- A Redditor built a tool to let you test FLAC and different MP3 quality levels
- It’s crucial that you use your own music instead of samples you don’t know well
- It humbles many audiophiles
In an attempt to find out if they had hearing damage to tell the difference between FLAC and MP3, a Redditor recently built a tool so you can do a ‘blind’ listening test. It’s not the first tool to do this, but it addresses common pain points with these tools to make it easier to directly compare and contrast songs – and most importantly, you’re using your own songs so you’re testing with tracks you know inside out.
You upload a FLAC and the tool will create 16, 64, 128 and 320 kbps MP3 copies. Then you can seamlessly switch between the lower bitrates and the original, with randomized labels that don’t tell you which version you’re listening to. Changing will not jump you back to the beginning of the song, so you can hear snippets in different streams.
The tool does the rest, and it’s all processed in your browser, so your data won’t be uploaded to the cloud or someone ready to sell it. Just note that you’ll actually need a lossless file to do the test, and for best results you’ll want to output to a good DAC – either into a hi-fi system or powered speakers, or one of the best portable DACs and some of the best wired headphones.
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But why am I talking? You can test the tool yourself by browsing to it right here. It’s free to use, although there is a donation link to the creator if you find it useful.
Can you hear the difference?
Most audiophiles will probably claim that they can always hear the difference between lossless and lossy, but this test may make some doubt their own ears. The owner even jokingly said “turns out I’m deaf I guess” when describing how they can’t hear the difference between 128kbps, 320kbps and FLAC.
The original poster is not alone, with other users confirming that they have struggled to hear a difference. One poster simply said “this is very humiliating”, communicating in four words what many other respondents needed to say.
Another commenter described doing the test on $25,000 monitors and not being able to tell 320kbps files from lossless.
As many point out, MP3 takes up less space than FLAC, making it ideal for space-conscious listeners.
This is not exactly breaking news. Audio engineers have long crowed that the differences between higher quality compressed audio and full lossless are impossible to tell. The famous producer Steven Wilson who recently admitted that he can no longer tell the difference between CDs and hi-res audio (although I should point out that none of the options in the comparison tool are as high quality as CD, which is about 1,400 kbps).
However, there are plenty of defenses for lossless beyond audio fidelity. Posters point out that saving the best quality FLAC files means you can easily convert to other file types without introducing artifacts, because while you can convert lossless to lossy MP3, you can’t convert back and recover the lost information.
So for audiophiles, it’s still a safer choice to have your music collection in FLAC, even if it eats up that storage space. But this tool is a reminder that a good MP3 can still sound good, and even on par with lossless in real terms.
And at least it claims that 16kbps and 64kbps MP3s still sound rubbish.
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