FLAC vs MP3

[anon(5725119)]

Does anyone listen to music in FLAC format? I downloaded an album in FLAC and in 320kbps cbr and when I played it on my L930 through earphones, I couldn't really tell a difference.

Can anyone else?

EDIT: I used the app Perfect Music to play the FLAC files.

 

[Pete]

I listen to FLAC on my Walkman, but that's HiRes (5,000+ kbps) on a top end player and headphones. Sounds suitably good to me.

For casual listening, there's not much difference between High Res and consumer level bit rates and I'm not sure there's much difference between FLAC and MP3 at this level except maybe file size.

 

[anon(5725119)]

I listen to FLAC on my Walkman, but that's HiRes (5,000+ kbps) on a top end player and headphones. Sounds suitably good to me.

For casual listening, there's not much difference between High Res and consumer level bit rates and I'm not sure there's much difference between FLAC and MP3 at this level except maybe file size.

On your Walkman, would you notice a difference between FLAC and MP3@320kbps?
And does it make the experience a lot better?
I'm considering investing in some top end hardware.

 

[b0nz1]

I have some experience with mobile audio players and good quality headsets.

It strongly depends on what headphones you got.
I got the Ultimate Ears triple.fi 10 and they are considered to be hifi grade. Those are very picky if you want to drive them because their varying impedance over frequency caused by their design requires a very low output impedance.
With the output of the 930 they sound not as good as compared to an iPhone 4S. The lack of very deep base is noticable. For this reason I got a litte amplifier for 25$ (the Fiio E6) which solves this problem completly.

To the FLAC vs MP3 debate: I never experienced any difference between 320kbps MP3s (LAME encoded) vs the original FLACs even on my iPhone. I tried hard to hear any difference but with my equipment it's not possible.

For this reason I doubt that anybody should be able even with more expensive headphones to hear a difference out of the 930 by just changing the format to FLAC.
The only exeption is if you have some sort of hearing damage because in this case the compressing rules for MP3 may not be able to trick your brain anymore.