Most streaming music platforms, such as Apple Music, Amazon Music and Tidal, offer the possibility of enjoying our favorite music without loss of quality, that is, as the author intended, a option that Spotify announced in 2021 but from which we have not had any news to date.
Many users wonder what the difference is between lossless audio and compressed audio, the latter being the one used since the arrival of MP3s on the market to replace CDs, CDs which offered lossless sound. But how are they different?
What is lossless audio
The first thing we must keep in mind is that when we talk about music in numerical format, they are always compressed files so that they take up less space. However, when we talk about lossless audio, we are talking about a different compression than what can be found in MP3 files
To perform lossless compression, specially designed codecs are used, the most popular and well-known being FLAC, a codec that uses compression techniques used by compression applications (sorry for the redundancy) to eliminate redundant data while maintaining quality. An important feature of this codec is that the compression is reversible, allowing recovery of redundant data eliminated during the compression process.
What is audio compression
Compressed audio, also called lossy audio, is anything that has been processed to reduce the number of bits play the song with a minimum of quality. Unlike lossless audio, where redundant data can be recovered, compressed audio is completely eliminated, reducing the final file size.
The most used format for more than 20 years has been MP3, although it is also found in Microsoft’s .ACC and .WMA format files. The most common bitrates, also called Bitrate, that can be found in these formats are 128 kbps, 192 kbps and 320 kbps.
The higher the bitrate, the higher the quality, so if we want to convert our library from CDs and MP3s and we don’t want them to take up a lot of space, we have to choose 320 kbps. The space occupied by the files will be much higher than that used with 128 kbps but will not be close to the level of audio files using the FLAC codec.
MP3 320 kbps or FLAC Which is better?
As we mentioned above, FLAC is a lossless audio format, while a 320 kbps MP3, although it is the best possible quality of this format, is still a compressed audio format, so we will get always better sound quality with FLAC.
Anything that involves deleting information during Conversion process This is synonymous with inferior quality. However, not everyone is capable or does not have the necessary means to distinguish between the two.
Can we distinguish them?
Although you cannot distinguish between compressed audio and lossless audio, it is possible to do so. To do this, the first and most important thing is not having hearing problems (we are not talking about deafness) but rather the wear and tear that our ability to perceive sounds may have.
Another very important aspect that we must take into account to be able to distinguish between the two is to use quality audio equipment, as well as some headphones GOOD. If we want to test if we are able to distinguish between lossless audio and compressed audio using our smartphone’s headphones, we can forget about this.
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