In reality, the bitrate doesn’t make all that much difference past a certain point. If you blind test it, you’re not going to be able to actually hear any difference between a 160, 256, 320, or even a 1,000 kbps MP3/FLAC whatever. That’s just not how it works.
What does have a big, noticeable effect are primarily:
-
different master recordings – this is often what people mistake for “better quality” when comparing digital copies versus streams, or this streaming platform versus that streaming platform. In fact, it’s because version A is based on a different remaster than verison B.
-
psychology. The placebo effect cannot be understated stated in terms of its impact on audio enjoyment. If your brain is expecting, either consciously or unconsciously, that would be a difference, then you will most likely hear one.
The long and the short of it is, just enjoy the music in the way that feels most enjoyable! Once you start fussing over audio formats and bitrates, the whole thing can easily descend into silliness very quickly.
sgh@lemmy.ml 18 hours ago
That’s 64 kbits, or about a 25% boost in bitrate.
prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 16 hours ago
If you’re ripping the music yourself, you’re going to be hard pressed to be able to tell the difference between 256kbps and 320kbps. Both are essentially indistinguishable from lossless.
If the streaming service is actually using 256kbps, then they must be transcoding them or using a really shitty method for encoding.
manuremy@sopuli.xyz 18 hours ago
… Welp, that’s a whole lot more! Thanks for this correction!
sgh@lemmy.ml 17 hours ago
Just to not sound like a complete asshole… ofc the 25% boost does not depend on bits/kbits, the difference is still 256 vs 320, but I just wanted to emphasize that the expected result is 25% bigger in all terms.
If it helps to imagine, the space needed to store a 256k 5 minutes song will store a 320k 4 minutes song. Then, you are already relying on a quite decent quality beforehand so it’s all extra quality and details.
I usually hear the difference in the high frequency sounds, which is exactly what is otherwise sacrificed in low bitrate compression formats.
FLAC will produce an even better sound, as it’s lossless, but for most songs I couldn’t justify the file size difference.
manuremy@sopuli.xyz 17 hours ago
Not asshole-y at all, I’m real grateful and learning a lot today! :) I have never really even thought about these things.
I haven’t really listened to my songs in FLAC, but the MP3 already sounds very, very good and it takes such a tiny space, so it could be enough for me. For now…?