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Well, I've done a number of ABX listening tests (apt install abx) and to my chagrin simply could not tell the difference. I challenge everyone who feels strong

Well, I've done a number of ABX listening tests (apt install abx) and to my chagrin simply could not tell the difference. I challenge everyone who feels strongly about this to actually bust out abx and do some listening tests comparing flac to LAME-encoded extreme MP3s and prove to yourself that flac matters at all on your equipment. And then share your results with us if you want! https://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/xenial/man1/abx.1.html#description https://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/xenial/man1/abx.1.html#... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ABX_test https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ABX_test But yeah I should put the command to encode to flac there for people who prefer it!

asveikau 4y ago
The commenter suggested not only FLAC but also Opus, which is a lossy codec that compresses better than MP3. So you could save some disk space. But generally I agree with you, if you're happy with how your setup works and sounds, MP3 is no great sin. As for what the commenter said, firstly, MP3 was synonymous with digital music in most of our minds for so long; second, even if modern equipment handles all the better codecs, a lot of us still have memories of times it didn't in the past. Third, I think some of the tooling around metadata is not as developed or ubiquitous for, say, an ogg container. There are ogg comments, but ID3 is better supported.
- cogman10 4y ago
  > MP3 was synonymous with digital music in most of our minds for so long I think this is probably the main reason for mp3's stickiness. > second, even if modern equipment handles all the better codecs, a lot of us still have memories of times it didn't in the past. Sure, and your dvd players didn't always handle x264. Things change :). It's been probably 10 years since new audio hardware had trouble with non-mp3 media. > Third, I think some of the tooling around metadata is not as developed or ubiquitous for, say, an ogg container. There are ogg comments, but ID3 is better supported. Granted, I think ogg will have worse support for equipment. However, I'd expect that aac in m4a will end up with the same level of support as mp3s do today simply because it's a lot more common than opus (and older). > MP3 is no great sin. It's not, I just don't like seeing generally superior tech getting sidelined because the inferior tech is more familiar. Perhaps that's a sin on my part :). I admit it probably doesn't ultimately matter if your music is 1MB vs 2MB.
  - asveikau 4y ago
    I've written code to parse metadata out of an M4A. I'm sure Apple does a good job of it given they've done that in iTunes for 20+ years, but it's a lot less documented and straightforward than ID3v2, as imperfect and hacky as that format is. As a result, I can pretty trivially edit ID3 from a shell script, but dealing with M4A metadata still feels like a black box. (After typing that, I realize that calling it a "black box" is a pretty good pun on MP4 box formats..)
    - iggldiggl 4y ago
      My car's radio supports both MP3 and AAC-in-MPEG4, but with the latter it occasionally has trouble reading the metadata, though I haven't really figured out why exactly that might be.
cogman10 4y ago
I don't disagree that given a high enough bitrate, MP3 will become transparent. More my point was why not use a more efficient codec (like opus) if you are trying to save bits (128kbps is transparent for stereo music vs the 200+kbps for lame extreme). If you aren't trying to save bits, then why use a lossy codec at all? That's more my point. MP3s will be smaller than flac, for sure, but opus or he-aac files can be even smaller (half the size or more).
- acidburnNSA 4y ago
  Ah yes all that's a fair point. I guess I just am stuck in the old LAME is best mentality of the olden days. I will look into opus. Thanks.
hulitu 4y ago
The dinamics of mp3 is much lower.
hulitu 4y ago
It depends on what audio setup you do the listening. On laptop speakeakers it will be no difference.
- acidburnNSA 4y ago
  I did an abx test on reasonable caliber headphones. Try it! It surprised me.

asveikau 4y ago

The commenter suggested not only FLAC but also Opus, which is a lossy codec that compresses better than MP3. So you could save some disk space. But generally I agree with you, if you're happy with how your setup works and sounds, MP3 is no great sin. As for what the commenter said, firstly, MP3 was synonymous with digital music in most of our minds for so long; second, even if modern equipment handles all the better codecs, a lot of us still have memories of times it didn't in the past. Third, I think some of the tooling around metadata is not as developed or ubiquitous for, say, an ogg container. There are ogg comments, but ID3 is better supported.

cogman10 4y ago
> MP3 was synonymous with digital music in most of our minds for so long I think this is probably the main reason for mp3's stickiness. > second, even if modern equipment handles all the better codecs, a lot of us still have memories of times it didn't in the past. Sure, and your dvd players didn't always handle x264. Things change :). It's been probably 10 years since new audio hardware had trouble with non-mp3 media. > Third, I think some of the tooling around metadata is not as developed or ubiquitous for, say, an ogg container. There are ogg comments, but ID3 is better supported. Granted, I think ogg will have worse support for equipment. However, I'd expect that aac in m4a will end up with the same level of support as mp3s do today simply because it's a lot more common than opus (and older). > MP3 is no great sin. It's not, I just don't like seeing generally superior tech getting sidelined because the inferior tech is more familiar. Perhaps that's a sin on my part :). I admit it probably doesn't ultimately matter if your music is 1MB vs 2MB.
- asveikau 4y ago
  I've written code to parse metadata out of an M4A. I'm sure Apple does a good job of it given they've done that in iTunes for 20+ years, but it's a lot less documented and straightforward than ID3v2, as imperfect and hacky as that format is. As a result, I can pretty trivially edit ID3 from a shell script, but dealing with M4A metadata still feels like a black box. (After typing that, I realize that calling it a "black box" is a pretty good pun on MP4 box formats..)
  - iggldiggl 4y ago
    My car's radio supports both MP3 and AAC-in-MPEG4, but with the latter it occasionally has trouble reading the metadata, though I haven't really figured out why exactly that might be.

cogman10 4y ago

I don't disagree that given a high enough bitrate, MP3 will become transparent. More my point was why not use a more efficient codec (like opus) if you are trying to save bits (128kbps is transparent for stereo music vs the 200+kbps for lame extreme). If you aren't trying to save bits, then why use a lossy codec at all? That's more my point. MP3s will be smaller than flac, for sure, but opus or he-aac files can be even smaller (half the size or more).

acidburnNSA 4y ago
Ah yes all that's a fair point. I guess I just am stuck in the old LAME is best mentality of the olden days. I will look into opus. Thanks.

hulitu 4y ago

The dinamics of mp3 is much lower.

hulitu 4y ago

It depends on what audio setup you do the listening. On laptop speakeakers it will be no difference.

acidburnNSA 4y ago
I did an abx test on reasonable caliber headphones. Try it! It surprised me.