this post was submitted on 14 Jan 2024
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Reminiscent of the hi-res audio marketing. Why listen at a measly 24bit 48khz when you can have 32/192?!
These have an actual perceivable difference even if subtle. Hires audio, however, is inaudible by humans.
I tend to agree, but the audiophiles always have an answer to rebuttal it with.
I'm into audio and headphones, but since I've never been able to reliably discern a difference with hi-res audio, I no longer let it concern me.
I've bought pretty expensive equipment, tube amplifier, many fancy headphones, optical DACs. A library full of FLAC files. I even purchased a $500 portable DAP. I've never been able to reliably tell a difference between FLAC and 320k MP3 files. At this point, it really doesn't concern me anymore either, but I at least like to see my fancy tube amp light up.
I will say, though, $300 seems to be the sweet-spot for headphones for me.
Imo the biggest bump is from mp3 to lossless. The drums sound more organic on flacs whereas on most mp3s they sound like a computer MIDI sound.
The biggest bump for me was the change in headphones. It made my really old aac 256kbps music sound bad.
320kbps cbr and v0 vbr mp3 are audibly transparent. Most likely, 250kbps and v2 are too.
Tried flac vs 192 vorbis with various headphones. E.g. moondrop starfield, fiio fa1, grado sr80x...
Can't tell a difference. Kept using vorbis.
They have tests you can take to see if you can hear the difference. A lot of people fail! Lol
Usually percussion is where it's easiest to notice the difference. But typically people prefer the relatively more compressed sound!
I'd thought I could hear a difference in hires audio, but after reading up on it I'm starting to think it may have been some issue with the tech I was using, whether it be my headphones or something else, that made compressed audio sound veeeery slightly staticky when high notes or loud parts of the track played.
Personally though, even if it wasn't, the price for the equipment wasn't worth it for a difference that was only perceptible if I was listening for it. Not to mention it's near impossible to find hires tracks from most bands. Most claiming to be hires are just converted low res tracks and thus have no actual difference in sound quality, the only difference being the file is way larger for no good reason.