It’s honest, I have a lot of MP3 audiobooks, yes they are low quality from an audiophile perspective, but they don’t need to be anything more and I enjoy them.
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i was having a great day until i stumbled upon this old thread, and now I am OUTRAGED
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Ditto here as well!
The zombie thread, resurrected.
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There is a nice utility called “Fakin’ The Funk?” that quickly analyzes each file and shows the real, actual and true quality of each file, no matter the container it has. I’ve experienced many surprises with bit-perfect CD rips that actually have been burnt @96 or even 64. This is by no means an expensive software (has not been upgraded for a long time) but the concept is so interesting that might even be a great idea and plus if Roon licenses the algorithm and adds that real value along the colored dot. I am sure many Roon users (count me) would be glad to easily chose which version they want to hear or keep, as many -let’s say- FLAC versions might really contain lossy, cheap data inside. Also this would break some paradigms where lower bit versions sometimes might sound a lot better than higher bit!
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You have a good point, but I don’t think “real, actual and true quality” is a thing. How would a distorted electric guitar fare? Or artificially degraded sections of some tracks for creative purposes (e.g. the muffled start of Daft Punk’s “Around the World”)? Or 8-bit synth? If I think about it, I’m not even sure “lossy” vs. “lossless” is a correct distinction. In theory, streaming MP3 without any conversions or DSP is just as lossless as streaming FLAC or WAV, since one can argue that once encoded, there’s only one correct and deterministic way to decode and no bits are lost in the process.
Completely agree, but as an x-ray tool might help a lot with duplicates, compilations, etc. That is why I mention that the highest bitrate not necessarily sounds always best as a rule; there will always be several ingredients to consider and a number normally is more meaningful than a color.
Lose the pejoritive ‘Audiophile Snobbery’ for enthusiasts and similar.
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Where is that displayed in Roon?
After reading through this zombie thread, I can see that a few things about lossy versus lossless audio file compression need to be repeated yet again.
In spite of what some people write in high audio magazines or on audiophile internet forums not all high bit rate MP3s sound worse than FLAC or WAV files. For something like 95% of the music/time one cannot hear a difference between a high bit rate MP3 and a FLAC file made from the same source file. Notice that I wrote “high bit rate MP3” since a low bit rate MP3 does indeed sound worse. For the other 5% of the music there may be some noticeable differences in the sound between a high bit rate MP3 and a FLAC file but these differences will be very slight.
I’m not saying to use MP3s instead of FLAC files, what I am saying is to listen with your own ears and to not believe the audiophile nonsense that often appears in high audio magazines or on audiophile internet forums. While I read with my eyes, I listen with my ears.
[Moderated]
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For reference, my MP3s are 320kbps. At that rate, the percentage of people who can hear a difference from red book in a blind test vanishes to zero, including golden ears or trained musicians or enthusiasts or whatever you may call them. That is not “low quality” by any stretch. I’m not trying to resurrect any “controversy”. I’m just doing my duty as customer to let Roon know there’s someone else out there who thinks this is snobbery. The label, not the color.
Anyway, we got two votes in the past couple of days, after 5 years of absolute zero. That’s something. I see an MP3 revival coming.
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Though I tend to just ignore it, I always thought using the term “Low Quality” was odd. Roon’s response to the suggestion they change the label seems to indicate they want the label to be pejorative in hopes it will motivate users to seek higher quality lossless files. As such, I really don’t see them changing the label.
Cool thread.
If you can’t hear the same file encoded in FLAC and 320kb MP3 then you need to upgrade your audio system.
I’m afraid the only thing left to upgrade is my auditory system.
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Not a very good argument since you have no idea how good or bad my audio system is. Perhaps it’s better than yours? I know that I have a state of the art headphone system (Warwick Acoustics Sonoma Model One) and I will try a simple test using 320 MP3 versus a FLAC and report back the results. Not that it will matter since if it turns that I can hear no difference then you will probably blame some other part of the digital playback chain, perhaps the power supply of the Roon core or the quality of the router or the cables. After all the list is endless. Nonetheless I will the give the test a try.
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You all want to refight the MQA wars ?
Find another Forum.
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