Flac vs 320kbps mp3

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I recently lost what was essentially my entire music collection and am beginning the process of replacing it. This has led me to being confronted with the question: Is flac worth the amount of space it takes up? Is the difference in sound quality between flac and 320kbps mp3s noticeable to most people (I do not have super ears)? If it is, how noticeable is it?

I understand that this depends on the equipment one is listening to it on, and I can't say what that is yet, as I'm still researching media players (I am leaning towards the Cowon J3 or perhaps the Cowon S9, which I understand have very good sound quality). Because I plan on choosing and buying a new media player sometime within the next couple of days, I need to know which size to get. If flac isn't worth it, I'll probably get the 16gb (with microSD slot) J3. If flac is worth it, I will want more storage capacity. So, if any of you out there are audiophiles and can offer some advice, I would greatly appreciate it.

only you can say what works for you.

personally id use Apple AAC over MP3...

either that or WMA lossless (although depending on song it can be upwards of 190MB). I hate I-tunes though.

As for soundquality, Id first invest in a pair of really good headphones before getting a new portable media player, either Sennheisers or Monsters (Dre's are decent too but they cost an arm and a leg because dr dre has his name plastered on them.) If you do buy them, I highly recommend going to a shop that will let you test-run them to find what you like. I highly recommend sennheisers though.

well-done 320kb/s will be indistinguishable from uncompressed, as long as one is a MALE- unfortunately, most younger WOMEN have better [read: with extended treble response] or more sensitive hearing, which will tend to give up the game as far as compressed audio is concerned, due to the rolloff of high treble response above 16k-19k cycles per second, as well as the compression artifacts which are most audible in the frequency range above 10k. this said, the lions' share of headphones one is likely to use with a portable music carrier will not be revealing of these things, so if you want more space for your tunes [conversely NOT wanting to spend more for memory], then 320kb/s is the way to go. it will give most people on most equipment as much music as they can readily hear under most situations, up to 19k cycles per second or so. if you use sennheiser 600s or stax electrostats however, the game will be up- but those are so insensitive that they would be poor matches for most portable music carriers. the swishy treble and chirping artifacts well-known in highly compressed [read: lower data rates than 160 kb/s in mp3 format] are absent in 320 kb/s.

a further note- the latest version of windows media player format, has a well-perfected spectral substitution algorithm which synthesizes high treble information so that bandwidth can be partially sacrificed in the interest of less total compression, with reduced artifacts audible under lab conditions. this enables use of higher amounts of compression which means that a 160 kb/s WMA file is roughly equivalent in sound quality to a conventional 320 kb/s mp3 file- this leaves twice as much room in memory for your voluminous collection of tunes.
anyways, as a typical old man with typical old man's hearing acuity, most of the time, in order to tell if something has been compressed [at least above 192kb/s] is to put it on the .wav editor and do a spectral analysis which shows the degree of compression straightaway.
hope this helps.

I am anti-Apple (except in specific cases), but I'm not really here to argue that. >_> Thank you for the response, though.


Well, it's not really a matter of what to invest in--my mp3 player has at long last died on me and needs to be replaced. And I appreciate the recommendation, but I'm afraid you'll never find me asking to test things out in a shop. This is one method of human interaction which I find horribly frightful and unpleasant, basic though it may seem. I prefer to research and buy things based on that.

AAC isn't Apple specific: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Audio_Coding

But I would go with lossless if you have a decent pair of headphones.

ahh, not sure what to suggest with the newer MP3 Players, but I have always had a good experience with Creative Labs products. But i do recommend the fact that if your getting a new media player that you get a decent pair of headphones.

I learned to be a bit open and force myself to try things because of how I was raised (yeah my own Aspieness gets in the way sometimes but I just push through it if need be). Reviews are biased of course and the only way to truly find what you like is to try it yourself which is exactly why I suggest you try them yourself. Plus you also get some troll reviews just because said person hates the company and has never tried the product. Reviews from fellow human beings are unreliable for the most part.




Yeah exactly what I recommended. AAC has its issues, same for every audio file compression format.

speaking of which, a bit off topic for ya alex, but maybe you can add a multi-quote function to the forums sometime? XD

Now that you say it, I do recall reading an article about this (unrelated to music formats) once a couple of years ago. I performed a comparison last night with a couple of songs. I chose songs which I thought seemed most likely to have a noticeable difference in quality (songs by Explosions in the Sky and God is an Astronaut. I didn't expect to be able to hear a difference, especially since my headset is in the low-middle range quality-wise, but unfortunately, the difference between 320kbps mp3 and flac seemed fairly noticeable to me, and the difference between <320kbps and flac seemed huge. I don't think I'll ever be listening to either of those bands in mp3 format again. Explosions in the Sky in flac format was the most amazing thing I've ever heard, and I'd definitely like it try it with some good headphones.

Still, I expect this difference will be either so subtle as to be negligible or completely unnoticeable for most music (such as your standard rock/pop/etc). I will test that theory out later today. If I'm right, then I think I'll go for flac for some music not for most.



That could really help to make up for the amount of space taken up by those pieces of music which I do go with flac for. Thanks for the information. Your post was very informative.

Thanks for the suggestion. I think I will look into headphones after I've decided on which player to get.



My last player was a Creative and I loved it (though it's terribly dated now). It had great sound for its generation as well as a surprisingly good screen for video (useful on long flights) and it lasted just over six years. As a result, my initial plan was to get another Creative product, but it seems the one I would want is no longer available and the x-Fi doesn't look too impressive to me, so I turned elsewhere. I know someone who is a bit of an audiophile and he recommended Cowon, so I've been looking into them, and they do look great. Fantastic reviews, too. A bit on the pricey side, but I'm hoping whatever I get to last me for a few years (hoping, but not necessarily expecting).


I understand, and I agree--you're definitely right. I can make myself do this sort of thing when I really have to, but I prefer to avoid it where possible.

Even if it turns out that you can't hear the difference between the two formats, I'd still keep a lossless copy of each file for archival purposes. This way, no device will ever have it's performance stunted by the quality of the audio should you decide to start using peripherals other than your headphones. And I'd suggest flac for this task. It's not only supported by every audio conversion tool out there, it's open source.

Here's a good article that serves as a primer on the issues likely to come up in this thread.

Good point, Biokinetica. Thanks for the link--it seems to agree with what I'd been thinking (lossless for some, lossy for others).

And in case anyone's interested, I decided on the Cowon J3. Now I just wait for it to arrive!

Which size, and how much music are you looking to re-aquire? That particular player can support flac directly, meaning you can put the files straight on the device without conversion at all. But if you have any electronica/house/synth music, that should never be taken out of lossless form.

Last edited by Biokinetica on 05 Feb 2011, 6:31 am, edited 1 time in total.

I know, that's one of the reasons I got it (that it supports flac). I just got the 16gb one with a 16gb microSD chip to add to it. I definitely intend on keeping my electronica and instrumental music in flac form. The issue of reacquiring music is difficult, because I have no desire to pay for all of my music all over again a second (and in some cases third) time. I am thinking I will purchase some of it a second/third time (smaller bands) and pirate the rest. I can't believe that it's wrong to pirate something I've already payed for.

I hope you got a large enough unit. Average album runs about 300+ megs when compressed with flac. If you've already payed for it once, there's nothing wrong with treating the internet as a fail-safe backup. I don't see any reason not to torrent it back onto your hard drive at this point. If you want to back it up for later, I'd suggest burning dvds or taking advantage of hosting options available.

Thanks for the suggestion. I considered it pretty carefully, but think the 16gb player + microSD slot will be sufficient. If I run out of space, I can get a bigger microSD card. And the majority of my music will be perfectly acceptable as mp3s, so I think I'll just be choosy about what I store as flac.