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Is FLAC worth it?


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 Is flac really at all worth it? is there a noticeably big difference or is it minimal? I have 500watt sound system with sub. Just wondering if that format is worth it or not. Thanks!

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With good sound systems it is completely worth it, those that claim otherwise usually have cheap sound systems where the advantages are minimal, and before they show us, yes you can hear the difference again if you are using decent sound equipment, on your iPhone with the provided junk headphones there is no benefit 

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If you felt obliged to tell how many watts you have there, probably no.

 

Anyway, each of us hears and, most notably, perceives things a little differently. Quality is unquantifiable. The difference minimal, depends on the genre and content, sometimes it's inaudible, sometimes cymbals in MP3 will murder your ears (especially if its encoder was rigged improperly).

The difference for me is in principle - to obtain the highest possible quality. These days the game is very one-sided - local storage is cheap and CPUs are powerful, the only remaining thing is time to rip them which has remained the same.

 

That way I've gone through increasingly better audio equipment without having to reach for the CDs (some of which I, admittedly, don't even have, anymore or for other reasons).

 

I even keep FLAC on my phone, even though I fully understand that its little DAC is subpar to anything else I have and I may not be able to consciously appreciate the sound when commuting or walking, too. But again - MicroSD cards are cheap. And you can have about 100 to 200 full length albums on a 64 GB card as it is.

 

Worth it? Absolutely. For me.

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"This thread was brought to you by The Placebo Effect, Save time and money on expensive double blind testing procedures chose Placebo today!"

 

I find the idea of 20-40 year old men talking about how lossless audio is better after having their hearing ruined, Ask your 4-5 year old son or daughter which sounds better.

 

Reminds me of the pretentious middle aged men in the previous generation who said records were better than cds.

 

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if you can't hear the difference between vinyl and mp3 you might as well quit talking about music. 

 

just because you go blind one day doesn't mean you can read braille. it takes a trained ear to appreciate the quality and dynamic range provided by a good vinyl press 

 

lossless is generally much better especially since we all have enough space on our large HDD. the problem with flac is you can't really play it on popular devices. its kinda just for playing on the computer and speakers attached to it. 

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[Removed] - Andre S.

Its all emperors new cloths fear of exclusion, I don't deny that these people think flac sounds better it does to them... Because they think it does. Its a placebo effect/confirmation bias.

If lossless audio is better its children who should be saying so, Not adults.

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Not worth it because less devices can play it.

Just stick with high bitrate MP3s.

Also MP3s just cut off stuff you can't hear, FLAC is placebo.

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As a storage format, yes, it's lossless and open source format.

Flac is just a storage container, if the source is already low quality, it just ensure's it doesn't get worse. 

 

For listening to, depends. 

Can your equipment reproduce the higher quality sound? 

What's your hearing frequency range?

 

As we get older we start losing it naturally, and if you use ear buds with volume too loud / work in loud environment and/or  history of going out to loud concerts over time, you lose the ability to hear ranges.

A large number of teens are having the hearing of older people due to earbuds and mp3 players being too loud.

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Technically, there is a difference, but can you hear that difference, and if you do, will it be major enough to justify going with FLAC?

 

Why don't you test it out for yourself?

 

Take an audio CD, convert it to MP3 and FLAC and listen to both of them a few times on your system. Choose for yourself.

 

One upside of FLAC is that even if one cannot hear the difference, at least they can be sure that the rip has the exact same quality as the source. Also, this way it's possible to dispose of or sell the source CDs, knowing that nothing is lost.

 

 

P.S. It's more or less like the difference between untouched 45 GB blu-ray images and 12 GB rips. The difference is so small that it's unnoticeable in motion, and even hardly noticeable while paused, if at all.

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 Is flac really at all worth it? is there a noticeably big difference or is it minimal? I have 500watt sound system with sub. Just wondering if that format is worth it or not. Thanks!

Something you are forgetting -- who cares if you have a 500W system and a sub.... its about quality.

If you put junk in, it doesnt matter if you have a 50,000W system - you will not be putting out the best possible sound.

There is more to music than power, its called quality.   Why do you think the most expensive hardware in the world are based around pristine sound reproduction (and ego) -- McInstosh doesnt make $20,000 amps based on loudness.

I think MP3 sounds really bad.  FLAC, or any lossless codec sounds a lot better IMO.  My ears are a bit messed up from shooting guns without ear protection but the difference between MP3, and FLAC is very noticeable.

My car came  with a 600W Bose & asub (G37) - and I have never turned it up past half-way - because I prefer quality over loud.

If you dont care about quality - stick with MP3

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If you have decent hardware, absolutely. It makes a noticeable difference. Without the right speakers, headphones, and sound card though, you'll probably get nothing out of it.

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Way back when, I ripped my CD's in WMA lossless. Which was fine for me then since I was using devices that supported it.

 

The only reason I used it, was so that I could put all my CD's in boxes in storage and not have to go back to them unless my computer died. I could go and re-create the actual CD from the lossless file if I really wanted to. 

 

Unfortunately, over the years, less of my devices supported WMA lossless, so I just encoded them in MP3 format and was done with it. 

 

I feel the same way about FLAC, it's great if you have a lot of CD's you want to put in a box somewhere, but you're going to have to convert them for portable use.

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I have some of the best headphones on the market (Beats by Dr. Dre) and I can't really tell a difference between FLAC and MP3 at all.

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I have some of the best headphones on the market (Beats by Dr. Dre) and I can't really tell a difference between FLAC and MP3 at all.

 

I'll explain certain technical details to folks less fortunate - it is because Beats by Dr. Dre have a 4th order low-pass filter enabled at 3.14159 kHz (a threshold challenged by scientific community to be called Beyond Ridiculous), which therefore eliminates all and every format differences, so you can focus on the the finest intricacies of 808 drop and intelligent yet tight and acute lyrical performances.

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I have some of the best headphones on the market (Beats by Dr. Dre) and I can't really tell a difference between FLAC and MP3 at all.

I like your sense of humour Enron ;)
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HDDs are cheap these days, if you want the best quality possible (same as source) without loss of audio data then FLAC or Apple Lossless is the way to go. Otherwise if you don't care about using lossless and want portability, MP3 encoded at 320kbps or V0 is the way to go.

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For audiophile, just like myself, its totally worth it dude, trust me! If you have a great headphone gear or sound system, its a must. Just compare to regular mp3 with the same file. its clear, clean, smooth. i was dont believe what people said about FLAC back then, but after i hear it by myself, man its the best quality you ever heard, some people said, its even greater if you have a classic vinyl

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Forgot, FLAC doesn't apply to iPhone users, most if not all other Android, WP, and BBOS devices can do FLAC fine 

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If you felt obliged to tell how many watts you have there, probably no.

 

Haha.. thought the same thing reading the OP.  I don't even know how many watts my system is capable of...

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Forgot, FLAC doesn't apply to iPhone users, most if not all other Android, WP, and BBOS devices can do FLAC fine 

Apple Lossless (ALAC) is what you want for Apple devices and Macs.

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