FLAC even worth it for me???

[unozero]

I have a creative xfi Fatality edition and I have beats by Dre Studio headphones,when I use winamp to listen to flac music I cant hear the difference am I using the wrong equipment??

 

[VirusType2]

What are you comparing it to?

for 2 speaker stereo, you won't be able to tell a difference between a high quality mp3 encoded at 320k and FLAC if both were encoded from the same CD.

EDIT: for your headphones, I'm not sure if an mp3 will encode the stereo exactly right. It depends on the encoding options you/they select. To keep the file size small, it does some channel mixing. I can tell you that an mp3 might not sound right on 5.1 or 7.1 because of that. It might sound the same since headphones are only 2 channel, you'll have to do some research.

 

[Vegeta897]

Hint: Buy real headphones not consumer bullshit.

 

[Qonfused]

I have a hard time hearing the difference between 320kpbs MP3 and FLAC. And to me, the playback ability and size of FLAC files is a hard sell.

I have some old shitty soundcard that I've been meaning to upgrade for a long time and Sennheiser HD555s; not top tier, but not shit.

 

[AtomicSpark]

FLAC is good if you transcode your music often. Say you want to convert your whole music collection from MP3 to Vorbis. To keep the same quality, you'd have to get your CDs out and re-rip your whole collection. FLAC to Vorbis would be a lot easier and less time consuming. Tis what lossless formats are for. Think of them as digital backups of your CDs (or originals if you create music).

 

[VirusType2]

I don't think i was clear enough when i said 'you won't hear a difference'.

if an mp3 is encoded at its highest quality and joint stereo is selected in the encoding options, it is completely transparent, meaning there is no difference in the way it sounds when compared to the CD source or FLAC if you play it through two speaker stereo.

To achieve these results you should use a recent and high quality mp3 codec and software.

 

[Viperidae]

I have no problem with mp3 quality. What I do have problems is with its container format. What with not having millisecond-accuracy with the filelength, etc.

 

[unozero]

thx for the info spark and virus.

 

[VirusType2]

I would use Flac for archiving or if you have a speaker arrangement other than 2 channel, or if you plan on using the audio to put in video or something, you won't want to source from Mp3