@128 transcodes when I can't find the lossless original.
I know what I'm doing. I abx to make sure they're transparent and I even tag the transcodes appropriately so if I ever find the flac originals I can replace them. I'm also not spreading those online, they're for personal use only. But indeed, they're fine and transparent. And it's a great way to fit even more music on my phone.