FLAC VS MP3

[hurtstotalktoyou]

Originally posted by: svi

Have you ever heard of people improving after taking sugar pills in medical studies? Well, this is much the same principle: since people believe they should be able to hear a difference or are looking for one to begin with, many of them perceive a difference that is not actually there.

Like many others, you have misunderstood. I'm talking about people who don't notice a difference. Heck, I've tried the blind test myself, and above ~160 kbps I can't tell which is which, most of the time. What I'm saying--what I've already pointed out--is that it doesn't matter if people can identify the differences or not. They still exist.

"But there is a technological difference..."
Even if there is, that doesn't mean the human ear can pick it up.

Not precisely, no. But the frequencies cut and the artifacts left behind are audible.

See, the human ear is an astoudingly bad measuring instrument.

Actually, it's the human mind which is so awful. The ear itself is quite capable.

It can't pick up differences that midrange 30-year-old analog recording equipment can, it has astoundingly poor recording functions (the brain, here), and the brain is so complex that it is quite capable of messing with the ear's input and making it something other than bit-perfect. It's been proven in many, many studies. It's an undeniable fact.

...and all of it is irrelevant. Our bodies' hardware, so to speak, is able to detect differences, but our minds aren't always able to consciously identify them.

The next time you're pulling an argument out of your ass with no experimental evidence whatsoever, remember: the scientific method exists for a reason. The only guide worse than emotion is intuition.

Maybe if you focused more on substance than insults you'd realize your mistake.

No, it's a completely unqualified statement that you are pulling out of your ass. There's quite a difference. You can tell the difference by the fact that I have the results of scientific testing on my side and you don't. Next you're going to tell me that rainbow foil makes audio gear sound better because that's what your intuition tells you, right?

What testing? You're the one "pulling out of your ass." Go mix an inverted mp3 with its source wav, and tell me you can't hear the artifacts.

 

[svi]

That's not at all what I'm talking about. I'm talking about people who don't notice a difference. Heck, I've tried the blind test myself, and above ~160 kbps I can't tell which is which, most of the time. What I'm saying--what I've already pointed out--is that it doesn't matter if people can identify the differences or not. They still exist.

You can't try a double-blind test yourself, but thanks for illustrating your ignorance on the subject (it might help others reading this to reach a decision!).

And yes, the differences do exist. That's why lossy is lossy. Similarly, there is a huge difference between a -4000dB and a -8000dB noise floor. However, if they can't be identified, then you can't hear them. What about this could possibly be so difficult?

Not precisely, no. But the frequencies cut and the artifacts left behind are audible.

If they were audible, you would be able to hear them. You can't hear them, thus they are not audible. You do know what "audible" means, yes?

Actually, it's the human mind which is so awful. The ear itself is quite capable.

The ear is more capable than the human mind, but not nearly as good as dated low-end electronics. It's quite irrelevant what's technically worse at its job, anyway; noises that are turned into nerve impulses by your ear and associated neural circutry are then interpreted by your brain, so it doesn't matter where information gets lost so long as it does.

...and all of it is irrelevant. Our bodies' hardware, so to speak, is able to detect differences, but our minds aren't always able to consciously identify them.

Another statement straight from the ass. Do you have any evidence whatsoever (and I don't mean more irrelevant, pseudo-scientific tangents, I mean actual evidence), or are you just assuming that people should take your word as truth?

Maybe if you focused more on substance than insults you'd realize your mistake.

As I've said before, I do focus on substance, and I have been through this many more times than you have. If I seem insulting, it is because I have dealt with too many uneducated, unqualified people who are arrogant enough to think they know more than audio engineers and audiologists.

What testing? You're the one "pulling out of your ass." Go mix an inverted mp3 with its source wav, and tell me you can't hear the artifacts.

What testing? How about every single double-blind test showing no ability to pick between high-end lossy and lossless? If you're actually able to open your web browser and waste my time with your inane, unfounded argument, I'm sure you can use a search engine as well.

Your example is irrelevant. It is not what we're talking about, and I can only assume that you brought it up because you have no actual evidence for what you're saying.

 

[hurtstotalktoyou]

I understand where you're coming from, and I really wish you could try to leave out the wit and just offer the wisdom.

However, I still think you're wrong. Facts don't require journal citations to be observed. Some facts are shown through simple logical reasoning, and need no so-called scientific method. However, since you presented a reasonable argument, I will take a break to find some third-party support for my side of the story.

In the mean time, try not to be such an ass.

 

[svi]

I understand where you're coming from, and I really wish you could try to leave out the wit and just offer the wisdom.

What wit? I go piece by piece for clarity's sake. If that's an issue, I'm sorry.

However, I still think you're wrong.

Of course you do.

Facts don't require journal citations to be observed.

No, but they do require observation to be observed.

Some facts are shown through simple logical reasoning, and need no so-called scientific method.

Very few facts are shown through "simple logical reasoning," contrary to what you may have learned in mathematics. A hypothesis that can be tested by the scientific method that you are so blissfully unaware of can and should be tested by such, lest we draw seemingly logical conclusions as idiotic as those that some of our ancestors have made (and that we are still paying for). As I said before, the only thing less reliable than emotion is intuition.

However, since you presented a reasonable argument, I will take a break to find some third-party support for my side of the story.

Good.

In the mean time, try not to be such an ass.

Try not to present an unfounded, uninformed argument as undeniable fact. (We've been here before, if I recall correctly.) Being abrasive about the matter doesn't help.

 

[ixelion]

Wow talk about e-penis wars.

What about AC3? I already tried AC3 5.1 and the audio was screwed up from the rear channels, however in a regular 2 channel setup the sound is definatly much better than 128kbps MP3.

Unfourtunatly I get a lot of artifacts like popping and such with AC3, if it wasent for those I would definatly use AC3.

If anyone knows how to rip to AC3 (not necessarily 5.1) without any encoding artifacts, please share .

 

[svi]

Wow talk about e-penis wars.

Hardly. E-penis wars describe people talking about whose (graphics card, case, CPU, penis) is (better, bigger, faster, longer). Flat-out arguments are something else entirely. They may involve egos, but they are not centered around them, and thus do not qualify. Yes, there is truly a vast amount of ways for two or more people to be asses to each other on the internet. Isn't technology wonderful?

Anyway, posing question in a subjective area is asking for this kind of thing to happen. Imagine what would happen if you asked CRT vs. LCD.

What about AC3? I already tried AC3 5.1 and the audio was screwed up from the rear channels, however in a regular 2 channel setup the sound is definatly much better than 128kbps MP3.

Unfourtunatly I get a lot of artifacts like popping and such with AC3, if it wasent for those I would definatly use AC3.

Honestly, if you don't have any specific reason to use AC3 (DVD burning, for example), I'd say don't bother. 192kbps mp3 is much better than 128kbps mp3 too, and it's much more portable.

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

For you guys that are fighting, look up the OT thread where a guy hosted a bunch of music in different formats from well encoded mp3 to ogg to flac etc.

Long story short is nobody could really tell the difference. There were a couple of contenders that has stereo setups that made mine look like a POS and they didn't get them all right.

 

[hurtstotalktoyou]

Originally posted by: sviHardly. E-penis wars describe people talking about whose (graphics card, case, CPU, penis) is (better, bigger, faster, longer). Flat-out arguments are something else entirely. They may involve egos, but they are not centered around them, and thus do not qualify. Yes, there is truly a vast amount of ways for two or more people to be asses to each other on the internet. Isn't technology wonderful?

You claim I need scientific proof, yet you offer none, yourself. You say that "double-blind" tests support your argument, but I have seen nothing of the sort.

 

[svi]

You claim I need scientific proof, yet you offer none, yourself. You say that "double-blind" tests support your argument, but I have seen nothing of the sort.

That's because you haven't done any research. Obviously, if you don't bother reading anything about the subjects you insist on arguing about, you won't understand or recognize references that others make.

If Google seems like too much effort, Hydrogenaudio (www.hydrogenaudio.org) is an excellent place to start for lossy audio codec tests. Look in the Listening Tests forum.

 

[hurtstotalktoyou]

Originally posted by: svi
That's because you haven't done any research.

Oh, Lord....

No, the reason I haven't seen you support your arguments isn't because I haven't done any research; it's because you haven't presented any evidence. Strangely enough, you've accused me of the same impropriety,

At first I thought you were simply in disagreement with me. Now it seems you really can't reason.

 

[The Boston Dangler]

I dunno 'bout you, but that swooshy metallic sound in just about any mp3 is easily apparent to me.

 

[wpeng]

What you guys are arguing about is almost a matter of semantics. How do you define sound and hearing? Basically, we can go back to the whole "If a tree falls in the woods but no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?" question. No one really has an answer to that. By svi's definition, sound is an entirely human perception, so if no human is there to perceive it, then no sound is made. But hurtstotalktoyou seems to define sound as vibrations in the air, so a sound is indeed made even if no human is there.

Having said that, though, I agree with svi more. I define "hearing" as the whole route from vibrations to mental processing. If hurtstotalktoyou thinks that "hearing" stops at the inner ear, then I guess there's no way to argue with him.

 

[0roo0roo]

for most no it doesn't matter. mp3 is easier to deal wtih, takes less space and well works with everything around. just make sure to use a lame codec based encoder.. lots of freeware out there. eac+ lame or razor lame frontend alone bleh. use one of the lame presets.. atleast 192kbs and its good enough to keep most happy. and no you shouldn't be able to tell your less then audiophile system. heck there are doubts those who claim to hear differences really hear differences. its like refilling an evian water bottle with tap.. if you dont' tell someone they probably won't notice. only way to be sure is blind a b tests. reencoding to flac is too much trouble for me. if you have really expensive equipment then it might be different. anyways you are only shooting for cd quality. theres higher out there with the sadly dead formats of dvd-a and sacd. silly greedy music companies copy protected em to death

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

Originally posted by: Concillian

Originally posted by: poisonthewell

Originally posted by: svi
sincerely doubt anyone can actually hear the difference between 192kbps LAME VBR and FLAC on computer speakers.

On a $30 set of speakers - correct.

Get something decent like z-2300s or promedia's and a chaintech av-710 - wrong.

Well I can't tell the difference between a .wav and the highest LAME VBR setting when I did a blind test. I selected some tracks with specific issues that compression seemed to highlight at low quality mp3 settings then encoded with EAC and LAME and converting the .mp3s back to wavs. Then I had someone else burning them side by side with the true .wavs and save the file so we could learn the true order after the test. Then we played it through my brothers audio setup (not top end audiophile but ~$1k speakers and Adcom preamp/amp I don't recall the CD player brand, but roughly equal quality, not department store stuff).

Neither of us scored very well. We tried to rank which track was .mp3 and which track was .wav but both got many of them wrong.

I would suggest anyone who is planning on cataloging their collection to do a similar type of test on your own. Your ear is what matters, not anyone else's opinion or ear. It's possible that someone else could listen to the CD I made and identify the .mp3 tracks with 100% accuracy. But I don't really care if they can, because I can't tell the difference... and I'm who matters when it comes to listening to my music.

I agree with you. Too many people claim they can tell this from that, but really when you configure your sound system right, most people can't tell jack.

Seriously. In double blind tests, most people would fail. Run it a few more times and you would fail even more. It's like luck and randomnes that gets you to pick the right one.

If anyone remembers that scene in Infernal Affairs I where Andy Lau is buying new speaker cables... Sits there and hears a total difference instantly. Yea, many of you guys claim you can do things like that, but there are honestly only a few of us out there.

You might be able to hear a difference, but its not a difference that you can recognize and categorize as better/worse.

 

[imported_goku]

Yea if you want you CDs, just rip them to flac on your computer. I have all my CDs ripped to flac and when I need a compressed smaller version of it, I just covert from the flac (makes another file) into OGG like when I wanna hear the song on my phone which doesn't have unlimited space.

 

[imported_goku]

Originally posted by: The Boston Dangler
I plead with everyone: Please dump lossy formats! FLAC is the way to go.

Well, except on most portable devices with limited space.

 

[imported_goku]

In helping SVI, there is one way to prove with out a doubt the difference between a flac and an MP3/lossy file format. 1. Get good sound card (actually for this test, you don't REALLY HAVE TO but should) 2. Rip an MP3 of a song from a CD, don't download it. 3. Rip a flac of a song from a CD 4. Connect soundcard to decent speakers (again not required but suggested). 5. Play the MP3 and the Flac, First play it at a relatively low volume and slowly increase it. 6. Compare. I can guarantee you, if you were to raise the volume on the flac and on the MP3 and were to compare them, you would with out a doubt be able to tell the difference between the two.
Do you know why? It's because when you raise the volume, you amplify the sound, do you know what else you amplify? ARTIFACTS! So any artifacts you can't hear with the MP3 at low volume, I can guarantee you can hear when you raise the volume.

 

[imported_goku]

Originally posted by: 0roo0roo
for most no it doesn't matter. mp3 is easier to deal wtih, takes less space and well works with everything around. just make sure to use a lame codec based encoder.. lots of freeware out there. eac+ lame or razor lame frontend alone bleh. use one of the lame presets.. atleast 192kbs and its good enough to keep most happy. and no you shouldn't be able to tell your less then audiophile system. heck there are doubts those who claim to hear differences really hear differences. its like refilling an evian water bottle with tap.. if you dont' tell someone they probably won't notice. only way to be sure is blind a b tests. reencoding to flac is too much trouble for me. if you have really expensive equipment then it might be different. anyways you are only shooting for cd quality. theres higher out there with the sadly dead formats of dvd-a and sacd. silly greedy music companies copy protected em to death

Bah, I can tell you, evian water (naive) despite the name, tastes much better than LA/San Diego water which is absolutely horrid. Water where I live on the other hand is very very good, so bottled water here is useless but not in other places.

 

[Allio]

Oh, for the love of god. All of you who claim to be able to tell the difference, download the special version of foobar right now and do an ABX test, and don't cheat. Nearly half of the people in the last thread couldn't tell the difference between a 128kbps MP3 reencoded to 320kbps and a real 320kbps MP3, let alone an -aps MP3 and a FLAC.

FLAC is superb for archival purposes, that's what it was intended for. For listening, taking a 400% space increase for a quality increase which almost certainly doesn't exist is just plain stupid.

 

[walkeral]

I've done some testing in this area and I've got it documented on my website at http://www.walkeral.plus.com/music.html. I'm giving my website an overhaul next month - I'll put some "better" music in as samples. The FFT graph shows the difference in frequency response for the different formats (although I admit that having no high frequencies is preferable over comrpessed high frequencies where all the artifacting occurs).

I have moved over to Ogg Vorbis for music and for movie audio as it has much better quality at lower bitrates. I will point out the major pitfall of Ogg, and that's re-encoding (which you shouldn't do anyway). The quality falls off much quicker than MP3 does.

 

[ixelion]

OK thanks for the advise, I see now that ripping AC3 from a cd makes no sense at all.

However, many have said they use VBR MP3s while others use Ogg.

My question is, if file size is not an issue, what will be a better audio quality (not technically but subjectively i.e. your opinion) VBR MP3 or whatever birate people use for Ogg.

 

[hurtstotalktoyou]

Originally posted by: wpeng
What you guys are arguing about is almost a matter of semantics. How do you define sound and hearing? Basically, we can go back to the whole "If a tree falls in the woods but no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?" question. No one really has an answer to that. By svi's definition, sound is an entirely human perception, so if no human is there to perceive it, then no sound is made. But hurtstotalktoyou seems to define sound as vibrations in the air, so a sound is indeed made even if no human is there.

Having said that, though, I agree with svi more. I define "hearing" as the whole route from vibrations to mental processing. If hurtstotalktoyou thinks that "hearing" stops at the inner ear, then I guess there's no way to argue with him.

Read my initial post in this thread, at the top of p2.

The human ear can detect small variations in sound. Just do a simple Google search, and you'll find a slew of instructional pages like this one, or this one, which unquestioningly verify my contention.

But think about what that means. You've heard how people can identify tiny variations in the sound they hear, but you can't do it yourself, right? Well, the truth is, unless you've had some sort of accident, you can hear these tiny variations. You just don't realize it.

 

[The Boston Dangler]

Originally posted by: ixelion

say, wheres the lossless video codec?

Huffyuv is a lossless video codec.

It's a moot point. All video is heavily compressed long before it gets into our hands. 1 hour of uncompressed standard definition NTSC video is over 100GB, well over what BluRay can handle.


Any player supporting OGG can can play FLAC files too. When encoding, put the FLAC in an OGG wrapper. Presto!

 

[hurtstotalktoyou]

Originally posted by: The Boston Dangler

Originally posted by: ixelion

say, wheres the lossless video codec?

Huffyuv is a lossless video codec.

It's a moot point. All video is heavily compressed long before it gets into our hands. 1 hour of uncompressed standard definition NTSC video is over 100GB, well over what BluRay can handle.

The funny thing is, it would have been better for the audio standard (redbook) to have used lossy audio, too. We could have been listening to 96 KHz 24-bit audio in 1985, had our forefathers decided on some ~1400 kbps lossy codec.

 

[Continuity28]

Originally posted by: ixelion

say, wheres the lossless video codec?

Huffyuv is a lossless video codec.

Yes, other good ones are YV12 (great if you're to work with DVDs) and YUY2. Avisynth works with the latter two I mentioned natively.

HuffYUV is a great intermediate codec like YV12 and YUY2, it's not recommended for archiving because of its file size. That's when you use lossy codecs like MPEG4, MPEG2, WMV, etc. You generally only use lossless video codecs when you're applying filters, as applying filters on an already lossy source is not recommended.

The reason lossless audio is even an option is because the file size isn't limiting as in video. If audio files were as large as video files, we wouldn't be using lossless codecs for anything other than intermediates.