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Topic: Quality Of FLAC vs. MP3 at 320Kpbs (Read 9342 times) previous topic - next topic
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Quality Of FLAC vs. MP3 at 320Kpbs

Hello,

I currently have my entire CD collection stored as 320Kbps MP3's ripped with EAC and compressed with LAME. I'm wondering how the quality of FLAC is. If I were to rip each CD again and this time use FLAC would it sound any better? I'm also thinking this would be a better idea because if I want to burn these MP3's to a CD, there just uncompressed again but with less quality than the original. With FLAC, if I understand correctly, I can get a better result for re-burning the CD. So, would it be beneificial to redo my library of songs with FLAC instead? (only have 100 or so CD's so would like to be sure

Thanks,

-Orbit

Quality Of FLAC vs. MP3 at 320Kpbs

Reply #1 –
Quote
Hello,

I currently have my entire CD collection stored as 320Kbps MP3's ripped with EAC and compressed with LAME. I'm wondering how the quality of FLAC is. If I were to rip each CD again and this time use FLAC would it sound any better? I'm also thinking this would be a better idea because if I want to burn these MP3's to a CD, there just uncompressed again but with less quality than the original. With FLAC, if I understand correctly, I can get a better result for re-burning the CD. So, would it be beneificial to redo my library of songs with FLAC instead? (only have 100 or so CD's so would like to be sure

Thanks,

-Orbit
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Hello Orbit

Als FLAC uses lossless compression, its quality is the same as on the CD. MP3 uses lossy compression, so the quality might be worse.

The important thing is, if for you the quality is enough. Trust your ears and ABX it. If you do not hear any difference, stay with lossy. If MP3 @320 is not transparent to you, use ether a "better" codec or lossless compression.

cu
Etienne

Quality Of FLAC vs. MP3 at 320Kpbs

Reply #2 –
Hi,

I guess a lot of people are going to respond the same but here goes :

There's a fundamental difference between the two. Simply put : flac is lossless and mp3 is lossy.

Now, what does this mean?

Lossy : Lossy is a way of encoding data according to the limits we humans can perceive. For example a piece of music or a picture in it's raw (original form) consists of elements we cannot (or almost cannot) hear or see. This data is "thrown" away in the encoding process of a lossy encoder (how much is thrown away off course is determined by the encoder settings). Now the thing with these lossy formats is that once you encoded a file into one of these formats you cannot get the original file back. Simply put your 320kbps mp3 will never be the exact same piece of music as the original.

Lossless : Lossless works in a similar way as the popular file compression formats like zip, rar, ace, 7-zip, ... . This means when you decompress one of those you always get the exact same file back again. Now maybe you're thinking : so why shouldn't I use zip, rar, ace, 7-zip, ... for compressing my wav files. Now this is where flac, monkey's audio, shorten, wavpack, ... comes in, it's compression methods are much more "tuned" towards music. This way they will give better results with this kind of data another plus is that most of them also have very good tagging capabilities giving them a further edge over the more general file compressors.

I hope this clarifies things a bit.

Quality Of FLAC vs. MP3 at 320Kpbs

Reply #3 –
Yes, I understand the difference, but is it worth it to redo my entire library with FLAC? Also, what is the filesize of a FLAC file vs a 320Kbps MP3 file? Thanks,

-Orbit

Quality Of FLAC vs. MP3 at 320Kpbs

Reply #4 –
With FLAC bitrates are around 700 to 1100kbps with rock/pop and 400 to 700kbps with classical.

Quality Of FLAC vs. MP3 at 320Kpbs

Reply #5 –
You will probably gain very little if anything at all from lossless over mp3 320k - perceptualy. Lossless can however give you an advantage in transcoding - i.e. 320k to 128k for portable use without potential artifacts you'd get with mp3 to mp3 or similar.

Quality Of FLAC vs. MP3 at 320Kpbs

Reply #6 –
@orbit
In the end it all goes down to what you want to achieve. What is your goal? If you don't know what you want no answer will suffice.
I hardly could understand what your objectives are...

Either way, for casual listening I would stick with the mp3, for backup I would go lossless... but that's just me.