I disagree about the uselessness of this thread, I even learned a couple of useful things with it. I also found it interesting to understand how other people perceive mp3: I personally hate it, it make me feel miserable (reminds me of the 90s: napster / winmx with their songs encoded at 96k), but this is only my point of view. Every topic discussed here, if done truthfully, is noteworthy. Then we can agree or not, but the important thing is to be fair in transferring emotions.

 

Yes, it was useful as off-topic statements are concerned. Mainly, how many people are there with bad hearing.
But the main question of this thread is useless, because everybody knows that WAV is better than mp3, because mp3 is just a (scientifically) butchered version of WAV.
Personally, I find mp3 so crummy that I remaster (by undoing the mp3 encoding protocol implementations by dedicated software - it's not perfect, of course) mp3 files of the music that I love but can't find in lossless format and save the result in FLAC for listening.

 

What I don't understand about this video is the fact that perfect pitching is of no importance to mp3 files assessing whatsoever, because mp3 does not mingle with pitch at all. Also the highest frequency one can hear is not of great importance because most of distortion happens with dynamics (overall and transient), quantization of dynamics, stereo offset, spectral holes (very well beneath 18.1 kHz), masking, DC offset, etc. Also, low end is the most affected in fact, as well as clarity and detail (including ambience). The things for this young girl obviously has no special skills (not to mention experience).
Many of the producers mentioned are so old that they started losing their hearing before mp3 was even introduced. They are not hiding their age for no reason.

 

And your perception of the main question is useless, because everybody can see that I asked something about the confusion caused by a lower bitrate in the FLAC file compared to MP3. Besides an interesting discussion that followed, something which became already clear enough in a few posts. But hey, some folks 'know it all' and therefore think they have to judge others each time with their fantastic knowledge, just like user Nightmix did.

 

You must watch the video to understand it.

 

To go even more offtopic from the OT I would like to add to the discussion that the context in which these files are used matters.

Any DJ knows very well that if he plays a 128k mp3 track there will be a dramatic impact on what comes out of the sound system and his performance will be ruined. That's why, on the dancefloor, only 320k files or even better, flac are used.

When I'm having a barbecue in the garden and listening to music on my boombox, with a beer in my hand, I really have no idea how the file I'm listening to is encoded, and to tell the truth, I don't care at all.

Note: To attract flac lovers, pirate sites often share flac files that come from upscaled mp3s, it can happen that our ears may not notice this (especially on old recordings), but spectral analysis reveals the scam

 

Do we have a suspect here? Victim... perpetrator...?
Ok, don't mind me, I'm slightly drunk. And without a barbecue, how sad is that

 

It is not just 'flac lovers', it is also people who search for quality.
And 'upscaled' in this case means fake, because they just fill up the missing spectrum with noise to cheat spectrum analysing software. Such fake files stink for miles.
But you can truly upscale any non-perfect file, including mp3s. That is what's called remastering. Those perpetrators don't do that, it's too costly.

 

You most probably missed this:
https://audiosex.pro/threads/is-this-flac-file-still-better-compared-to-mp3.55422/page-3#post-500989

 

haha, sure i got "flac"-duped back in the day wondering why does this crap sound exactly like a 160kbps crappy file? lol

and yes you got a great point there, amplification seems to unveil a lack of energy/impact/definition in lower quality files, i can hear it if playing out on big systems, sounds washed out. much more than played at a lower volume on a regular home system

 

Last edited: Sep 12, 2020

Actually I think that meaning was created for fake HD videos "shared" on the net. In which case the fake thing was literally up-scaling (480p to 720p, and so on).

 

Most of the flac hype comes from folks who just WANT to believe it is better
They have invested in it in one way or another

Sure, of course it is technically richer, but does it sound better than 320? No

Reality is that very few people can even tell 192 from 320

An even if one can tell them apart, is there any reduction in real musical value? No

 

I tried it with a six seconds drumloop and the bitrate dropped down to 672kbps. Not even close to the 231 you mentioned.

 

...and I'm sure you do your tracking, bouncing, mixdowns before mastering using MP3.

 

FLAC = WAV. So there are "WAV believers"?
'Technically richer, but does it sound better' - Try to record and mix in mp3, and very soon you'll see mist on the horizon.
Reality is that people who can not even tell 192 from 320 are very close to 'acoustic idiots'.

 

I guess this site is not about video processing, so you might be wrong.

 

Mp3 was a glorious codec, but it's outdated now. Flac is loseless, practical, free, and works on all modern devices: I don't see why not to use it. ideological arguments on this topic are useless, it is impossible for me to imagine a nostalgia effect for mp3 like, for example, exists with vinyl records. When technology brings progress I'm always happy to accept it, I really don't understand these "flac haters" people

 

Last edited by a moderator: Sep 13, 2020

agree, AND most of us often need our files for more than for casual consumer listening pleasure, we need them to work with eventually. having flac is optimal. sure the size difference is still significant but its not that huge of a deal. for me its most that i cant get all i have in flac yet