Tag: flac vs mp3 reddit

What format is flac, how to convert flac to mp3?

What format is flac, how to convert flac to mp3?

FLAC to MP3
FLAC to MP3

This is a question that a friend of mine asked me. The flac file is a commonly used lossless compression format.

FLAC to MP3
FLAC to MP3

 

The difference with lossy compression is that it will not destroy the original audio information and can greatly restore the original sound quality of the audio file. Compared with mp3 format, the sound quality is better, so why reduce sound quality from lossless flac to mp3? You can then follow the publisher to discuss the reasons for the conversion.

Reasons to convert flac to mp3:

We learned that flac is a lossless compressed audio format and mp3 is a lossy compressed audio format. On the contrary, the sound quality of flac will be better than that of mp3, but in the general case of playback equipment (sound and headphones, etc.), the sound quality of flac and mp3 will be almost the same due to the impossibility of Produce perfect sound effects. Another feature is that flac occupies more memory than mp3 files, so many friends will choose to convert flac to mp3 to reduce the storage space occupied by files.

How to convert flac to mp3:

If you want to convert flac to mp3 for various reasons, you need to prepare an audio converter (take fast audio converter as an example), and select the “audio conversion” function you need to use in the menu bar.

Then add the flac file we prepared to the converter. At the same time, because we want to convert flac to mp3, after adding the flac audio file, please change the selected output format to “mp3” format which needs to be converted.

Then click the Convert button to convert the added flac to mp3 format and save it on the computer Wait for a while after the audio file is converted and click the Open Folder option to open the converted mp3 audio file.

Summary of FLAC to mp3:

First, prepare the tools and files to convert flac to mp3, then select the corresponding “convert audio” function in the converter, then add the audio file in flac format and change the output format, and then you can convert flac to mp3.

What format is flac and how to convert flac to mp3? Now you understand, in addition to converting flac to mp3, you can also reverse the converted mp3 file to flac or other formats, and adjust the corresponding conversion format when converting. Hope the above can help you.

MP3 and FLAC: who wins?

MP3 and FLAC: who wins?

Mp3 & FLAC

Music lovers from all countries have been arguing for many years: is it possible to distinguish a high-quality MP3 from a lossless one in a blind test (FLAC, APE, etc.)? How much does compression loss affect the perception of music? Should you give up MP3? Let’s try to answer these questions.

FLAC vs MP3

A little history
In the early 1990s, experts understood that the future of music was digital. However, hard drives were expensive then and fans preferred to store their music collections on cassettes and CDs. The researchers faced a problem: they needed a suitable format to store records on computers. At the same time, every hundred kilobytes were counted – you can slightly sacrifice quality compared to CDs, but save precious hard drive space.

In the late 1980s, the first functional prototypes of a new lossy compressed audio storage format, MP3, were created. The first publicly available MP3 encoder appeared in 1994, and the first playback software soon followed. The first encoding algorithms made it possible to obtain files with slightly “chopped” high frequencies. The sound quality was not comparable to that of a CD, but the output file sizes were quite acceptable.

In the early 2000s, volumes on hard drives were growing rapidly and other audio formats that provide lossless compression began to appear. Relatively speaking, an audio track of this format can be restored to the original WAV from a lossless CD. Perhaps the most popular lossless compression format was FLAC, introduced in 2001. It is suitable for both storing home audio collections and playing music on professional computers. However, a FLAC file can be 6-10 times heavier than a good quality MP3 (256 or 320 kbps). But does file size and losslessness mean consistently high sound quality?

find 10 differences
Compare, for example, two spectrograms of the same song (DAT ADAM – Hydra 3D): it is easy to see that MP3 “cuts” high frequencies compared to lossless compression (left – MP3 320 kbps, right – FLAC spectrogram, obtained by digitizing CD). But the question is different: will you hear the difference?

A bit of anatomy: The human ear is theoretically capable of hearing sounds from 16 Hz to 20 kHz. However, much depends on the age and individual characteristics of the listener. The author of this article can hear sound with a frequency of 16 kHz, but not 17 kHz and above, but there are adults (25 years and older) who can still perceive 18 kHz. All of these frequencies are quite successfully supported by the MP3 format. If you are exceptionally clear, you will be able to hear some difference in the high frequencies, but the difference is almost subtle for most people.

Flac vs mp3

Flac vs mp3

FLAC vs MP3

Recently, FLAC-compatible players, which are highly appreciated by most audiophiles, have developed rapidly. What is the secret of the format? Why is the popular mp3 format not suitable for music lovers?

Mp3 vs Flac

The birth of mp3

In the early days of digital audio, the first music format was Wave, which was widely used on CD-Audio discs. There were no large hard drives at the time and the 700MB album seemed very large. With the advent of high-performance microcircuits, the mp3 format was invented, allowing music to take up 10 times less disk space (~ 70MB vs. 700MB). This made it possible to significantly increase the number of musical compositions stored by listeners at home on a computer and early Flash players. Due to its high weight, the original format was replaced by the mp3 boom.

Many people remember the incredibly popular iriver players that support mp3 and ogg, but the time for those players has passed and iriver has released Astel & Kern players that support FLAC in high resolution.

Compression of information in mp3 and quality How does mp3 take up less space? It is based on two technologies: archiving and psychoacoustic compression. The conventional file is not very efficient and is only used in lossless formats like flac, ape, and wavepack. Psychoacoustic compression is added to mp3 and this format belongs to the Lossy group (lossy compression).

Psychoacoustic compression dilutes data according to a simple principle: anything that the listener potentially does not hear (for example, quiet sounds against the background of loud sounds) is mercilessly discarded. There are many parallels with the video and the photos. For example, in the jpg format, pixels with similar colors are grouped into large squares of the same color and when forming an image, we usually do not notice that various hues have disappeared. But if we want to take a closer look, we will definitely see it!

The quality of the same mp3 bit rate is different

There are a large number of mp3 encoders, and each has its own priority level in the algorithm, what is least important in music and what to remove first with low compression and last with high. The higher the compression, the more meaningful information is removed and the easier it is to listen to on simple audio equipment.

Unfortunately, the sound quality of mp3 depends not only on the degree of compression expressed in bitrate, but also on the codec with which it was compressed and with what settings. Very often, a high bit rate on the order of 320 kB / s is used, but with the fast and less resource consuming encoding mode. The file encodes very quickly, but as a result, it subjectively sounds worse than encoded at 128 kB / s in long, resource-intensive mode.

Almost all “mp3 producers” in the form of websites and CD compilations use fast algorithms. They believe that most will not hear the difference on their phones anyway, and will be guided by the purchase only by the bitrate. Why spend the extra effort if they buy well?

The differences between the 320 kB / s mp3 encoded in high quality and resource intensive mode and the original Wave are actually very small and sometimes difficult to distinguish even with good audio equipment, but these mp3s are usually very few and far between. they just make them enthusiastic. Most of the mp3 leaves a depressing impression.

Much also depends on the decoder, which determines the quality of the final sound. There are still battles on the forums, which software or hardware player sounds better with which decoder.

At the height of mp3 development, the quality of players and sound cards left much to be desired, especially considering that the main mp3 users were those who could not afford to listen to music on a good hi-fi system. . Quality issues were hardly noticed, similar to JPG compression issues when viewed through a cell phone screen. But on a good audio route, it was obvious. Recently, technology has advanced and the quality of most fonts has increased and consequently the disadvantages of mp3 have become more obvious. What are the main disadvantages of mp3 sound?

The absence or unnaturalness of the high frequencies (due to the strong decimation of the high frequencies, which most supposedly cannot hear)
Wheezing and distortion in vocals, unnatural timbres of instruments
Violation of the location of sources in space.
But most importantly, you never know how high quality an mp3 will sound, how much information is actually lost on it.

Can you notice the difference between MP3 and FLAC?

Can you notice the difference between MP3 and FLAC?

FLAC vs MP3

“Here, of course, the question is not about the difference between MP3 and FLAC, it is broader: that lossy compression formats (MP3, AAC, WMA, Ogg Vorbis and others; that is, lossy) differ from the “lossless” (FLAC, ALAC, APE, WavPack and others; that is, lossless).

FLAC vs. MP3

Actually, with such wording, it becomes clear that in the first group of formats, the original data is not completely saved, and the second can be restored to its original format (for example, Wav or Aiff extracted from CD) without loss. What exactly is lost and in what proportions depends on the specific type of lossy files and their bit rate, that is, the degree of compression. But to say that all MP3s sound bad and the “flacks” are perfect is the height of arrogance and incompetence. Lossy audio formats have been developing for more than twenty years, and serious research laboratories (Fraunhofer Institute, for example, in addition to working on MP3, is also famous for the invention of the most efficient solar battery) and a group of enthusiasts. The math of encoding is constantly improving, and nowadays it is not so easy to distinguish files produced by different codecs by ear.

I would immediately make a reservation that not only the files themselves are important, but also the equipment they are to be tested on, the listening environment, and the examiner’s listening experience. In MP3 of any low bitrate Ariel Pink will sing with the voice of Ariel Pink, of that there is no doubt. It is quite possible that a person listening to music as a melody through white headphones in a subway car is sufficient for the eyes, and the difference in codecs will come down to a comparison of file sizes. A disc jockey who is embarrassed to buy or search lossless will also think that everything is in order with his MP3, while preparing a set in the “Tractor” on the built-in speakers of the laptop. True, during a party on a big, loud, clean-sounding audio system from the club (sometimes they meet, believe me), it suddenly turns out that the guy who speaks right after for some reason, the music got big, clear and cool. Lossy formats are developed for the convenience of transferring files over the Internet, for storing them on portable audio players, and finally for personal playback. Okay, it’s silly to watch a gigabyte AVI movie on a big screen. Even in a home theater, this is not entirely decent. The same goes for MP3. On your iPod: listen to your health (although AAC from iTunes definitely sounds better), but if you go to the disco, please don’t miss out, even if you start Skrillex. And when you listen to Christmas jazz with your girlfriend’s parents on their big lacquered speakers, buy FLAC or ALAC too. With MP3, you run the risk of getting into an awkward situation. In theory, after 256 kbps bit rate, it will be quite difficult for your future audiophile father-in-law to know if you are leaking or not.

Usually when you view an MP3 file, you don’t care about anything other than the bit rate. If you already consider yourself a person with a taste for music and sound, you should look in the file properties for the codec data that was used during the conversion. Suppose you see “Lame 3.99” there, this means the latest MP3 codec was used and you’re in luck. But next to it is “Joint Stereo”, which is not great anymore. This means that to save a couple of percent of the file size, the codec was allowed to add something to mono, although the recording is stereophonic and the sound image has slightly lost depth and clarity. There are also fully botanical CBR or VBR, ABR and UBR, but if you’re ready to dig that seriously, do it yourself. Well, you found out the properties of the file, everything is simple there. The difficulty is this: You hardly ever know what your 320 CBR Stereo is made of. Scammed out of Internet radio? Made from an unremastered original Japanese CD? Recoded from 192? There is a lot of music on torrents or Soulseek, but there are few guarantees. Another complication is that lossy formats slightly increase the peak values ​​of the audio signal. The so-called overshoot: thousands of micro-overloads throughout the entire file. Again, you won’t notice this on a train with an iPod. And the future father-in-law can hear. “The so-called overshoot: thousands of micro-surges throughout the entire file. Again, you won’t notice this on a train with an iPod. And the future father-in-law can hear.” The so-called overshoot: thousands of micro-overloads throughout the entire file. Again, you won’t notice this on a train with an iPod. And the future father-in-law can hear. “

MP3 and FLAC: who wins?

MP3 and FLAC: who wins?

FLAC vs MP3

Music lovers from all countries have been arguing for many years: is it possible to distinguish a high-quality MP3 from a lossless one in a blind test (FLAC, APE, etc.)? How much does compression loss affect the music experience? Should you give up MP3? Let’s try to answer these questions.

FLAC vs MP3 320 kbps
A little history

In the early 1990s, experts understood that the future of music was digital. However, hard drives were expensive then and fans preferred to store their music collections on cassettes and CDs. The researchers faced a problem: they needed a suitable format to store records on computers. At the same time, they were counted every hundred kilobytes – you can slightly sacrifice quality compared to CD discs, but save precious hard drive space.

In the late 1980s, the first functional prototypes of a new lossy compressed audio storage format, MP3, were created. The first publicly available MP3 encoder appeared in 1994, and the first playback software soon followed. The first encoding algorithms made it possible to obtain files with slightly “chopped” high frequencies. The sound quality was not comparable to that of a CD, but the output file sizes were quite acceptable.

In the early 2000s, the sizes of hard drives were growing rapidly and other audio formats that provide lossless compression began to appear. Relatively speaking, an audio track in this format can be restored to its original WAV from a lossless CD. Perhaps the most popular lossless compression format was FLAC, introduced in 2001. It is suitable both for storing home audio collections and for playing music on professional computers. However, a FLAC file can be 6-10 times heavier than a good quality MP3 (256 or 320 kbps). But does file size and losslessness mean consistently high sound quality?

A bit of anatomy: The human ear is theoretically capable of hearing sounds from 16 Hz to 20 kHz. However, much depends on the age and individual characteristics of the listener. The author of this article can hear sound with a frequency of 16 kHz, but not 17 kHz and above, but there are adults (25 years and older) who can still perceive 18 kHz. All of these frequencies are quite successfully supported by the MP3 format. If you are exceptionally clear, you will be able to hear some difference in the high frequencies, but the difference is almost subtle for most people.

Even if your favorite song in the spectrogram is clipped to 20 kHz, you won’t hear any distortion (unless of course you’re 8 years old).

The vast majority of people cannot, for natural anatomical reasons, distinguish between high-quality 320 kbps MP3 and FLAC (as long as both digital recordings are obtained from the same source). Of course, if you compress more MP3, for example, up to 96 kbps, the difference will be clearly audible even with cheap headphones. But in the age of terabyte drives, no one listens to music with such compression.

Of course, the equipment used for listening has a significant impact on the perception of music. It is impossible to listen to all the high frequencies in the recording of a symphony orchestra on headphones for 300 rubles, even if you have wonderful hearing and a high-quality recording. However, many specialists are dedicated to mixing music, taking into account the capabilities of the most popular audio equipment among consumers. Bill Ward (Black Sabbath drummer) said that while working on his solo album Accountable Beasts (2015), he first tried to achieve a clear and distinct sound from each note, but then realized that almost all listeners would use inexpensive equipment. and they wouldn’t hear all tones and halftones. As a result, Bill bought several relatively inexpensive headphones from a nearby store and mixed the album in them.

In the case of a file obtained from the Internet (even bought honestly), it is extremely difficult to understand which input was the original source. The sound quality of a file obtained by digitizing vinyl or CD (with or without remastering) will differ from a quality recording of Internet radio broadcasts, although all files can have the same bit rate.

Thus, we come to an obvious conclusion: the difference between high-quality MP3 and high-quality FLAC will only be heard by a trained music lover (most likely young, since after 40 years the range of audibility is reduced ). In addition, you will need quite expensive equipment to appreciate all the characteristics of the sound.

MP3 and FLAC Audio Formats – We Use It Wisely

MP3 and FLAC Audio Formats – We Use It Wisely

FLAC vs MP3

In this post, I want to talk about how to get the best results when compressing music in FLAC and MP3 formats. In the age of mass distribution of audio and video streaming services, this topic may seem of little relevance, however, as practice shows, this is not the case.

FLAC vs MP3

First, not everyone wants to depend on third-party resources, which can behave as they please at any time, from the introduction of various access restrictions to content to its complete removal. Second, there are many places in the world where the Internet is slow, dreary, and with lunch breaks. Third, the sound quality when listening online is usually quite acceptable for most users, but it can plunge sophisticated listeners with good equipment into depression. Considering all the above, we can assume

Basic concepts

PCM (pulse code modulation), also known as PCM (pulse code modulation) is a method of representing an analog signal in digital form. It works like this: electrical vibrations are fed into the input of a device called the ADC (analog to digital converter), which is an analog audio signal. The ADC measures the level of this signal with a certain frequency and transmits the obtained values ​​to the outside, where they are stored. Thus, a data matrix is ​​formed, which is a sequence of values ​​of the amplitude of the original signal. The process described is called “digitization”. The main problem with storing PCM data in “naked” form is its rather large volume, therefore, for a more rational use of space on the carrier, various digital audio compression algorithms are used.

Encoder (or “encoder” from English “encoder”) is a software designed to convert WAV to any other format in order to reduce the amount of stored data.

Decoder – Software or hardware used to play files compressed in the appropriate format or convert them to uncompressed format.

Lossy is the generic name for a family of audio formats that use lossy data compression. Typical members of the family are MP3, AAC, WMA, Ogg Vorbis. The main characteristic of lossy formats is that when the material is compressed in any of them, a significant part of the original audio information is irretrievably lost and cannot be restored later in any way. Because of this, a high degree of compression is achieved, while the loss is barely perceptible or generally invisible to the ear, as only data that is not critical to human perception is discarded.

Lossless is the generic name for a family of audio formats that use lossless data compression. Typical family members: FLAC, Monkey’s Audio (APE), ALAC, WavPack. Unlike lossy formats, here no information is lost during compression, everything happens in the same way as in normal filing cabinets. Paying for complete data security is significantly lower compression ratio compared to loss.

MP3 (MPEG-1 Layer 3) is historically the first and most widespread lossy compression format. Despite the fact that, due to the era of MP3, today it does not shine with the efficiency of compression, its popularity remains very high due to its versatility: any plate can reproduce this format. At the same time, if a suitable encoder and decoder are used, the MP3 sound quality is at a very decent level. The combination of these two factors justifies the use of the format today. The MP3 compression ratio while maintaining high sound quality is 6 to 9 times. The average bit rate of such an MP3 with 16-bit / 44.1 kHz stereo parameters is 150 to 240 kbps, the file size of a five-minute recording in this form is 6 to 9 MB.

FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec) is currently the most popular lossless audio compression format. If lossless support is claimed for any software or equipment, this software / equipment can almost certainly play FLAC. The format is the de facto standard among lovers of quality sound. The FLAC compression ratio is 1.3-2.8 times. FLAC bitrate with parameters 16 bit / 44.1 kHz / stereo – 500-1100 kbps, the file size of a five minute recording in this form is 18-40 MB.

FLAC or MP3: these are the differences

FLAC vs MP3

FLAC and MP3 are common audio formats. We explain their similarities and differences in this practical tip.

Similarities Between FLAC and MP3

At first glance, FLAC and MP3 have a lot in common:
FLAC and MP3 are audio formats. Detailed information on FLAC files can be found in this practical tip.

Mp3 vs Flac
The audio information is compressed in both formats.
With both, compression works in several steps. One of them can be lossless mid-side encoding for both.
Strictly speaking, both MP3 and FLAC are codecs, that is, pairs of an encoder to compress and a decoder to play the file.
Both formats allow the addition of metadata as tags.
Streaming is possible with both formats, that is, near real-time streaming.
WAV file in wave format
WAV file in wave format

Differences between FLAC and MP3

Despite the similarities, there are essential differences between FLAC and MP3:
MP3 is a psychoacoustic compression process, which means it changes the signal as you can see in the image. FLAC just changes the way the data is presented so that the file can be saved more efficiently.
MP3 is leaky due to the way it works. This means that the information in the original file is lost and errors occur. On the other hand, FLAC files can be used to restore the original without errors.
MP3 achieves a file compression of approximately one-tenth the original size. FLAC reduces the size of the source file by approximately half.
PCM files, like WAV, store continuous fluctuations in sound pressure as discrete values ​​over time. With a high sampling frequency and depth, this process is virtually lossless. FLAC files store data from WAV files in a different way. However, the PCM file can be regenerated from it at any time.
MP3 files generate noise especially before the strong amplitude increases and reduces the dynamics of some frequencies and thus irreparably falsifies the output signal. However, if the encoding is good, the differences are subliminal
There is already a huge market for MP3 music, editing software and playback devices. Until now, FLAC has barely established itself in the area of ​​music downloading, audio processing software, and in terms of playback devices.

FLAC or MP3: which is better?

The differences between FLAC and MP3 in particular show which format is more suitable for which application:
MP3 has the immense advantage of being available, widespread, and compatible with common hardware and software. In addition, there is the huge compression rate, which is particularly suitable for fast streams and large music collections.
FLAC has a decisive force: it encodes lossless audio files and is much more flexible and more compressed than ZIP or RAR files. FLAC is particularly ideal in the recording studio, but also for highly dynamic music or simply for archiving lossless audio CDs.