Quality Format = Quality Sound

Just stumbled upon this section and I saw a lot of great info on head units and speakers, reducing distortion, etc, especially in the FAQ. But I didn't see anything about file formats or audio track quality. Maybe I didn't look hard enough but it is worth bringing up for all the audiophiles in here.

You can put $3k into a sound system, but if you're still bumping .mp3 files at 128k bit rate you're doing yourself a disservice. Big time. mp3's remove a ton of the crispness and detail from the audio. They do this for compression to keep the file size down, which has value if you have a large collection, but storage being what it is now, this isn't as important as it was circa 2005.

If you want pure sound, you need to get less compressed or higher resolution versions of your audio tracks. Then you'll get to hear them AS THE ARTIST INTENDED, which I promise, is going to be mind blowing if you never have heard them like this before.

I recommend FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec), but many say you can't hear the difference between 320k mp3 and FLAC. So if you want to stick with .mp3, that's the quality level I'd recommend. Here are some added benefits of FLAC though:

FLAC is known for being one of the closest formats to sounding like a studio master recording and it's also pretty much universally supported.
Keep in mind, you can't convert
.mp3 --> FLAC because the file is already compressed and the extra data is already gone. You need to start from the analog source and turn it into FLAC or download it from the source as a FLAC.

Also FLAC has levels of compression, but they are all lossless quality, unlike mp3 which just cuts data out of the file as you go down in bit rate (320/256/192/128/96 etc). The level of compression on FLAC is more a matter of how hard the computer works to save you the extra space while maintaining lossless quality. So encoding times increase as the compression goes up, but the quality does not go down. However you do get diminishing returns as far as how much space you save by going up additional levels of compression. Usually 5-8 is about the range most people use.

Transcoding MP3s into other formats often cause data loss and reduce sound quality of the newly formatted file. Transcoding FLAC to another format will maintain the file's quality level. This is because it's a lossless format.

I would even go so far as to say this change should be the first thing you do. If you've been playing mp3's at 192 or lower quality, try a couple albums you like and think you know very well and play them side by side in your system as FLAC, or at least as a 320k bit rate .mp3 before upgrading your system further and see what it does to the sound...then make your upgrade decisions based on that. Not only will you get more out of your upgrades, as a higher quality system can take advantage of more of the nuance in the audio, but you won't be dressing up a pig in a Ferrari level sound system. Oink.

If you typically pirate music and have a mix of all kinds of quality I would recommend looking seriously at bit rates of your files and trying to get some high quality versions of your music before spending more money on a sound system. This is a KEY step, probably often overlooked now that people aren't buying CDs from stores or playing actual media.

A small note on WAV format: WAV files are the absolute best for audio because they are lossless and completely uncompressed. That also makes them huge, and most of the benefits of using WAVs are for sound editing. But if you want the bragging rights, WAVs are truly the top of the heap, but you'll never notice the difference between WAV and FLAC unless your hearing is superhuman.

There are tons of other formats, Ogg, Opus, AAC, etc, but you can dig down that rabbit hole yourself. It's far too extensive for an otherwise already long post. You can just trust me when I say best bang for your buck is gonna be FLAC. Hope this helps some people.

 

Probably not talked about much here because this isn’t a digital music, file format or audiophile forum. There are a few good sites that cover these topics in much more detail.

People come here to find Toyota specific solutions or just flex on the stuff they just crammed in their whip.

 

I’ve noticed ever since Apple updated their music to lossless I do not hear a single difference between 2 of the same song converted from a CD to Flac compared to an Apple m4a Lossless file on the same USB thumb drive using FAT32. Apple has stepped it up for sure.

 

Yeah for sure. I'd just feel bad if someone spent a bunch of money on a sweet system and was only playing low quality tracks on it. Like I said, they'd be missing out on what all the money they spent could actually do.

And I would actually consider what the system is playing to be part of the sound system. The entire system being input to final output. And the first input is the track itself.

 

I'm one of those who can't tell the difference in high bitrate mp3 and wav in a running vehicle. Maybe on some high end gear in a proper listening space, or in a quiet garage doing critical listening, but IMO the good mp3s are fine for the road. And I can get more music on the same thumbdrive.