Hello! This is probably stupid.
So I have recently gotten rid off my streaming services to save money and I have been into transferring my new and old CDs into MP3 form (320 kbps) and listening to those either on my Sony Walkman (NWZ-B162F or something) or on my PC with the Windows Legacy Media Player/VLC and now the music sounds so, so different than the same songs sounded from Spotify or YouTube Music. (Official apps on Android, iOS and PC or the web version on PC while having the “HD Settings” on.) Headphones and the soundbar is the same as before, no changes there.
Like the MP3 form, that should be much more poorer quality and inferior in all the ways, but it sounds “deeper”? The streaming services have sounded so… flat? Sorry, English isn’t my native language but yeah, flat or shallow? Empty even? Hollow?
Is this because of I now “own” the music and possibly respect it more and that makes it sound better? Am I turning into an audiophile, which I have never had any interest in before? Or is there something real in this? Not complaining really, just been pondering this a while and my fiancé agrees on this as he’s been doing the same on his old iPod…
Thanks in advance or anyways. :)
Thank you! I did some searching and it could be because of this. I have used YouTube music most recently and it has, depending a bit on the source and the app and the settings, “only” 256 kbps at best so I guess that could be it. Weird if 64 bits make that big difference! Maybe I am an audiophile, or at least turning into one.
That’s 64 kbits, or about a 25% boost in bitrate.
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.
… Welp, that’s a whole lot more! Thanks for this correction!
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.
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…?
In reality, the bitrate doesn’t make all that much difference past a certain point. If you blind test it, you’re hardly going to be able to hear any difference between a 160, 256, 320, or even a 1,000 kbps MP3/FLAC whatever. That’s just not how it works.
The things that do have a big, noticeable effect on sound quality 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 master/remaster than version B.
loudness. A difference in volume can have a big impact, even if the tracks and sources are identical.
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, there to be a difference or an improvement in some area when comparing two sources, then you will most likely hear one (whether it actually exists or not).
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.
As you already noticed.
Same effect is even more noticable in video streaming services. Amazon/Netflix/etc full HD(1080p) video, even downloaded is visibly of worse quality than same video and same quality from lets say pirates sources. Difference is noticable even on something as small as a phone screen.
It’s important to note that bit rate is only part of the story. Spotify uses the Ogg Vorbis file format which is a lossy compression algorithm (just like MP3). 256 kb/s .ogg vs 320 kb/s .mp3 both offer about the same sound quality, it’s not likely one could differentiate between them in a blind test.