Is FLAC really "better" than high-bit rate MP3?

[peternova]

i can hear it ( i think ) but is it worth trouble. Not for me.

I'm pretty much the same. I prefer FLAC but mostly use mp3.

[TheGoodUsername]

It depends on the music for me. I typically notice the mp3 compression most in very "noisy" songs, eg. World's end girlfriend's stuff or Kashiwa Daisuke's.

[spiralout9]

I archive my music/CDs in FLAC but as far as listening to music on my phone or laptop it's stored as mp3. Yeah I doubt I can tell the difference between 320kbps and FLAC.

[thrasher]

I can't tell the difference between 320kbps and FLAC.

[crack98]

I'm downloading mp3 only. I don't care about the format - i mean mp3 or flac is for me the same. I would compare analog or digital source.. I have a old technics 1210 mk2 and of course listening to vinyl is different than listening to mp3.

[demod8698]

It's for the discerning ear and sometimes even depends on the way the final product was produced / recorded. Honestly, there are too many variables to make a generic observation.

[iLOVENZB]

Let's compare FLAC

I'm looking at 3 releases:

1. Hans_Zimmer-Inception_Music_From_The_Motion_Picture-OST-CD-FLAC-2010-FORSAKEN | 229.22 MiB
2. [TEAM ELITE] Hans Zimmer - Inception - Original Soundtrack - Flac | 499.89 MB
3. Inception 5.1 Soundtrack (2010, Hans Zimmer) FLAC | 1,045 MB

1. is a scene release. If we look at the NFO the presets are: 640 kbps / 44.1kHz / 2 channels preset.

NtmqTKT.png

2. Is a p2p release which is double the file size.

3. Is a p2p release, 24bit/44khz. Pretty sure its an extra from the 2 disc edition of the film. Double the size again of previous rls

Spectrograms:
How are you supposed to read these? I know they're supposed to be a visual representation to a track but what exactly do the colours mean? A brief game of spot the difference reveals there appears to be more red in the scene track ... meaning?

1. 12-hans_zimmer-time.png

2. 12 - Hans Zimmer - Time.png

3. Still downloading

[piercerseth]

Spectrograms:
How are you supposed to read these? I know they're supposed to be a visual representation to a track but what exactly do the colours mean? A brief game of spot the difference reveals there appears to be more red in the scene track ... meaning?

The only thing those are good for is spotting lossy transcodes where you'll see a delineation @16K and a cutoff at or below 18-19.

I was okay with the scene when they were still using V2 on their mp3s. I have tin ears though.

[anon]

I was okay with the scene when they were still using V2 on their mp3s.

What do they use now? It's been a while since I last downloaded a Scene rip.

[piercerseth]

I was okay with the scene when they were still using V2 on their mp3s.

What do they use now? It's been a while since I last downloaded a Scene rip.

LAME 3.98.4 set to V0 iirc