I’m 58 years old … gonna be 59 this year with just a touch of tinnitus from listening to too much loud rock and roll when I was a kid (just last year.) At any rate, my hearing is probably never gong to get any better.
So, at this point, is there really any use in storing my rather outlandishly large and bizarre music collection as FLAC files, or will a 320bps MP3 do just as well?
Its not just about the frequency response, its also about dynamic range.
Compare a 140kb MP3 encoded track with the same at 320K and you will notice he difference.
FLAC does better than MP3, since is does not lose anything, however it does have to be said that FLAC files can use up storage. Flac is actually more of an archiving format than anything, because 320k MP3 flies really do not sound all that much different - but when you start to convert back and forth to .wav files you do get degradation - which you don’t with FLAC.
It also depends what you are using to replay it, I don’t think that any current mobile phone on the market can do them justice, and very few dedicated media players can either, until you start paying rather a lot of cash.
The only reasons for archiving music in this way is for space and portability - otherwise you would just go for a straight rip to .wav and leave it at that.
Well, I’m not really concerned about which is best. I’m thinking more about the state of my own hearing and wondering if I’m really going to be noticing any difference.
I ripped all of my CDs to 320kpbs VBR using EAC and LAME. They sound good to me, though I’m not playing them through as high-end a system as I used to play the CDs. I’m willing to trade the potentially less faithful sound for the savings in disk space. I still have the CDs so if I ever decide that the sound quality is lacking I can re-rip them to a lossless format.
Take your favorite CD, rip it to FLAC, rip it to 320bps MP3, listen to both copies, then decide.
You don’t have to do all or nothing.
I would also recommend ripping some test tracks with VBR (try 192 and 256). You’ll save some additional disk space with VBR and they’ll probably sound just as good to you as 320 CBR.
Some of it depends on what type of music you listen to and how well you can hear.
I have a pretty well trained ear (though some hearing loss due to age and playing in a rock band in my younger years) and I can’t hear much mp3 distortion in a lot of rock and roll songs. However, in pieces that have an acoustic guitar or a piano playing something melodic, the mp3 distortion, even on higher bit rates, is so awful that it makes the songs difficult for me to listen to (especially since I play those instruments).
Pick out something like that and see if you can hear the mp3 distortion.