AnimeSuki Forum - View Single Post - 320 kbps MP3 LAME vs. Lossless FLAC Music

Varaxis · 2011-10-12, 23:51

I have a pair of $25 (on sale) Altec Lansing Backbeat Pro UHP606 and a pair of $90 (on sale) Ultimate Ears TripleFi to go with my Sansa Clip+, both buds using Conform ear tips. I have little doubt that you can get any better sound quality out of earbuds and mp3 player costing the same, from what research I've done, so my opinion might differ a bit from your case. The difference between 128 and 320 kbps mp3 isn't really all that great to justify going high bitrate with this particular setup. I notice clearer sound, but with ambient noise, all that difference is thrown out of the window. The difference between 320 and 256 AAC is even smaller, so unless you have a similar setup to my TripleFi and Clip+ and listen to it in an absolutely quiet setting, any difference is more likely attributed to placebo effect and preconceived impressions from reading unprofessional opinions.

In the end, you just have to try it yourself. If you still buy CDs, learn to encode your music with something like dBpoweramp and try it out to check if *your ears* are sensitive enough to appreciate the difference. Encoding it yourself with VBR and scaling the quality to suit your ears and quality of playback hardware is the best way to go, rather than let Apple or whoever decides what would best suit the masses.

2011-10-12, 23:51	Link #23
Varaxis Member Join Date: Aug 2010	I have a pair of $25 (on sale) Altec Lansing Backbeat Pro UHP606 and a pair of $90 (on sale) Ultimate Ears TripleFi to go with my Sansa Clip+, both buds using Conform ear tips. I have little doubt that you can get any better sound quality out of earbuds and mp3 player costing the same, from what research I've done, so my opinion might differ a bit from your case. The difference between 128 and 320 kbps mp3 isn't really all that great to justify going high bitrate with this particular setup. I notice clearer sound, but with ambient noise, all that difference is thrown out of the window. The difference between 320 and 256 AAC is even smaller, so unless you have a similar setup to my TripleFi and Clip+ and listen to it in an absolutely quiet setting, any difference is more likely attributed to placebo effect and preconceived impressions from reading unprofessional opinions. In the end, you just have to try it yourself. If you still buy CDs, learn to encode your music with something like dBpoweramp and try it out to check if your ears are sensitive enough to appreciate the difference. Encoding it yourself with VBR and scaling the quality to suit your ears and quality of playback hardware is the best way to go, rather than let Apple or whoever decides what would best suit the masses.