Why are mp3's bad?

I've heard people say mp3's are bad and that FLACs are better, but why? I've also heard people say that mp3's can silently degrade on their own over time, but how is this possible?

The tl;dr of the discussion is that there are several categories of audio file: 1. Lossy and compressed 2. Lossless and compressed 3. Lossless and uncompressed MP3 files, like jpeg files, are compressed to save space. The compression done on them also causes the source sound to lose some data. FLAC is a lossless compressed file. You can think of it like a .zip file that only holds one song. It's compressed up to the point that there is no audible loss in quality. MP3s do no silently degrade over time, unless you're talking about bit rot, which is an unrelated problem which can cause some data loss in a hard disk. Hopefully that gives you a decent overview!

>>13180 I could've sworn I've heard people talk about creating scripts just to access their mp3 library so they don't degrade over time. Thanks for the help though!

>>13180 I would like to add, it is commonly frowned upon to compress lossy files again. For instance, MP3 compression takes out inaudible data. However, such algorithms assume input in which such data still exists. Compressing something which has been already lossy compressed might lead to audible data being taken out, not to mention compression artifacts becoming noticeable. Hence the reason why people keep FLACs, in case a new superior format (e.g. Opus) comes along, it is a trivial matter of lossy compressing the FLACs instead of worrying about an imperfect MP3 -> Opus compression. HydrogenAudio has testing results documenting this: https://wiki.hydrogenaud.io/index.php?title=Transcoding#Lossy-to-lossy_transcoding

Every new Comiket /jp/ hosts yet another autistic discussion about audio formats. You got the lossless purists, the opus/vorbis revolutionaries and the mp3 realists. mp3's aren't liked by the community since music rippers tend to autistically transcode into mp3 from other formats, such as ogg for example, causing another layer of compression put on top of the compression from the format before. This is most likely this "degrading effect" you mentioned, no other way, since mp3's simply don't magically erode into lesser quality versions. Now if you're a realist, you're likely not to put lossless formats on your portable devices, as the difference in filesize quickly piles up. However, some people have a dedicated setup that is able to play lossless audio at a high bit depth and polling rate, and prefer to stash their collection in FLAC (lossless and compressed). Nobody does WAV (lossless and uncompressed) when FLAC is also lossless but smaller. Finally the understood argument for ripping music in FLAC is for archival purposes. You can easily encode FLAC music into any other format you desire, whichever bitrate you desire (mp3 v0, mp3 320kbps, ogg -q9, opus, et cetera), for storing your collection on portable devices. Some people are generous enough to share their haul with the webs, but choose only to upload the mp3 compressed version, sometimes not even in 320kbps bitrate, which is counterproductive to people trying to archive their favourite music for future purposes.

>>13180 >bit rot Just when I had to worry about all of my physical media you're telling me even without a HDD failing I have to worry about degrading quality on digital media as well. We just aren't meant to hoard media for an entire lifetime it seems.

>>13181 That's an old meme. Google Rotational Velocidensity

>>13194 There are file systems designed to combat this issue. You may want to have a look into ZFS, BTRFS and there are others as well. In sort these file systems keep checksums and metadata about your files so that they can detect bit-rot and other errors that might affect the integrity of you data. From then on you can repair the files and be sure that your local copies are safe. Now it's up to you to decide if using such systems is worth it for such rare errors. Checksuming also exists in other applications such as bittorrent, whose clients often have a "Verify Files" or "Force Recheck" kind of feature that can be used to also verify files and if seeders are available repair them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Checksum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZFS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Btrfs#Checksum_tree_and_scrubbing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_corruption#Silent

The reason why people hate MP3 isn't that it's lossy. If you have a high enough bitrate MP3 rip of a retail audio CD you won't hear the difference, unless you've paid insane money for audio equipment that amplifies the difference for you. The real problem is that people who think MP3 is enough also think that: - ripping that MP3 out of YouTube videos is okay - burning an mp3 album as a classical audio CD then passing it on (for ripping) is okay - transcoding 128 or 192 kb/s CBR or any VBR to 320 kb/s CBR to gain karma on their favorite closed tracker is okay - making that new remix from some soykafty low bitrate source is okay People who don't want FLAC rips with logs for archivist reasons are often people who don't really care at all as long as its loud, and are willing to push transcodes on everyone else. If you are browsing a tracker and see that someone went to the pain of ripping something into FLAC with logs, you probably don't even need to check the logs, you can know its legit. But if you find something in MP3, you can almost be certain that it passed through a chain of people who have no idea where it came from. Besides all of this, historically there used to be quite a few commercial software that used obsolete, soykafty MP3 encoders that produced horrible results. Companies that sold music in MP3 early on were very fond of such commercial software. As old as MP3 may be (25 years) with all the new and more effective formats around, its chief flaw has always been uninformed humans.

>>13230 Thank you very much for the information. I appreciate it.

>>13180 >It's compressed up to the point that there is no audible loss in quality. To be more exact the audio isn't changed at all from what is on the CD, it's only compressed. "No audible loss in quality" implies that there is loss of quality.

>>13230 I would like to add (again), FLAC has checksumming built in: http://wiki.hydrogenaud.io/index.php?title=Free_Lossless_Audio_Codec#Features

If you are bothered by mp3 quality, but FLACs are too big for you, use opus. It's still lossy, so there is some quality loss, compared to FLAC, but gives much better results than mp3. It has its drawbacks, but all I can think of come purely from popularity. But remember to only convert to lossy from lossless (e.g. FLAC to opus), never from lossy to different lossy (e.g. mp3 to opus).

>>13208 Aha, that's exactly what I was talking about, I can't believe I fell for a meme for multiple years

>>13245 >transcoding 128 or 192 kb/s CBR or any VBR to 320 kb/s CBR to gain karma on their favorite closed tracker is okay Please tell me that people don't actually do this

>>13259 I have over the years read several people confess that they did so because >it increases quality because more kbps = more quality

memes sound better on FLAC than they do on MP3 because FLAC is lossless, unlike MP3

>>13256 That was either started by 4chan/mu or at the very least promoted by them. About the quality difference, some people simply cannot hear a difference and I really believe their sense of hearing might be the cause. I have a similar thing with my poor eyesight because a video has to be quite low quality for me to even see that it is crappy but I can tell the difference with the audio.

The degredation over time is a meme. The actual reason is FLAC is lossless and does not lose information, while MP3's use compression, causing loss of information.

>>13180 >mylar punchards are the future

MP3 is bad because it is a unfree and patent-laden compression format and while most patents expired in 2018 there are still numerous patents held by Fraunhofer that could apply to MP3. Do not support the spread of MP3. Use the free OGG Vorbis encoding format instead.

>>13496 >MP3 is bad because it is a unfree and patent-laden compression format Why do I give a fuarrrk if it's patented?

>>13184 Pretty much this. I have my own archive of music in FLAC (I have some songs in lossy format cause I couldn't find FLACs of em) and encode that to Opus for portable devices. Even though file size is not a problem nowadays since storage space is quite cheap I still use Opus because every player I've encountered supports Opus.

>>13496 this. running a bandcamp account on ogg only collection opus for web stuff too, voice recording

>>13256 >>13181 >>13179 >being that gullible just came here yo laugh at you you could really use some math file formats are just a code in which you write information, and you decide what it means and how you interpret it. For example, you think of sound as a real-valued time function and images as color-valued space functions. Then MP3 and JPG are just ways of approximating that function with a more simple one (less detailed, let's say) whose mathematical description can be codified with less data For example, instead of saying what every colour on every single pixel is, you can say general features like two colours and the direction of a fade out in a small section of space. So no, retard, info doesn't decompose every time you read it. Learn how computers work The more you know, the less life fools you

>>14154 >just came here yo laugh at you >file formats are just a code >Learn how computers work >So no, retard, info doesn't decompose every time you read it. Learn how computers work but it decomposes every time you write it on SSDs http://www.storage-switzerland.com/Articles/Entries/2012/3/6_Why_Flash_Wears_Out_and_How_to_Make_it_Last_Longer.html Hardware exists, and is implemented and suffers defects just like analog materials. Its not as reliable as the software interface might lead you to believe.

>>13526 Because every time you buy a device to play an audio or video file with a patented codec, that adds to the cost of whatever you're buying. It's a patent tax. It's like buying laptops or desktops with Windows pre-installed.

>>13179 >people say mp3's are bad and that FLACs are better, but why mp3 is lossy compression, loses information FLAC is lossless compression If you use a good enough digital audio system and compare 128kb encoded mp3 vs flac, you'll probably say flac sounds better the difference becomes less noticable around 320k >mp3's can silently degrade on their own over time, but how is this possible? it isn't

>>13180 Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaitaminute. I thought the entire POINT of .flac was that it was not compressed and lost not data, which is why it's good for music archival and each .flac file is so damn huge.

>>14169 it is compressed, it's just lossless. a WAV file would be uncompressed.

>>13181 It would not surprise me if technologically illiterate audiophiles actually did this, because they're fuarrrking morons.

>>14169 Of course flacs are compressed; if they weren't compressed why would anybody even use them?

>>13245 >The real problem is that people who think MP3 is enough also think that: >- ripping that MP3 out of YouTube videos is okay If the person listening to the music thinks that's okay, then it is okay. The only standard that matters is whether the listener is satisfied.

>>14177 Technologically illiterate people write their own scripts? Audiophiles collect mp3s rather than renouncing their proliferation?

>>14167 >build computer from components >install FOSS software on it >don't give a damn about patents and play mp3's anyway wow that was hard!

>>14181 Yes plenty of retards who don't understand how computers actually work are capable of writing a pointless batch script. Being capable of writing a script doesn't mean you understand that mp3's don't degrade over time just sitting there on your hard drive. In fact I'd wager there is probably somebody out there who's cynically sold such a script for a few hundred dollars to gullible audiophiles.

>>14155 Why the fuarrrk would you be writing an mp3 to your SSD every time you listen to it? Get fuarrrking real. Furthermore SSDs degrading with writes is not the same thing as bitrot.

>>14183 Well they're still not "technologically illiterate" then. Also, "audiophiles" spend thousands of dollars on vinyl, turntables, speakers... they certainly don't hoard mp3s or care about them. In fact, they are the first and loudest to criticize them.

>>14185 Being able to write a batch script doesn't qualify you as technologically literate. And there is no shortage of retarded audiophiles who unironically use mp3.

All I know about audiophiles is that they are willing to drop thousands of dollars in portable audio players and headphones. In my experience, FLAC or MP3 are fine, in a lot of cases I can't really hear the difference. It's not like I can't hear the difference when it's like a bad quality rip and a high quality one, but that make it sound like it's frames in a video game. I can feel 60 FPS vs 30 FPS when I play so it makes sense to spend extra on horse power to get a good framerate. I don't really understand audiophiles though.

>>14186 If they don't count the sound quality as paramount then they are something other than an audiophile. That's like someone with hundreds of thousands of jpgs being called an art lover. These people are just hoarders. There's other terms for them too but Lain censors all of those.

PS: How do you "ironically" use an mp3 anyway?

>>14185 There is a big market for all manner of ludicrously overpriced gadgets specifically made for audiophiles who think that mp3s are good. Audiophiles are often idiots about cable technology so it stands to reason that they're also often idiots about codec technology.

>>14196 This sounds more like the 4chan/mu/ definition of an audiophile, not the one in use by the outside world.

>>14187 >I can feel 60 FPS vs 30 FPS when I play so it makes sense to spend extra on horse power to get a good framerate. I don't really understand audiophiles though. FPS is not a bad comparison, the normal human brain can process only a finite amount of frames in a single second because of biology, adrenaline increases the FPS of human vision, but generally, higher frame rate is not perceivable. In the same way, certain people can see more or fewer colors, and some people can hear more and are more sensitive to sounds (some people are good enough to tell you the sound of certain musical notes). I am by no means an audiophile, but I can tell the difference between different file types when using the right equipment, I was amazed at hearing something in FLAC that I had only listened to in MP3 prior to, but a big part of it is the equipment. https://www.turntablelab.com/pages/headphone-buying-guide-frequency-response-for-headphones has information about frequency response. You can buy $15 headphones that have the same frequency response as BOSE and they sound the same. I wish I had conserved my hearing working around machines for a living, because I have started to notice I am starting to not be able to tell the difference with music anymore

>>14205 This. I don't notice framerate drops or low-framerate animation until its really bad, but I can usually tell FLACs from VBR mp3s with some confidence. Especially if I'm familiar enough with the track I'm listening to. I've also managed to develop the ability to recognize the sound of youtube's audio compression.

>>14207 > I've also managed to develop the ability to recognize the sound of youtube's audio compression. SO IT WASN'T JUST MY soykafTY INTERNET!

>>14208 >>14207 I don't care if anyone believes me but I used to be able to discern 128s from 192s at least with rock music. It's the drum sound, notably the snare and cymbals, which have a sound reminding me of television snow in lower quality rips. I think people's ears are just different and not everyone can pick up on the same nuances as the next person. Also there is experience to consider. I notice the drums because I play drums.

>>14207 >>14208 >>14220 What you're claiming is far from impossible, but if you haven't done blind sample testing then you haven't done real testing. Trust your performance, not your beliefs.

>>14221 What makes you assume I didn't? I would guess blind, then check the bitrate FOR SCIENCE. I can't tell 192s from 320s though. 128 kbps is simply below a certain threshold of sh¡ttiness. If there wasn't a perceivable difference, no one would start threads like this. There would be no debate.

>>14222 you ascribe far too much intelligence to the average imageboard user. Also, the quality of the sound card is way more important than the quality of the encoding ime. My soykafbook plays FLAC audio like garbage.

>>13179 it used to be patent encumberance too, but now it's just that as time goes on it's going to matter less what the file size is and more whether the material is archive quality.

>>14226 Sure. But while a bad soundcard can make a good recording sound like ass, a good soundcard can't make an inferior recording sound better.

>>14169 just in case you still don't get it, there is two kinds of compression. one is regarding audio quality, the other is just like .zip WAV: uncompressed audio (lossless) in an uncompressed file FLAC: uncompressed audio (lossless) in a compressed file MP3: compressed audio (lossy) in a compressed file >>14180 Your argument is the same as "if the person thinks that littering all over the street is okay for them, then it is okay" soykafty youtuberip tier files often drown out source quality material because everyone just finds it easier to click two buttons on their browser extension. When you're looking for something that is rare, it becomes a fuarrrking menace. >The only standard that matters is whether the listener is satisfied. I am not satisfied, so it's wrong. >>14182 bluray 3-layer encrypted drm audio when >>14290 Hey there Sailor Pikachu, thanks for arriving from the past into the late future to add this crucial information to the thread.

>>14294 Listening to music is not illegal like littering. If the person wants to enjoy lossy music, then they want to. It's fine. Everyone has a different means of enjoyment. If you (for whatever reason) enjoy lossy audio, then MP3s are fine.

>>14550 in many ways, it is like watching porn, some people are happy doing it on a 5-8cm screen in 480 resolution, while others need to watch it in 4k VR.

>>14550 The thing is though, OP asked why mp3 is a bad format. He didn't ask for an example of A = A or relativism.

>>14221 a test exists to differentiate file types https://www.npr.org/sections/therecord/2015/06/02/411473508/how-well-can-you-hear-audio-quality

>>13259 Not only in trackers. Even official sites have this problen with professional artists and labels doing this. That, or the site does it automatically, which is even worse.

>>15578 I don't like this test much because their choices were poor and there were 3 options. They should've put music you know anything odd will be because of the lower quality. https://abx.digitalfeed.net/ seems to be better but i don't know. I probably can't tell the difference but still prefer FLAC anyway.

its simply just the need to keep files as long as possible, and after just 5-10 years that mp3 file can degrade and even become corrupted. a good example of this is the yugoslav war archive i have, the archive was made in 1999 and all the lossy files are either degraded visibly and annoyingly, or completely unusable

>>14550 also this statement is completely flawed, you cant tell the difference between a brand new mp3 file and a few years old flac file. our ears just arent that precise

>>15660 the meme is dead, you may desist now

>>15661 Maybe not now as you say but I don't know if you remember when 128 kb/s or even lower was normal. Those sounded like ass, particularly with certain instruments.