FLAC vs MP3 - Which Has Better Quality

Using lossless as a fail-safe mechanism can't be argued against, but have you ever wondered why listening tests are not conducted for lossy encodings at “high” bitrates (~256)? I challenge you to find anyone who can differentiate (a song, not problem sample-- after all people attend concerts to listen to music) between a MP3 -V0 encoded music and a FLAC encoded music. Yes, using lossless might give you the satisfaction of knowing that “this is as good as it gets”, but honestly, you'd be hard pressed to find people who can differentiate between a lossy and a lossless.

flac is better than mp3 because flac is lossless and mp3 is lossy.

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Originally Posted by OlegL

flac is better than mp3 because flac is lossless and mp3 is lossy.

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Implying by definition that lossless is better than lossy, and totally ignoring everything else that's been said in this thread. You're not as good as

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dvd

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but you're almost there.

EDIT: Looks like I failed at detecting sarcasm, yet again. I'll keep my idiot comments to myself.

I used to be a perfect archival freak until I realized even my body fails to live up to my high standards - every single atom in my body is replaced every 5 years. Why the fuck should my music be better than physics?

Also, to the above post, I'm going to call on physics again. You wouldn't just be hard-pressed. If you have to TRY REAL HARD to discern differences between two basically identical copies of your music, and maybe have OTHER PEOPLE listen to it for you, you've got other problems, mate.

I also used to be a FLAC guy until I realized that the music industry could use quality as their selling point - give out shit MP3's for free, and make the FLAC's hard to get. Then I realized how stupid an idea that was and slashed my wrists.

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Originally Posted by OlegL

flac is better than mp3 because flac is lossless and mp3 is lossy.

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:lol:

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Originally Posted by OlegL

flac is better than mp3 because flac is lossless and mp3 is lossy.

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Looks like some 80 year old is speaking here.. :fst:

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Originally Posted by bijoy

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Originally Posted by OlegL

flac is better than mp3 because flac is lossless and mp3 is lossy.

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Looks like some 80 year old is speaking here.. :fst:

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Give this guy a break.
Obviously english is not his first language and that shouldn't be the reason to make fun of someone.
His post made me chuckle a bit too but I'm not running around FST posting crap about him.
That's not ethically you know...

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Originally Posted by bijoy

Looks like some 80 year old is speaking here.. :fst:

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I'm starting to regret that pact I made with myself about giving you room to breathe. Imbecile.

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Originally Posted by Humbucker

. . . you'd be hard pressed to find people who can differentiate between lossy and a lossless.

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i believe i can and other people i know can, too; you don't need a sound setup in the $1,000s of dollars to hear the difference between flac and mp3, imo, but it does need to be pretty decent. other than its archival purposes, why else would flac be a viable format for ripping music?

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Originally Posted by Anarkial

I am using $200 IEM's (granted no sound card or pre-amp)

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no sound card? maybe i'm missing something here . . .

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Originally Posted by whatcdfan

flac is far more better in terms of quality then any lossy formats, flac preserves the original bitrate of 1411kbps whereas u can go to the maximum of 320 kbps with mp3 so theoretically theres a huge difference in quality but as Anarkial said u gotta have the hardware to take the difference into ur notion.

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i've done some sound tests myself and i'm able to hear the difference (at least w/ albums ripped in 100% accurate flac versus albums ripped in 320 kpbs/v0 mp3 that have particularly good production; good album production might add a bias to that test, tbh)

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Originally Posted by ca_aok

Do an ABX test on a few of your favourite albums (preferably across a range of genres) on your best listening equipment in a quiet room. If you can tell the difference, go for FLAC.

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this seems to be the most accurate test (it's a test that i've done before) if you really want to be sure flac is superior, but as always, the result depends on your sound setup and the production value of the albums you're listening to, imo

I'm going to have to side with Th0r on this one. Quality isn't just a measure of the bitrate at the end of the day. Other factors, including things like jitter factor in. (I wonder how many people will get that one). (No, seriously). Nowadays, a decent pair of open Sennheiser cans (580 and 600 are just fine) that have been modded properly (for show and/or opening purposes), recabelled and balanced, along with a cheap set of amps like the Valhalla will run you a total grand sum of 500$ for a music experience that would have been had for 20 times that much money no less than 5 years ago. You don't need to buy headphones that cost as much as your car, and amplifiers with turntables that cost twice as much, any longer.

I recall mentioning in a thread around here not too long ago, that I can easily note the difference between V2 and V0 on my setup, but with anything higher than V0 I usually struggle/have to nitpick to find any differences, if any are noticeable, and I'd rank my current setup as mid tier (it cost me around 750$ in total, I'm upgrading it soon enough). I will be the first to admit, though, that there is no audible difference between 320kbps and V0, no matter whose system I've run ABX tests on.

Same for me, really