What is the lossless format for?
This is music encoding (Lossless data compression) - compression without loss of quality, an information compression method that allows you to restore the compressed information of the original with bit accuracy.Lossless- this is a so-called “archive” (compressed wav, lossless codec), with source audio material, from an audio disc, CDDA, SACD, DVD-A or vinyl record, which is supplemented with information. In this form it can be stored and listened to.
When unpacking (decompressing) such an archive, you receive the original audio material (from which the rip was taken) accurate to the bit.
For compression, lossless codecs such as - APE, Flac, WV, ALAC, TAK, TTA, the main purpose of which is to transform (convert) an audio file to reduce its size from any source of uncompressed audio (original), using lossless information compression, i.e. lossless.
When compressing (converting) into any of the above codecs, the difference is only in the bitrate (bitrate - data flow rate in kilobits per second during playback), how much the audio material is compressed, the parameter of which has nothing to do with the safety of the sound, i.e. You can use any codec convenient for you, there is no difference in sound quality between them.
Why do we need lossless?
1. First of all, the ability to make a copy of an audio disc.2. Convenient storage and exchange via the Internet, having a smaller size compared to the original.
If suddenly ordinary person“brings it” to the forum where those who consider themselves experts gather high-quality sound, then he will find that 80 percent of the audiophiles there are talking about the bitrate problem. “Can a real music lover distinguish a recording with a good bitrate from a “lossie” file or not” - debates on this topic with arguments for and against have not subsided for quite some time. This proves that it is difficult or almost impossible to force people to abandon their beliefs, to step over their “ego,” even if the facts testify against their delusions. In our article, we will give you some information about bitrate and how it relates to practical music listening experience.
What is bitrate?
If you like to listen to music, you've probably heard the term "bitrate" before, so you probably have a general idea of what it means, but we'll try to refresh your memory and give you the "official" definition here. So, bitrate (from the English bit rate) is, in fact, a stream - the speed at which bits of information pass through, i.e. the amount of data processed during a certain period of time. In audio it is usually measured in kilobits per second. For example, the music you listen to on iTunes has a stream of 256 kilobits per second.
The higher the bitrate of a track, the more space it will require on your computer. Therefore, it has become common practice to compress audio CDs so that more music can be placed on your hard drive (or on a cloud drive, such as Dropbox, or any other). This is where the legs of the long-term dispute about the quality of music from “lossy” files and “lossless” files “grow.”
What is the difference betweenlossy andlossless?
When we say “lossless,” we mean that we didn’t change anything during the rewrite. source file, and it sounds like the original CD track. More often than not, however, we save music “lossy.” A typical lossy album (MP3 or AAC) is probably 100MB or so. The same album in a lossless format such as FLAC or ALAC (also known as Apple Lossless) would take up about 300MB. For this reason, “lossy” notation is common for fast download and save more disk space.
The problem is that when you compress a file to save space, you remove blocks of data. For example, when you take a PNG image of your computer screen and save it as a JPEG, you get a “flaw” in certain parts of the image, making it look essentially the same, but with some loss of clarity and quality. Consider the image below as an example: on the right it has been compressed into JPG format, and its quality suffered as a result (if you look closely at the color of the car, the details and the background). The same thing happens with music files that are "compressed" into MP3, if this comparison is correct. Quality losses that are noticeable to the human ear or eye are called compression artifacts.
It is clear that lossy files are a compromise, but a very significant one when we talk about the hard drive space that can be lost. great value for 32 GB iPhone. But there are also different levels of lossless: 128 kilobits per second, for example, takes up very little space, but will be of lower quality than a 320 kilobits file, which in turn has lower quality than a 1411 kbits file (which is considered true lossless). However, there are many arguments that most people may not even hear the difference between the two bitrates.
Is bitrate really that important?
As storing files becomes easier and cheaper, high bitrate music is becoming more popular. But is it always worth your time, effort and disk space?
The answer to this question is not simple, and audiophiles are still fighting in battles, trying to solve an equation with two unknowns. The first part of the equation depends on technical implementation. If you are using expensive headphones or speakers good quality, then you can listen to music in a wide range of sound. This is where the low bitrate becomes noticeable and you can tell that low-quality MP3 files are missing a certain level of detail, subtle background tracks may not be audible, highs and lows won't be as dynamic, or you may simply hear other significant audio distortions. In these cases, the lossless format is justified.
But if you're listening to your favorite music through a pair of cheap and generally crappy headphones on your iPod, you won't notice the difference between a 128-kbit file and a 320-kbit file, let alone comparing a 320-kbit file to a lossless one. file 1411 kbit. Remember that picture with the car? The music coming through your headphones looks like a smaller image, and you won't hear any compression artifacts because the headphones don't have enough range.
The other part of the equation is your own ears. Most people simply don't pay enough attention or have the listening skills to tell the difference between two different bitrates. This skill can be developed to some extent over time, but sometimes not. In this case, it doesn't really matter what bitrate to use, does it? The fact of the matter is that it is very difficult to hear the difference between a lossless file and a 320 kilobit MP3 unless you are a sound engineer or musician with perfect pitch. For the vast majority of people, 320 kbps is more than enough for listening.
It would also be a big misconception that the higher the bitrate, the better the quality of the track, since simpler audio signals will be compressed better and have a lower bitrate, and more complex ones will be worse. This is why classical music in lossless files has a lower bitrate than, for example, rock music. The ideal is to record with a variable bitrate, but with high quality. Therefore, the bitrate value is by no means the main indicator of the quality of the audio material.
Let's summarize. Lossless files are more promising in the sense that you can always "compress" the music, but you will never be able to get the quality back, so you will have to re-record it from a CD. This is the problem with online music stores and music libraries: if you've built up a huge library of iTunes music and then decide you want the same thing but at a higher bitrate, you'll have to start all over again. But MP3 has been an excellent audio standard for exactly 20 years now, and that's unlikely to change anytime soon, so unless you're planning on becoming a militant audiophile, there's no need to worry about the quality of recordings of your favorite songs.
Sound engineer
“Here, of course, the question is not about the difference between the MP3 format and FLAC, it is broader: how do lossy compression formats (MP3, AAC, WMA, Ogg Vorbis and others; that is, lossy) differ from “lossless” (FLAC, ALAC, APE , WavPack and others; that is, lossless). Actually, with this formulation, it becomes clear that in the first group of formats, the original data is not completely preserved, while the second can be restored to the original format (for example, Wav or Aiff, extracted from a CD) without loss. What exactly is lost and in what proportions depends on specific type lossy files and their bitrate, that is, the degree of compression. But to say that all MP3s sound lousy and flakes sound perfect is the height of arrogance and incompetence. Audio formats with quality losses have been developed for more than twenty years; serious research laboratories are engaged in this (the Fraunhofer Institute, for example, in addition to working on MP3, is also famous for inventing the most effective solar battery) and groups of enthusiasts. The mathematics of encoding is constantly improving, and these days it is no longer so easy to distinguish between files produced by different codecs by ear.
I would immediately make a reservation that not only the files themselves are important, but also the equipment on which they are going to be tested, the environment during listening and the listening experience of the examiner. In MP3 of any low bitrate, Ariel Pink will sing in the voice of Ariel Pink, there is no doubt about it. It is quite possible that for a person who listens to music-as-a-melody through white headphones in a subway car, this will be enough for his eyes, and the difference in codecs will come down to a comparison of file sizes for him. A disc jockey, who is ashamed to buy or look for lossless, will also think that with his MP3 everything is fine. in perfect order, while he prepares a set in “Tractor” on the built-in speakers of a laptop. True, during a party on a large, loud and clear-sounding club audio system (these are sometimes found, believe me), it suddenly turns out that the guy performing immediately after, for some reason, the music became big, clear and cool. Lossy formats are being developed for the convenience of transferring files over the Internet, for storage on portable audio players, and for personal playback, finally. Agree, it’s stupid to watch a one-gigabyte AVI movie on a big screen. Even in home theater it's not quite decent. It's the same with MP3. On an iPod, listen to your heart's content (although AAC from iTunes definitely sounds better), but if you go to a disco, get lossless, even if you play Skrillex. And when you listen to Christmas jazz with your fiancée's parents on their big lacquered speakers, please also buy FLAC or ALAC. With MP3 you risk getting into an awkward situation. In theory, after a bitrate of 256 kbps, it will be quite difficult for your future audiophile father-in-law to tell whether it is playing lossy or lossless. However, there are several points that can spoil your cloudless future.
Video showing the difference between WAV and MP3 formats
Usually, when you see an MP3 file, you don't pay attention to anything other than the bitrate. If you already think of yourself as a person with a taste for music and sound, then you should still look in the file properties for the data of the codec that was used during the conversion. Suppose you see the inscription “Lame 3.99” there, this means that the latest MP3 codec was used and you are in luck. But next to it is “Joint Stereo”, and this is no longer great. This means that in order to save a couple of percent of file size, the codec was allowed to put some things in mono, although the recording is stereophonic, and the sound picture lost a little in depth and clarity. There are also completely botanical CBR or VBR, ABR and UBR, but if you are ready to dig that seriously, then please dig it yourself. Well, you’ve figured out the file properties, everything is simple there. The tricky part is this: you almost never know what your 320 CBR Stereo is made of. Ripped from internet radio? Made from the original Japanese CD without remastering? Recoded from 192? There is a lot of music in torrents or Soulseek, but there are few guarantees. Another difficulty is that lossy formats slightly increase peak values sound signal. The so-called overshoot is thousands of micro-overloads along the entire length of the file. Again, you won’t notice this on the train with an iPod. And the future father-in-law may hear.”
Video showing the difference between MP3 and flak
sound engineer, worked with Sergei Lazarev, Roman Kenga, Joseph Kobzon, Irakli Pirtskhalava, Anita Tsoi
“When compressed by the MP3 codec, part of the spectrum data that is indistinguishable to the average person on the average equipment is simply removed. High fidelity equipment makes it possible to appreciate the disadvantages of this type of compression; artifacts become audible even to a less average listener. But the vast majority of household acoustics, by definition, do not reproduce the entire audio spectrum linearly; they easily mask the shortcomings of MP3 compression. So nothing will disturb us, average listeners.”
If you translate this word into Russian, you get “without losses.” This format is good because its sound quality is better than, for example, Lossy codecs. The files also don't take up much space. Most programs can play the Lossless format, and those that can’t have special plugins for them that allow them to play this format. Let's now take a closer look at the lossless format.
Music of the highest quality
People who understand music and connoisseurs of good sound are unlikely to agree to listen to audio in mp3 format with compression, or the like. Of course, if you play such formats on ordinary equipment, such as a cheap smartphone, then you will not catch all the sound shortcomings, but if you have a sophisticated player for 40 thousand, then all the sound shortcomings will be revealed. For the highest quality sound, the Lossless format is just right. Even when using compression on this format, the sound will remain the same and will not become worse. Moreover, today there is equipment with an affordable price that can play music similar format. I want to show several formats with no compression and with compression, but without loss of quality:
Uncompressed:
- CDDA
- IFF-8SVX
- IFF-16SV
- AIFF
Compressed:
- M4A – Apple Lossless
- FLAC
- WV-WavPack
- WMA – Windows Media Audio 9
- LA – Lossless Audio
- TTA – True Audio
Now I want to talk about several formats for this list. Let's go.
FLAC format
This format is very common and when using it, the sound does not lose anything, unlike audio codecs. This format can be used with equipment high quality Hi-Fi and Hi-End. Since the format is quite popular, almost all media players support it.
APE format
For of this format There are only plugins and codecs for Windows OS, and for others operating systems and players, there are more expensive solutions. When compressing a file, you can achieve minimal losses by several times.
Apple Lossless Format
Losless music files can be listened to on Apple equipment. For this purpose, the Apple Lossless format was developed, which is available on both iPhone and iPod. According to tests, this format is not even bad, since compression occurs from 40% to 60% of the original file and without loss of quality. The only drawback of this format is that the extension matches the AAC format, although AAC format does not have high quality properties. In this case, the manufacturers decided that the information would be stored in an MP4 container, and the file extension would be .mp4a. As a result, the format works on both Apple and Windows products.
What software should I use to listen to Lossless?
I want to say that many players did not immediately start working with this format.
Winamp
The well-known WinAmp player plays almost all formats without loss of quality; it processes tracks in the Lossless format well.
AIMP
I use this player. It can play most formats too.
Which players support the Lossless format?
Here are a few players that users respond well to: SpiderPlayer, jetAudio, Foobar 2000.
They all support this format, and it’s up to you to decide which one to choose. See reviews on the Internet, price. There are very expensive Hi-Fi options for 40 thousand, you need to listen to only high quality music on them, otherwise an mp3 format will reveal all the shortcomings of the sound, and you will hear it perfectly.
Didn't you graduate from the conservatory? Then losseless You don't need it, listen to high-quality mp3.
Very often there are individuals who despise compressed formats in principle. You should not rely on their opinion. The next fashionistas, who in the study with a 90% probability won't hear the differences compressed sound from uncompressed.
What is mp3
MP3 was invented not only to cut quality. It was developed by the Fraunhhofer Society, an association of applied research institutes in Germany. They later came up with AAC, which could have become the main compressed audio format... But it didn’t work out.
Did you know that MP3 comes with variable (VBR) And constant bit rate (CBR)? A constant bitrate, due to the operation of the algorithm, is encoded every time as if it were the first time. Therefore, it may produce uneven quality, which means that not every sound in this situation will be recorded with high quality.
Since MP3 has been around for quite some time, it has a lot of limitations. Bit size - 16–24 bits. The sampling frequency is represented by the following set of options: 8; 11.025; 12; 16; 22.05; 24; 32; 44.1; 48. The maximum bitrate does not exceed 320 kbps. The maximum number of channels is 2. But we are still talking about music, multichannel I still need to look for the records. 
Now let's see how MP3 is encoded. The illustration shows the time-frequency distribution of sound. Same recording: Audio CD, OGG file, well encoded MP3. What we see is that the pieces on the right and left coincide almost completely. So the MP3 file sounds almost the same, like the original CD recording.
Human hearing and its limits - psychoacoustics
The fact is that the main task of the Fraunhhofer Society is the development of psychoacoustic models of human sound perception. And there are many subtleties here. Home - we are not dolphins.
Secondly, there are certain restrictions on the number of simultaneously perceived sounds. A person can simultaneously hear no more than 250 sounds out of 24 ranges (and the number of simultaneous sounds in the range is also quite small).
Thirdly, the audible range is from 16 Hz to 20 kHz and by the age of 60 it decreases by almost twice. Ideally, and with training (yes, yes, it needs to be trained!).
All frequencies below 100 Hz is not perceived by auditory cells, but... skin. Then the low waves are reflected in the auditory canal - these waves are perceived as infrabass. (This is from the area of bone conduction.) 
Moreover, the number of cells that record acoustic waves is different for each person. Why, for each individual person their number in the right and left ear is different.
By the way, the perception everyone differs by ear. Swap the channels in your favorite song and get a new sound.
If we dig deeper, it turns out that each frequency of sound is perceived only at a certain volume. When it is reached, silence is replaced by a sharp and quite distinct sound. Afterwards a person can hear more quiet sound this frequency. 
Another interesting property of hearing is how less volume level, the lower its resolution, the lower the number of perceived sounds. When the volume is lowered, high frequencies are better perceived, and when the volume is increased, low frequencies are better perceived. And they do not complement, but replace each other.
Human doesn't perceive some sounds, focusing attention on others. Please note - usually one instrument, or vocals, is clearly and consciously heard. Everything else turns into a background or a single consonance. And no matter what we concentrate on in the composition, we cannot increase the number of perceived basic sounds.
How mp3 is created
All these data obtained from experimental studies are brought together and presented in the form of an ideal model of human hearing. This is what the MP3 standard is aimed at.
Everything that a person clearly does not hear is cut off immediately. Further processing worsens the sound according to the understanding of this model.
Thanks to the extensive work carried out, modern psychoacoustic The models estimate human hearing quite accurately and do not stand still.
In fact, despite the assurances of music lovers, musicians and audiophiles, MP3 in maximum quality has practically limiting parameters.
There are exceptions, they cannot but exist. But they are not always easily noticeable during blind listening. And they no longer follow from the mechanisms of hearing, but from processing algorithms audio information brain.
And here only personal factors play a role. All this explains why we love different models headphones and why numerical audio characteristics cannot unambiguously determine sound quality.
MP3 fits everything: the quality of analog recordings
The insistence of audiophiles demanding FLAC needs to be sifted through another serious sieve. Most analog recordings does not contain sufficient amount of information for losseless formats.
All CDs are recorded at a sampling rate of 44.1 kHz and 16-bit quantization. Where do the 192 kHz and 24/32 bits that are used when encoding in FLAC come from? They don’t exist, they’re a dummy!
You will argue that for analog audio these parameters are higher... But for audio cassette and magnetic tape (unless, of course, it is a Japanese master tape) AudioCD characteristics UNAVAILABLE. For mass studio equipment, the ability to record analog audio corresponding to AudioCD has appeared relatively recently.
Therefore, there is no point in digitizing recordings from the pre-digital era with crazy quality, especially those made on magnetic media. They do not contain the spectra and the amount of information that containers can store without compression.
MP3 fits everything: digital
Strictly speaking, with most digital recordings the picture is the same. In the 90s and later, cheap plastic boomboxes appeared. Sound engineers had to take care of a uniform sound on all devices - the dynamic range of the recordings was cut to 10-12 bits.
One more thing. Until recently, no one recorded in a studio in very high quality. Because it is difficult to simultaneously work with several dozen audio tracks with high recording quality, and sometimes there are simply not enough human and technical resources.
