It is better, but it depends on the audio for the difference. Also, it would probably be hard to hear the difference playing over a phones speakers. The weakest link in the chain is always the problem you notice the most. Having a good setup for amp/speakers and you can hear the difference. Using Bluetooth earbuds to mow the lawn, it doesn’t matter. Sitting in my living room on my nice stereo, I notice.

Go to Opus 128 kbps. About the same as MP3 320 or better.

Why would you use the Ai dj to feed you songs, when the normal daily mixes, daylist, etc are giving you the same songs without the fake personality injected between them? I literally do not understand. I'm open to your thoughts - it's just that it seems like an alien perspective.

This is cool if you’re okay with low fidelity music.

After years of lossless and headphones to distinguish, this sounds like fingernails on a chalk board.

It’s akin to using a tape deck to aux adapter in an old car or recording a tape off of an old boombox radio lol. I’d rather listen to nothing.

I mean, fuck Spotify and all that, but this one is really the UK government's doing.

And soon, this shit will come to every country. They're all drafting laws to mandate real age verification for adult content. The UK is just the first to implement it.

Thanks for the suggestion but it would drive me nuts either to convert all my music or to have several different files. Getting MP3s is easier.

What do you think of Qobuz? From what I've seen, it's got more stuff than bandcamp (at least from my library).
It seems to pay the artists well too.

This is cool if you’re okay with low fidelity music.

After years of lossless and headphones to distinguish, this sounds like fingernails on a chalk board.

It’s akin to using a tape deck to aux adapter in an old car or recording a tape off of an old boombox radio lol. I’d rather listen to nothing.

Not the one who mentioned it but I was curious about this as well and found this;

1. Spotify boycott: Artists leave ‘garbage hole’ platform after CEO invests in AI weapons.

2. Spotify CEO investments $700m in AI drone weapons company, as artists call for boycott.

I believe you so this is a genuine question: did you ever test your kbps threshold for being able to distinguish from lossless?

I remember in the MP3 and Winamp days, I was convinced I could detect anything below 192 kbps. Obviously depends on the content, and I’m implying 44 kHz minimum.

A VPN is a must if you wanna go down this route

Soulseek (and I recommend the Nicotine+ client over the official one) is a fantastic source for all music in all formats, and particularly obscure off-label shit you won't get anywhere else. You'll even have some success finding audiobooks there, although this is very hit-and-miss. I wish audiobook pirates would use it more heavily. It's P2P, like Napster used to be. You'll have to share something or you'll get auto-ignored by most users.

RuTracker is a great non-private/non-ratio-monitoring torrent site for music (does require a free account though). I've never had a single torrent from there that wasn't seemingly seeded by a Godzilla's dick. Obviously it's in Russian, but there's really no difficulty navigating around. The only thing you might struggle with is signing up for an account, but just have your favourite translation tool open in another tab

If you don't mind slow download speeds (from the likes of RapidGator), I enjoy Exystence. It's a blog that shares link to the latest albums and offers both lossy and lossless versions. Nice RSS subscription to have.

If you do find yourself using RapidGator a lot, don't waste money buying a sub directly from them, it's insanely pricey. Instead, get a reseller like Real Debrid, which costs like 10% as much and also covers you for about two-dozen other file hosters. I highly recommend putting as much distance between your credit card and the company as possible, just for safety reasons. Using PaySafeCard is fine, as Real Debrid will never see your details in that case. I don't have any specific reason to be weary of them, I just don't trust random/small/hitherto unheard of companies as a rule.

There are online test you can do to see if you can successfully identify the FLAC from the MP3. I did one and failed miserably.

They say that if you have a very good DAC, amplifier and speaker / headphone system (as well as a good ear for audio), that you can hear it. But I would do the test first to see if it applies to your situation.

It could be the quality of your headphones.

I'm not an audiophile, but back-in-the-day I bought some analog "sennheiser studio monitors" as opposed to "just headphones".

I actually returned the first one and exchanged them, because when I listened to a live recorded CD, I kept hearing loud "pops" that I didn't hear with my "regular headphones". I assumed they were defective.

The exchanged sennheiser had the same "pop" in this CD. It turns out, most "regular headphones" didn't have the same depth in sound frequency as studio monitors and the "pops" were accidental artifacts that were mixed into the CD.

For other CD's, I'd hear telephones ringing and sirens in the background.

Eventually, I got use to it. Then after a few years, I replaced my CD collection with mp3's... and I could tell a different in songs/albums I was really familiar with. The base wasn't as deep, the high sounds weren't as high, I didn't hear telephones ringing in the background.

I had the same sennheiser, it was just that the nature of mp3's "flattened" the music.

Now, with Bluetooth and the disappearance of 3.5 mm jacks, there are too many layers of digital conversion happening. I've given up... and now just have some cheap ear buds I listen to.

Its not like every industrie can somehow lobby every consumer right away when someone wants to make a new law... oh wait they do...

Actually, I don't think this is industry mandated. I don't think it's in the interest of tech and content companies to create more friction to access their services. This one seems to have more to do with the governments wanting to exert more control over online affairs, and of course, over its citizens.

Same for me, I got tired of the same artists being played over and over. I've switched to Deezer who does a much better job. I will probably switch to Qobuz soon.

I keep getting advice of Flac > MP3 320 kbs.

I can't tell the difference to tell you the truth. Is it really worth it for audiophiles considering how much more space Flac files takes up?