• WANTED: Happy members who like to discuss audio and other topics related to our interest. Desire to learn and share knowledge of science required. There are many reviews of audio hardware and expert members to help answer your questions. Click here to have your audio equipment measured for free!

Does lossless really matter?

wasnotwasnotwas

Senior Member
Joined
Nov 11, 2020
Messages
329
Likes
372
It is possible for some people to discern 320Kbps mp3 from lossless under some circumstances. But most can’t, and for those who can, it’s not easy...

Personally I’m happy with 320Kbps and I therefore use Spotify (premium). Considered switching to Tidal but doubt I’d be capable of hearing differences, and can’t be bothered resaving all my collections and playlists etc.

Soundiiz allows you to move libraries, favourites and playlists between all major services. It's about £20 for a year. Worth it for me with my ludicrous "all albums I've liked in the year" type big playlists and lots of favourites. More than I'd want to re add from a list manually.
 

andreasmaaan

Master Contributor
Forum Donor
Joined
Jun 19, 2018
Messages
6,652
Likes
9,399
Soundiiz allows you to move libraries, favourites and playlists between all major services. It's about £20 for a year. Worth it for me with my ludicrous "all albums I've liked in the year" type big playlists and lots of favourites. More than I'd want to re add from a list manually.

Good to know, thanks!
 

FrantzM

Major Contributor
Forum Donor
Joined
Mar 12, 2016
Messages
4,335
Likes
7,717
Hi

I liked Roon because of the way it seamlessly blends my files with TIDAL and the general ease of use...
I have found that I listen to Spotify Premium, perhaps 70% of the time and the rest, to my ripped files... I thus, stopped my subscription of both Tidal and Roon ... could come back to these...
I don't hear the differences between Spotify and my lossless files...
There! I just lost my patiently accumulated audiophiles creds ...:(
 
Last edited:

Dj7675

Major Contributor
Forum Donor
Joined
Jan 12, 2019
Messages
2,116
Likes
2,781
Tidal premium is 320k AAC @ $9.99. Works with Roon. In Roon you can even switch to lower bit rates. For those like me with poor internet, this is helpful. For example in the evening I listen to lossless, daytime flip Roon to premium.
 

mocenigo

Major Contributor
Joined
Dec 8, 2018
Messages
1,274
Likes
1,034
Some members here use 1000W subwoofers for casual listening, kind of insane tbh.

Well, if the amps there are Class D, they are still pretty efficient. My amp can deliver up to 165W/8ohm-330W/4ohm. I have 8ohm 94Db/W/m speakers. But the amp has a class D output stage so it is not as if it was dissipating 800W continuously as if it was a Class A amp...
 

mocenigo

Major Contributor
Joined
Dec 8, 2018
Messages
1,274
Likes
1,034
Am I that poor in expressing myself? :facepalm: I meant that i hope he had Class D amp but I didn't know they can reach such capacities (I know hypex has a 1200W unit but not 1300W or more).

Hypex has a 2K module!
 

RayDunzl

Grand Contributor
Central Scrutinizer
Joined
Mar 9, 2016
Messages
13,198
Likes
16,981
Location
Riverview FL
Vorbis these days is pretty much transparent

Hmm...

I never use lossy stuff, so had to take a peek at an Impulse:

1608077648022.png
 

richard12511

Major Contributor
Forum Donor
Joined
Jan 23, 2020
Messages
4,335
Likes
6,700
Am I that poor in expressing myself? :facepalm: I meant that i hope he had Class D amp but I didn't know they can reach such capacities (I know hypex has a 1200W unit but not 1300W or more).

Then he mentioned that he does use Class D so i'm interested to know what it is.

My subs have 4000 Watt RMS class D amps in them, and for $300 more you can get them with 6000 Watts(useless for me since my wall outlets are not buff enough).
 

sigbergaudio

Major Contributor
Audio Company
Forum Donor
Joined
Aug 21, 2020
Messages
2,639
Likes
5,396
Location
Norway
What i meant by casual listening as in your everyday use. Not in a studio or a club for example.

Many people use subwoofers in a combined music and home cinema setup, and low frequency content requires a lot of power. Also, many modern subwoofers are quite small (and thus less efficient), so they need quite a bit of power.
 

raistlin65

Major Contributor
Forum Donor
Joined
Nov 13, 2019
Messages
2,279
Likes
3,421
Location
Grand Rapids, MI
Some members here use 1000W subwoofers for casual listening, kind of insane tbh.

Not at all.

Subwoofer performance is greatly impacted by room size. So yeah. A 10-in sub can work great in a bedroom or small room for casual listening.

But in my 6,000 ft open space living room, it would be ineffective. I know. I have tried.

Plus, wattage specs are not the only factor in sub SPL performance. Other characteristics of the driver and the enclosure size/design impact max SPL. So if you are evaluating subwoofers based on the amplifier size, that's not a reliable metric all on its own.
 

rxp

Member
Joined
Jun 19, 2020
Messages
90
Likes
88
Always been a 320kbps mp3 guy since the late 90s. Started listening to my real system more (rather than headphones) and I love the Dolby Upmixer for music. Lossless is much better for that because of the way the matrix upmixing extracts sound for the rear channels. With Mp3 you end up hearing artifacts in the rear channels, with lossless it just sounds better.

But on my phone I stick to 320kbps
 

holbob

Active Member
Joined
Nov 1, 2020
Messages
283
Likes
473
Location
Lincoln, UK
I remember the days of using napster and soulseek and waiting half an hour for a solitary song! They weren't 320 in those days, usually 128.
 

luft262

Senior Member
Joined
Mar 25, 2021
Messages
465
Likes
236
Location
Phoenix
I can't tell a difference between 320kps and lossless unless I'm using good headphones. I prefer lossless 44.1kHz/16bit or better.
 

Wes

Major Contributor
Forum Donor
Joined
Dec 5, 2019
Messages
3,843
Likes
3,788
I have been using Tidal (Hi-Fi and Master quality) for almost half a year.

Recently i started using Free Spotify (160 kbps) and it’s surprisingly very good sounding.

There is this soothing sensation behind the imperfections you hear, kind of like of listening to Vinyl.

I feel like the sound with lossless is very technical and can quickly fatigue you.

What are you your experiences?


add some tube amps too
 

luft262

Senior Member
Joined
Mar 25, 2021
Messages
465
Likes
236
Location
Phoenix
For me the similar/inverse question is also applicable. "Does lossless need to matter?" The cost of lossless music is much less now than in the past. When I was in my teens and twenties you had to basically buy all the music you wanted to listen to on CDs. Otherwise there was the radio, where you couldn't select what you wanted and the quality was low. There were cassettes and vinyl too and latter MP3s, but CDs were kind of king at the time.

Nowadays, for the cost of about a single CD you can get basically every recording ever made streamed right into your portable device (phone) at super high quality and deliver that right into your headphones or speakers either wirelessly or wired...it's crazy!

So the fact that lossless costs a few bucks more than lossy isn't a big deal to me. Hell, I'd pay that just for the piece of mind. As far as unpaid versions of Spotify or Pandora go, I think there are ads and I'd be willing to pay just to get rid of those, even if the music was of the same quality. Good media, of all types, is cheaper than ever now.

IMHO the more you are listening in a quiet environment, with higher quality equipment, with headphones and/or you are paying direct attention to what you are listening to and not multitasking then the more you will notice a difference. The more you stray from the above, noisy environments, multitasking, poor quality equipment, using speakers, etc. you may stop noticing a difference.
 

Gregss

Active Member
Joined
Jan 26, 2021
Messages
160
Likes
208
Well, if the amps there are Class D, they are still pretty efficient. My amp can deliver up to 165W/8ohm-330W/4ohm. I have 8ohm 94Db/W/m speakers. But the amp has a class D output stage so it is not as if it was dissipating 800W continuously as if it was a Class A amp...

Hello,

Well, with way too much power, you should never clip a signal. And with class D amps you are not burning power like with most other high power amps. May be way overkill, but really no problem, unless you turn the dial up to far and burn out your speakers. :)
 

beagleman

Major Contributor
Joined
Sep 24, 2020
Messages
1,156
Likes
1,576
Location
Pittsburgh Pa
I read something like this years ago...........


"If you have to ask if it matters OR do an ABX test to "Tell" if it does, most likely it does not matter much, or at all"
 

mocenigo

Major Contributor
Joined
Dec 8, 2018
Messages
1,274
Likes
1,034
Hello,

Well, with way too much power, you should never clip a signal. And with class D amps you are not burning power like with most other high power amps. May be way overkill, but really no problem, unless you turn the dial up to far and burn out your speakers. :)

Indeed I am not burning power like a Class A power amp – or am I? At lower wattage the efficiency of a Class D amplifiers diminishes. It may be 90-95% at max power, but it can be 20-30% at 1W. So each module is using at least 5W. In fact my build consumes 15-20W while playing music.

A Class A DHT amp with power up to 3 W would probably have a power consumption in the same order of magnitude. And with my speakers I rarely need more than 0.5W...

But, yeah, I built this amp to consider amplification a "solved" problem. With the Topping D90, also DA conversion is a solved problem. So I can focus on speakers, and the power my amp can deliver implies that I can use it with almost any speaker design :)
 
N

nhatlam96

Guest
he can discern differences and is mostly 9/10 right, pretty impressive?
 
Top Bottom