[Duke of Hazzard]

Ever since I found FLAC and learned it's a lossless compression type, I download my music exclusively in FLAC. However, due to unrestricted bitrate, FLAC files are much larger than MP3 and OGG and you may need expensive audio equipment to know the difference. So, if for example I listen to music on cheap PC or laptop speakers, does FLAC make any difference at all? I know there's a tiny difference with MP3@192, but MP3@320 are pretty damn good and, considering the available storage, might be preferable to FLAC...

[High Treason]

In my experience it varies, sometimes the original material wasn't available at the bit-rate the FLAC has been encoded in so it won't make a difference. Overall though, audiophiles don't like me because I honestly hear no difference between FLAC and OGG at maximum settings, some recordings even sound better in OGG compared to FLAC depending on what was used to encode them. FLAC is technically the better codec if the recording and encoding were done correctly and if up-sampling was necessary (such as in a recording from mixed sources), that being done properly too.

At the end of the day, I can't hear what you are listening to on the sound system you are using to listen to it, so it's really down to what you hear and if you think FLAC is worth the extra weight on the disk.

[Hendricks266]

If you use a spectrogram such as Sonic Visualiser you can very clearly see the difference between lossless and lossy encodings.

[Duke of Hazzard]

Hendricks266, on 14 May 2014 - 08:36 PM, said:

If you use a spectrogram such as Sonic Visualiser you can very clearly see the difference between lossless and lossy encodings.

The spectrogram will reveal the difference, yes, but I was wondering if you can notice the difference according to your senses, which, in the end, is what's important.

[Jimmy]

I personally prefer downloading/ripping to FLAC and then converting to 44.1 kHz 320kbps CBR MP3 in Goldwave. I find it produces a negligible decrease in quality to my hearing. Some rips straight to 320kbps sound really bad, but I feel downconverting from FLAC always ends up with a nice result. Some audiophiles would lambast me, but whatever. I fully support collecting in FLAC, I'm just not ready for the jump yet. I've got 59 gigabytes of music (in 320kbps or the highest bitrate I could get ahold of), and 35 gigabytes of stuff I've yet to sort and/or down-convert.

[Duke of Hazzard]

Jimmy, on 14 May 2014 - 09:25 PM, said:

I personally prefer downloading/ripping to FLAC and then converting to 44.1 kHz 320kbps CBR MP3 in Goldwave. I find it produces a negligible decrease in quality to my hearing. Some rips straight to 320kbps sound really bad, but I feel downconverting from FLAC always ends up with a nice result. Some audiophiles would lambast me, but whatever. I fully support collecting in FLAC, I'm just not ready for the jump yet. I've got 59 gigabytes of music (in 320kbps or the highest bitrate I could get ahold of), and 35 gigabytes of stuff I've yet to sort and/or down-convert.

I had to do this to play songs in my car since my radio doesn't support FLAC (not that I know of).

[Nukey]

I am not an audiophile, but I only accept FLAC whenever possible (I'll put up with lossy formats when I have no choice). WAV (or equivalent) is essentially the purest form of digital audio. FLAC is just the losslessly compressed version of that, which means you save more space and lose none of the quality. I'm not deluded enough to pretend there is any audible difference. It's purely a psychological comfort. I like to know that I have the highest quality copy available. The main issue with storing music in lossy formats like MP3 is that the conversion destroys data from the original, forever. That is a disaster for anyone who takes music seriously. Collecting lossless copies is effectively "future-proofing" your collection. You can always spin off copies in lossy formats like MP3 whenever you need them. The extra space required to store lossless audio is not an issue for me, because I am very particular about what gets into my collection in the first place (not to mention that storage is ridiculously cheap). FLAC is an open file format, and it also stores an MD5 checksum of the audio data within the container, which means you'll always be able to verify the integrity of the FLAC file. Also, within our lifespans, it may become possible to regenerate and/or improve our hearing capabilities, in which case there would be an audible difference in quality.


So, whether or not FLAC is "all that" is entirely up to personal opinion:

Casual music listeners will likely not know the difference and will not care (and will probably continue paying money for poorly-tagged m4a/wma/mp3 files, ugh).

People who take music more seriously likely will care, and will continue pursuing the high-quality copies if at all possible.

People with OCD (audiophiles) will always care to the point of absurdity (all of their FLAC must be 24bit/96kHz, all of their cables made of gold, etc, despite the fact they're pushing 30+ and have lost most of the frequencies above 13kHz due to long listening sessions at high volume).

It's pretty obvious that I am an advocate for FLAC, but I am probably closer to that last group than I'd care to be.

[MusicallyInspired]

I'm somewhat more of an audiophile than Nukey, but my opinion is basically the same as his. Well put.

Bit off topic, but I cannot understand the concept of paying for destroyed audio. It's like having a credit card swiper in your car and paying to listen to the radio. Disgusting. It's only respectful to the original artist to listen to their work exactly as it was mastered (unless they just compress the crap out of it, in which case I don't care. If they don't care why should I?). In the same way I'm also an advocate for decent speakers and/or headphones. It's not just lossy codecs that are a disgrace, it's the hardware we use as well. I've heard so much more from music that I missed before when I listen to lossless audio with decent hardware. It's just a very different experience. You can see the care and love put into it. The art. This doesn't apply to crap pop music.

But yeah, it's more the principle than anything. If I'm going to own or listen to a piece of muaic I want it in its purest form. I'll convertnto MP3 myself for my phone to listen to on the go to save space, but I want the original masters in full quality.

[Kyanos]

I'm so out of the loop on this.

I have a question though. If iTunes and such only deal with mp3s, do artists then sell FLAC or WAV online themselves or is this from CD rips?

[MetHy]

It all depends how good your hearing is; and also how good your sound system is. If you think the difference between a 192kbps MP3 and a 320kbps MP3 is tiny, than the difference between a 320kpbs MP3 and FLAC will be feel even smaller to you; whether that comes from your hear, your speakers etc, or both.

On my sound system and with my trained hear I can definitly feel the difference between 320kbps MP3 and FLAC; but for example with some speakers, there really is no point in going over 192kbps because the speakers are so shit there will barely be any difference anyway.
I had not trained my hearing when I was mixing my old band's EP years ago, I would probably still not be able to tell the difference nowadays. I can not stand something lower than 320 MP3 now.
Sadly, highly compressed music and crap sound system have become a standard since a decade or so. People listen to music on the speaker of their mobile phone. At least it's good that you're asking yourself that question. Actually I'm surprised to see this thread on what is mainly a gaming forum, video game players generally only care about 'GRAPHICS' and not about sound (Every single 'pro' video game reviewer will go into details technically analizing every polygon and pixel but they'll never do that the same for sound)

[Duke of Hazzard]

MetHy, on 15 May 2014 - 09:54 AM, said:

It all depends how good your hearing is; and also how good your sound system is. If you think the difference between a 192kbps MP3 and a 320kbps MP3 is tiny, than the difference between a 320kpbs MP3 and FLAC will be feel even smaller to you; whether that comes from your hear, your speakers etc, or both.

On my sound system and with my trained hear I can definitly feel the difference between 320kbps MP3 and FLAC; but for example with some speakers, there really is no point in going over 192kbps because the speakers are so shit there will barely be any difference anyway.
I had not trained my hearing when I was mixing my old band's EP years ago, I would probably still not be able to tell the difference nowadays. I can not stand something lower than 320 MP3 now.
Sadly, highly compressed music and crap sound system have become a standard since a decade or so. People listen to music on the speaker of their mobile phone. At least it's good that you're asking yourself that question. Actually I'm surprised to see this thread on what is mainly a gaming forum, video game players generally only care about 'GRAPHICS' and not about sound (Every single 'pro' video game reviewer will go into details technically analizing every polygon and pixel but they'll never do that the same for sound)

Well I created the thread not really because of games but I also pay attention to sounds in games and I'm concerned about their quality. One thing I regret is that, with the advent of the military shooter as the standard FPS game, the weapons sound too realistic in new FPS. In old games like Duke and Doom, they didn't have the best frequencies or bitrate but the samples were unique and gave each weapon character.

I also care about sounds because I play racing games and to me engine sounds are essential to my enjoyment of the game.

And, considering there are many people here who deal with sounds and know more than I do, I felt it was nice to ask. Most of my music collection is FLAC rips, some of them 24-bit vinyls, and I wondered if my better perception of the FLAC recordings was due to some placebo effect. But I agree with Nukey and MusicallyInspired, I like to have the best recording I can so I can manipulate it however I see fit.

[MusicallyInspired]

Drek, on 15 May 2014 - 09:16 AM, said:

I'm so out of the loop on this.

I have a question though. If iTunes and such only deal with mp3s, do artists then sell FLAC or WAV online themselves or is this from CD rips?

Actually, I believe iTunes deals in its own lossless format (AAC, though AAC can also be lossy as it happens), though I'm not sure if that's all over the board or for extra or what. I don't use iTunes.

[Hendricks266]

Apple can rip CDs in ALAC (Apple Lossless Audio Codec), but the iTunes store only deals in lossy AAC.

[Lunick]

iTunes has ALAC which is stored in an .m4a file. The iTunes store doesn't sell those though

EDIT: FUCKING HENDRICKS

[MusicallyInspired]

Ridiculous. Wasteful. We should be beyond lossy by now with all the advances in storage we have now.

[Radar]

I find myself having a hard time even accepting FLACs. I get WAVs whenever I can.

But when it comes to lossy, I'll settle for no lower than 128kb MP3. Anything lower sounds so dead.

[Mike Norvak]

Haven't already read the comments, but I would say Lossless: WAV --> FLAC
Compressed: OGG --> MP3

I can only notice the difference between lossless at 2116kbps and lossy compressed >320kbps in the high freq range on flat response phones like AIAIAI TM1. Still having MP3 at 320kbps is enough for me. <320kbps Is a no no

[Hendricks266]

Radar, on 09 July 2014 - 05:54 PM, said:

I find myself having a hard time even accepting FLACs. I get WAVs whenever I can.

FLAC is superior to WAV, but only for technical reasons--both are lossless. It has a smaller file size and allows metadata.

Mike Norvak, on 09 July 2014 - 06:17 PM, said:

Haven't already read the comments, but I would say Lossless: WAV --> FLAC
Compressed: OGG --> MP3

Dunno what the "-->" mean, but if you change those to commas it makes sense.

[Duke of Hazzard]

Radar, on 09 July 2014 - 05:54 PM, said:

I find myself having a hard time even accepting FLACs. I get WAVs whenever I can.

But when it comes to lossy, I'll settle for no lower than 128kb MP3. Anything lower sounds so dead.

FLAC is same quality as WAV except it's compressed. It's like saying you prefer uncompressed to zip files.

[Mike Norvak]

Hendricks266, on 09 July 2014 - 06:25 PM, said:

FLAC is superior to WAV, but only for technical reasons--both are lossless. It has a smaller file size and allows metadata.


Dunno what the "-->" mean, but if you change those to commas it makes sense.

I meant ">" lol

Hendricks266, on 09 July 2014 - 06:25 PM, said:

FLAC is superior to WAV, but only for technical reasons--both are lossless. It has a smaller file size and allows metadata.

Does Flac support 48khz sample rate and more than 1000kbps?

[Person of Color]

I personally love FLAC. It sounded great on my Paradigm Atoms...before I blew them. Still notice a difference on my Polk HDX3's.

[Hendricks266]

Mike Norvak, on 09 July 2014 - 08:32 PM, said:

I meant ">" lol

WAV < FLAC. I don't know enough to compare about the audio quality vs file size of Vorbis and MP3, though Vorbis does have the advantages of being completely open-source and royalty-free, and that loop points work.

Mike Norvak, on 09 July 2014 - 08:32 PM, said:

Does Flac support 48khz sample rate and more than 1000kbps?

"FLAC supports only fixed-point samples, not floating-point. It can handle any PCM bit resolution from 4 to 32 bits per sample, any sampling rate from 1 Hz to 655350 Hz in 1 Hz increments, and any number of channels from 1 to 8."

It doesn't make sense to ask for support of "kbps". What you're thinking of are the constant bit rate (CBR) settings for lossy MP3 encoding. When you use CBR, you're basically telling the encoder "degrade the audio to the point where one second is X kilobits". Variable bit rate (VBR) is inherently superior because it allows the encoder to make smart decisions about the amount of data needed per block, allowing smaller file sizes. (Video encoders sometimes combine the two, allowing you to select a VBR preset, while naming a CBR ceiling, though such a ceiling is not recommended unless you're streaming.)

For FLAC, no data is discarded, so any mention of "kbps" as shown by an audio player is simply a side-effect of all the other parameters, and it will vary based on how well the lossless compression can shrink each individual file. For example, I have a 192 KHz, 24-bit, stereo FLAC file that foobar2000 shows to be 4473 kbps. Stripped of metadata, the file is 119299483 bytes (113 MB) and 3:33.367.

3 minutes * 60 seconds/minute + 33.367 seconds = 213.367 seconds
119299483 bytes * 8 bits/byte / 1000 bits/kilobit = 954395.864 kilobits
954395.864 kilobits / 213.367 seconds = 4473.025 kilobits/second

[MusicallyInspired]

Accept FLAC. It is literally no different from WAV except for the advances Hendricks mentioned. That means if you decode a FLAC file you will get the exact same audio file as the original WAV before it was encoded. And it sounds the same encoded. There's a reason it exists. It's not like the nonsense of lossy formats at all. There's no reason not to use it unless you like filling up your storage faster.

[Mike Norvak]

This:

Hendricks266, on 09 July 2014 - 09:54 PM, said:

Variable bit rate (VBR) is inherently superior because it allows the encoder to make smart decisions about the amount of data needed per block, allowing smaller file sizes.

An this:

Hendricks266, on 09 July 2014 - 09:54 PM, said:

or FLAC, no data is discarded, so any mention of "kbps" as shown by an audio player is simply a side-effect of all the other parameters, and it will vary based on how well the lossless compression can shrink each individual file.

Yeah you are right.



Anyway is really hard to tell the difference (if not impossible between wav and flac just by ear) So in that case if FLAC takes less space is far superior. Without counting loop points and so. EDIT: Oh yeah what Musically Inspired already said.

Nukey, on 15 May 2014 - 12:01 AM, said:

People with OCD (audiophiles) will always care to the point of absurdity (all of their FLAC must be 24bit/96kHz, all of their cables made of gold, etc, despite the fact they're pushing 30+ and have lost most of the frequencies above 13kHz due to long listening sessions at high volume).

LOL. Mostly true

[Radar]

It's an OCD thing. I have old equipment that records audio directly to WAV (no FLAC support) and converting the source files to any other format scares me.

[Hendricks266]

Nukey, on 15 May 2014 - 12:01 AM, said:

People with OCD (audiophiles) will always care to the point of absurdity (all of their FLAC must be 24bit/96kHz, all of their cables made of gold, etc, despite the fact they're pushing 30+ and have lost most of the frequencies above 13kHz due to long listening sessions at high volume).

It's pretty obvious that I am an advocate for FLAC, but I am probably closer to that last group than I'd care to be.

Agreed. I'll get FLAC >16-bit and >44.1 KHz whenever possible, simply because I like having more data. You can always take it away later. I also set up my collection so that I have red book audio compliant masterings (16-bit 44.1 KHz) for anything that also has something higher than that.

Radar, on 10 July 2014 - 08:48 AM, said:

It's an OCD thing. I have old equipment that records audio directly to WAV (no FLAC support) and converting the source files to any other format scares me.

I can understand not using FLAC if your production software doesn't support it (though plugins might exist). But if it's just your recording software, FLAC that shit afterward.

[MusicallyInspired]

Mike Norvak, on 10 July 2014 - 07:05 AM, said:

Anyway is really hard to tell the difference (if not impossible between wav and flac just by ear) So in that case if FLAC takes less space is far superior.

There IS NO difference to audio quality at all. You're not converting when you make a FLAC, you're encoding.

I'm not in the OCD audiophile group either. I just would like the choice of converting down my songs into whatever format I wish without losing more quality. OGG is usually perfect for me.

[Corvin]

I don't know if this was mentioned yet, but Ken Silverman has a new FLAC tool at his site.

[Hendricks266]

It was mentioned on #eduke32. Unfortunately, the improvement it gets is negligible after spending enormous amounts of time (it's a bruteforcer), and in addition to that it discards all metadata. It's useless.

[Person of Color]

KGBrony, on 10 July 2014 - 08:48 AM, said:

It's an OCD thing. I have old equipment that records audio directly to WAV (no FLAC support) and converting the source files to any other format scares me.

Maybe if you would stop pretending to like My Little Pony for three seconds you could learn the difference between lossy and lossless compression.

Shit tier troll is shit.