Lossy vs Lossless Audio Explained!

Lossless audio streaming is going to get a boost as Apple prepares to launch its own Apple music lossless streaming service.

But what is lossless audio, and is lossy audio all that bad? Let's get into it! Oh and sorry for consistently mispronouncing "WAV"......

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[justloading]

I think it's harder to hear the difference between a good lossy file and a lossless file if you aren't familiar with the song, hence why I only get about 60% of the tests correct. However, when I test my favourite songs, which I know very well, I can easily tell the difference.

[Amphibian]

For me, I've known for about a year i can't really hear the difference, but it's more of an assurance thing, i know that even if i can't tell, I'm still getting the best experience, it also stops corruption and stuff which is great

[jamesbarry]

i put just about my entire CD collection onto a 64gb card in AAC 320 KBPS close to 4000 songs, and i am very happy with the sound quality. and the convenience of it.

[disarchitected]

I’m exactly the same, can’t hear a difference above 192kbps MP3. I stopped being an ‘audiophile’ once I realised that a pair of Grado SR80’s plugged into my phone listening to 192kbps MP3 or Spotify high quality was more than satisfactory. Better things to spend your money on than high end audio. Deposit for a house for instance!

[immortallix]

7:56 that's actually a good reason to have/stream lossless, because you'll still end up with better quality than transcoding an already lossy file

[FaiLoYut]

Really enjoy your presentation. Very clear, full of useful info. 2 thumbs up!!

[cejay]

It’s also possible that the reason why some people maintain that they can hear the difference is because there is a difference, but not because of the sample rate or bit depth, but because the track has been remixed with lossless in mind. If an audio engineeer is tasked with mixing a track or an album he knows is going to be heard on systems designed for it, it would make sense to mix it in such a way that substantially changes the sound. Apart from that, the fact that Apple are selling this feature for $0, if people want to use it and then play it via nice amps and speakers, then I’m happy for them to do so. I like nice things too.

And to add to the cake, there are the lesser known hybrid codecs eg. WavPack Hybrid, LossyWAV, OptimFROG Dualstream, mp3HD, MPEG-4 SLS (these last two are nearly impossible to come by nowadays). WavPack Hybrid is my favourite. Around 4bits / sample (~384kbps) it produces an excellent lossy base layer, but with the correction file you can restore the full lossless version. You can archive both, if you are in need of disk space you can delete the correction file and the lossy base functions alone. Very neat, and you have to only add metadata and covers once.

[xeoknight]

I really appreciate you going into the science behind this stuff. Very easy to understand from that perspective

[lucienluyt]

Thanks, that was really very informative. Loved the presentation too 👍

[HumdrumAnt]

When doing ABX tests before I could tell the difference up to 256 and sometimes 320kbps. In the test with The Killers' Flesh and Bone, I can particularly hear the compression in the cymbals, I'm a drummer so I pick up that part of the song more by default. This ignores the fact that when I listen to music, I do just that - I don't try and pick out detail. But storage is cheap and so I put 320kbps on my portable devices (modded iPod's are my poison of choice) which I transcode from my FLACs kept on my hard drive, I figure if I'm gonna spend the time tagging all my music, I may as well so it once and do it well!
Great video as always, thanks!

[bgmobman]

This is an excellent review and lesson on lossless music. Thanks

[EspadaMK]

I have done my own tests before and came to the same results, likewise found mqa to be no better when you compensated for the placebo from the louder volume (though mqa is not lossless). I do notice a difference in the car between Spotify from my phone over Bluetooth compared to my iPod plugged directly in, it sounds clearer even with engine and road noise. The music on the iPod is in V0 MP3. Thanks for the video, really enjoyed it.

[bagheera]

Thanks for your effort. Great video. Love it.

[kenv]

very clear explanation. thank you for this

[hdgdz]

Thank you for the video. Very informative and easy to understand.

[sinnr]

I just came across your channel and man I've never been so wrong my whole life 😂 now I see why some of my mp3 and flac files sound exactly the same, but there are some songs in my library I've compared in different formats that are slightly louder/better in my ears than the lossy ones. Just want to know what's your input on that. BRB checking your other vids 👍🏻

[geoffs]

Refreshingly honest video, thank you. I too doubt anyone can hear a difference between lossless and 320Kb/s MP3 or Ogg Vorbif. If a difference can actually be heard there will be some other explanation such a different master, different volume or EQ and nothing to do with the format. I will try Spotify Hifi when available but I am not expecting any audible improvement.

[MATTY]

In my opinion how a recoding is mastered and what hardware it’s playing it on are more important than if it’s a lossy or lossless format.

[slyfox]

To do this test, I really believe you still need to have a good DAC that can produce lossless because without it even the lossless its still going to be not producing the lossless file.