Refurbished cds

[DougK1]

Why is FLAC preferable to MP3 for archival/storage purposes?

Yes, I've been drawn into a lot of the nonsense voiced here about cables, various codecs and what have you. I was curious.
When I came here I needed help setting my system up, and I'm grateful for everyone's input. Now I'm really enjoying my sounds, and find it hard to know how it can get much better, to my ears. I may, one day, buy better speakers, but I am 100% content with what I've got right now, and that's the key to enjoyment. If one spent too much time on this forum I think it would actually detract from the pleasure of the music. There seems to be a great deal of snobbery and bitchiness amongst all the help, indeed it seems to me that is how 'audiophiles'get a lot of their pleasure : wanting, boasting, and arguing. An awful lot of egos here, fortunately I'm made of simple stuff, and my main concern is the music, and enjoying it.

Valid points indeed

This kind of forum can be daunting for any newbie. I've been a member for 12 years and there are some prickly characters on here but everyone has always been very helpful. Please stick around and get to know characters and personalities as everyone here has good, valid opinions and advice, even the prickly ones. I've made some good friends on here, one of whom I chat with regularly and we try to meet up every year, without this forum we would never have met.

This forums plus points far outweigh its negatives.

 

[Stuart83]

Why is FLAC preferable to MP3 for archival/storage purposes?

Yes, I've been drawn into a lot of the nonsense voiced here about cables, various codecs and what have you. I was curious.
When I came here I needed help setting my system up, and I'm grateful for everyone's input. Now I'm really enjoying my sounds, and find it hard to know how it can get much better, to my ears. I may, one day, buy better speakers, but I am 100% content with what I've got right now, and that's the key to enjoyment. If one spent too much time on this forum I think it would actually detract from the pleasure of the music. There seems to be a great deal of snobbery and bitchiness amongst all the help, indeed it seems to me that is how 'audiophiles'get a lot of their pleasure : wanting, boasting, and arguing. An awful lot of egos here, fortunately I'm made of simple stuff, and my main concern is the music, and enjoying it.

Flak is indeed a better format as you point out MP3 is noticeably a drop in quality.
After that the formats become harder to spot.

The nature of MP3 is to compress data and take some out hence the quality drop where as flac is lossless and original cd quality.

I agree with what you say, I find it it can be argumentative on here even a tad offensive at times but it's usually just a passionate exchange of words.

 

[Gray]

There seems to be a great deal of snobbery...

😆 You obviously haven't tried another hi-fi forum I could mention - where many seem to base judgements on price alone.

There have been some bluntish members on here, (as there are anywhere).
But, as long as they don't get personal, they've often just amused me.

 

[daveh75]

Flak is indeed a better format as you point out MP3 is noticeably a drop in quality.

That reads like a statement of fact to me.

I'll reiterate if you can hear an audible difference between lossy and lossless formats then you'd be an exceptional human being

The nature of MP3 is to compress data and take some out hence the quality drop where as flac is lossless and original cd quality.

That doesn't mean the "quality drop" is audible...

 

[Friesiansam]

That reads like a statement of fact to me.

I'll reiterate if you can hear an audible difference between lossy and lossless formats then you'd be an exceptional human being



That doesn't mean the "quality drop" is audible...

What you are saying also reads like a statement of fact but, it is not fact, it is just a point of view.

 

[Al ears]

That reads like a statement of fact to me.

I'll reiterate if you can hear an audible difference between lossy and lossless formats then you'd be an exceptional human being



That doesn't mean the "quality drop" is audible...

Well i must be exceptional as, on my set-up, I can clearly differentiate between MP3, flac, and indeed DSD files...

 

[daveh75]

What you are saying also reads like a statement of fact but, it is not fact, it is just a point of view.

Difference is there's plenty of evidence in countless blind/ABX tests to back up my point of view...

 

[daveh75]

I can clearly differentiate between MP3, flac, and indeed DSD files...

Try it blind...

 

[Gadusmorhua]

Healthy discussion

I've tried a few online hearing tests to reassure myself my hearing is reasonable for my age. I then tried the 16 bit v 8 bit test, multiple times- twenty in fact. I only identified the 16 bit 72% of the time, which surprised me. Some styles of music reveal more than others though. My philosophy is its my ears, my brain and my enjoyment. If I can hear an improvement, real or not, it's a good thing- especially if it's free. Pity the man* whose ears have heard the magic music of the £20K demo system, for he will not be able to enjoy what he hath. (Audiophiles 6:23)

I shall indeed hang around, I just promise not to bring up cables and codecs.

*for it seems very male dominated here

 

[Stuart83]

That reads like a statement of fact to me.

I'll reiterate if you can hear an audible difference between lossy and lossless formats then you'd be an exceptional human being



That doesn't mean the "quality drop" is audible...

Ooooooops I forgot to put "in my opinion" first, I'm bad.........

There's a noticeable drop in quality without doubt.
A night and day difference almost like CD was to Tape at the dawn of the disc imo 😊

I can back up my findings to state it as fact with a rudimentary Google search quoting various sources all pointing to it being indeed "fact" but don't want the argument.

If you think 96-320 kps is as good as a CDs 1,411 kps as it's not just a boast in numbers then your obviously very forgiving or can't hear the difference yourself.
Either is fine as long as you like what your listening to as far as I'm concerned.

But when does opinion become fact?
The evidence collectively points indeed to what I originally said to be as you assume, and that it is a fact.
🤫

 

[Steve983]

No arguments required. Fact: FLAC is lossless, therefore the same quality as a WAV file on cd. MP3 is lossy, it has lost the full quality of the original source and cannot be recovered by converting it back. When playing MP3's at low levels via my speakers there is not much difference to be heard but when listening closely on good headphones there is a world of difference, at least to my ears. If some can't hear that difference it makes me wonder why they are bothering with hi fi in the first place. Having said that we all have different ears with different levels of hearing loss. We all have different preferences too for the type of sound we want to hear and so if someone is happy with MP3's then that is just fine and up to them. Hope I haven't upset anyone

 

[Al ears]

Try it blind...

I have thanks. Most noticeable is the difference between flac and DSD

 

[Tinman1952]

What you are saying also reads like a statement of fact but, it is not fact, it is just a point of view.

Exactly! 😖

 

[Gadusmorhua]

No arguments required. Fact: FLAC is lossless, therefore the same quality as a WAV file on cd. MP3 is lossy, it has lost the full quality of the original source and cannot be recovered by converting it back. When playing MP3's at low levels via my speakers there is not much difference to be heard but when listening closely on good headphones there is a world of difference, at least to my ears. If some can't hear that difference it makes me wonder why they are bothering with hi fi in the first place. Having said that we all have different ears with different levels of hearing loss. We all have different preferences too for the type of sound we want to hear and so if someone is happy with MP3's then that is just fine and up to them. Hope I haven't upset anyone

Well said. I have, compared to others, a mediochre system and I'm sixty-odd, but I can definitely hear the difference, and like you would have to question the hearing of those who can't. I've failed to hear differences in lots of trials but can't get my head round how Daveh is happy with MP3s, but as he says, it's all subjective. I suppose once you've convinced yourself there's no difference you will be satisfied with lossy formats. Lucky man. I'm left with 150 gb of MP3s.....

I

 

[abacus]

The quality of an MP3 depends on the encoding and bit rate used, use 320Kbs with a quality encoder and the differences are not that great, with most people not being able to tell the difference unless AB tested.
HI-Fi is a niche market with most of its users always looking for something better, and that's the reason that small differences make them shudder.

Bill

 

[Leon74]

Thanks to the topic starter!
As a teenager I never had the money to build a big collection of CDs and I was jealous of my neighbour girl who as a single child got all the CDs she could dream off.
In my twenties I bought a CD recorder but never used it much as soon other digital formats arrived, especially minidisc. And later of course mp3, AAC etc.
These days with internet streaming I would not spend a lot on CDs anymore but this topic made me search for a used CDs webshop here in the Netherlands and I was astonished about the very reasonable prices and the good quality of the CDs. Needless to say I went on a spending spree to make up for what I missed in my youth And without breaking the bank, lol.

I have a Deezer subscription that plays FLAC and I can find almost anything I want in the Deezer catalogus. Basically buying CDs is throwing away money when you have a streaming subscription but for a price between 3 and 6 euros (even for double albums) it's a luxury I want to indulge in. Just the comforting feeling to pick up a CD, throw it in the CD tray without even having to use the phone is worth it.

 

[Leon74]

If you think 96-320 kps is as good as a CDs 1,411 kps as it's not just a boast in numbers then your obviously very forgiving or can't hear the difference yourself.
Either is fine as long as you like what your listening to as far as I'm concerned.

But when does opinion become fact?
The evidence collectively points indeed to what I originally said to be as you assume, and that it is a fact.
🤫

You cannot state "If you think 96-320 kbps is as good as a CDs 1,411 kbps"...
There is a hell of a difference between bitrates of 96 and 320 and all in-between.
If you are talking about bitrates of 96, I fully agree with you, at 128 hearing a difference with CD already becomes difficult for a substantial group of people. At 192 even more people won't hear a difference and at 320 almost no-one will notice a difference, that is when tested blindly.

 

[Al ears]

You cannot state "If you think 96-320 kbps is as good as a CDs 1,411 kbps"...
There is a hell of a difference between bitrates of 96 and 320 and all in-between.
If you are talking about bitrates of 96, I fully agree with you, at 128 hearing a difference with CD already becomes difficult for a substantial group of people. At 192 even more people won't hear a difference and at 320 almost no-one will notice a difference, that is when tested blindly.

Looks like you might need to read what he said again, at least I read it differently.

 

[Friesiansam]

This has turned into a pointless argument, going nowhere.

This just just comes down to, some can hear a difference, some can't. Pointless to carry on with this, "I'm right, you are wrong", toing and froing. It's as bad as cable and fuse threads.

 

[Al ears]

This has turned into a pointless argument, going nowhere.

This just just comes down to, some can hear a difference, some can't. Pointless to carry on with this, "I'm right, you are wrong", toing and froing. It's as bad as cable and fuse threads.

Hear, hear....

 

[Leon74]

Looks like you might need to read what he said again, at least I read it differently

Hm, usually I understand English almost as good as Dutch and if I don't, I usually don't understand a sentence at all.
But here... even with a translation by chatGPT I don't know how to read it differently.
Not for discussion's sake, but I would appreciate it, if you could elaborate on this so I can improve my English.

 

[Al ears]

Hm, usually I understand English almost as good as Dutch and if I don't, I usually don't understand a sentence at all.
But here... even with a translation by chatGPT I don't know how to read it differently.
Not for discussion's sake, but I would appreciate it, if you could elaborate on this so I can improve my English.

Basically he was agreeing with what you said.
So your statement " You can't say.... " was meaningless.
And it's a forum so he can actually say what he likes.. Within reason.

 

[Leon74]

Basically he was agreeing with what you said.
So your statement " You can't say.... " was meaningless.
And it's a forum so he can actually say what he likes.. Within reason.

I guess it's just about interpretation and wording then.
Of course I wasn't literally telling him what he can say or cannot....there your interpretation went south