I don't hear a difference in mp3 320kbps 16 Bit 48kHz vs. flac 1411kbps 16 Bit 44kHz at all and have a good sound system now.

You won't see a significant difference at those bit rates if the encoder is good. At the same time, the difference in file size won't be large and FLAC allows you to re-encode for your portable devices with no quality penalty.

Oldskoolmaniac wrote:

I don't hear a difference in mp3 320kbps 16 Bit 48kHz vs. flac 1411kbps 16 Bit 44kHz at all and have a good sound system now.

May I ask what's the sound system you're listening to? Simple curiosity because a lot people reply here saying the same, but I'm guessing they just don't own appropriate hardware.
As already said you won't hear much of a difference anyway with an average setup, but you won't hear any difference at all if listening to something not music oriented. A perfect example of what I mean by "not music oriented" are expensive pc speakers. Many consider them "good" just because they cost a lot, they shake the neighborhood, they have a dozen satellites and a ridiculous sub. They are perfect for movies/games/explosions as that's what they're were made for, but not music. It's not of course that someone should spend a lot of money on specialized equipment to be able to enjoy his music. Not at all. I'm just discussing "hearing the difference".

MusicallyInspired wrote:

Basically, this image sums things up perfectly

I prefer the before mix picture (the girl)... For me a good visual analogy is something like a h.264 deblocking filter, or those wavelet codecs that make the picture look "plastic" without sparkle for a lack of an objective term. Some of this effect is already present in a "mastered" photograph, where for example a woman's skin was airbrushed.

I've noticed that from mid 1990's onwards music increasingly often had a "watery", rolling quality to it, even when MP3 isn't involved (possibly due to ultramaximizing, or maybe due to processing that alters the phase). Earlier sound from the 80s was usually "hard", localized in space. I want to use lossless for these more recent records to remove doubts that what I'm hearing could be a codec artifact.

konc wrote:

Oldskoolmaniac wrote:

I don't hear a difference in mp3 320kbps 16 Bit 48kHz vs. flac 1411kbps 16 Bit 44kHz at all and have a good sound system now.

May I ask what's the sound system you're listening to? Simple curiosity because a lot people reply here saying the same, but I'm guessing they just don't own appropriate hardware.
As already said you won't hear much of a difference anyway with an average setup, but you won't hear any difference at all if listening to something not music oriented. A perfect example of what I mean by "not music oriented" are expensive pc speakers. Many consider them "good" just because they cost a lot, they shake the neighborhood, they have a dozen satellites and a ridiculous sub. They are perfect for movies/games/explosions as that's what they're were made for, but not music. It's not of course that someone should spend a lot of money on specialized equipment to be able to enjoy his music. Not at all. I'm just discussing "hearing the difference".

I have an actual music studio where I compose & mix. I'm listening through a really good DAC & a set of professional 8" reference monitors and *I* can't hear the difference between mp3 @ 320 and lossless. Unless there is some source of artefacting present, e.g. transcoding or 48->44 conversion.

No matter the ears or speaker setup you WILL hear the badness of MP3s when you go from one track to another on album music or looping music (like with some video games even). Bit rate perceptive reasoning can't help you there.

konc wrote:

Oldskoolmaniac wrote:

I don't hear a difference in mp3 320kbps 16 Bit 48kHz vs. flac 1411kbps 16 Bit 44kHz at all and have a good sound system now.

May I ask what's the sound system you're listening to? Simple curiosity because a lot people reply here saying the same, but I'm guessing they just don't own appropriate hardware.
As already said you won't hear much of a difference anyway with an average setup, but you won't hear any difference at all if listening to something not music oriented. A perfect example of what I mean by "not music oriented" are expensive pc speakers. Many consider them "good" just because they cost a lot, they shake the neighborhood, they have a dozen satellites and a ridiculous sub. They are perfect for movies/games/explosions as that's what they're were made for, but not music. It's not of course that someone should spend a lot of money on specialized equipment to be able to enjoy his music. Not at all. I'm just discussing "hearing the difference".

Bose speakers