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Playback device is a much bigger difference than lossless vs. mp3. If you think you're getting a subpar experience, another thing you can try is listening on some different headphones with different frequency responses.
I put .wavs on Bandcamp for my music though -- sometimes artists put higher fidelity files on the pages they more directly control. Rather than ripping an mp3 off youtube.
I dont have complaints about its quality, rather trying to maximize what I can get for an incredibly ambient album
What do you mean "what you can get", if it's not about quality?
I dont have issue with its quality but if tgeres higher quality available, i am inclined to obtain that if reasonably possible because i want the best available quality of the recording.
Basically im asking if a CD rip could possibly improve upon what is already possessed
@cheese_greater CDs are 16-bit, 44.1 kHz lossless files and will technically offer more audio fidelity than any mp3.
That said, there have been a lot of blind studies done. In any normal listening environment, almost no one can tell the difference between 320K MP3s and lossless WAV files.
So if it's a high quality MP3 and you don't already know the answer to this question, I suspect you will not be able to tell the difference.
But wouldnt the CD probably be 320 vs 256? Even if it cant technically be discriminable by human ear?
The studies I've seen say that 160kbps is about the maximum where anyone can reliably detect any difference. I said 192 because that's the next most common threshold above that. 320 almost doubles the file size for no gain for listening purposes, but if you're not disk space constrained, there is no reason not to use it. V0 is my preference as it goes up to 320 or higher as needed, but compresses simpler audio a lot.
Noting that higher rates are useful for e.g. audio production where effects are going to be applied.
My 2 cents, if you aren't using actual hi-fi equipment to listen with, you won't notice any difference past 192k quality mp3. A lot of people can't even tell from 128k.
With that said, flac, or equivalent lossless style rips will technically be the equivalent of cd quality. Compression is what degrades sound quality.
So I would need the CD to get the theoretical best quality of the recording
Yes, or locate lossless files online like flac. Keep in mind when you rip, to rip in a lossless format.
They dont exist, the CD or the mp3s i found are all that areavailable online (besides the crap youtube ones).
Was lucky to even find it in the quality 256 i did
That's not really true. If I rip at 320kbps VBR, I can definitely hear a difference with 320kbps CBR. VBR ends up giving me weird audio artifacts; it sounds like the music is hollowed out and echo-y. I'm not using particularly nice headphones.
Might be how the program I'm using rips things, but man, the stuff I've accidentally ripped as VBR is unlistenable to me.
True, if we start comparing vbr to cbr, then there can be differences. Honestly though I would just choose a lossless format if you are able to tell the difference.
The difference in space ends up being significant; 500mb for lossless, 100 or so mb for 320kbps CBR. It adds up quickly, and expandable memory is rare now.
Almost certainly no. You aren't getting meaningful loss of information above 192kbit mp3 compression. V0 is even better. A used CD might have scratches too.
Last time I was reading anything about this: the conclusion was it wasnt the rip quality, but what device you listen on. Youll always get a better product if you do it yourself to your own needs.
Yes the cd will absolutely be higher quality than the mp3. You should buy it and read how to rip to flac then upload it to red or oph.
Do you know if the CD is the exact same master as the one you have in digital form? Albums from before around 2015 typically have an ever increasing number of releases proportional to their vintage and fame, and often times with different masters. It's a pretty arduous process to tell which release has the best sound quality, often times "remasters" don't necessarily sound better than older mixes. Ideally you would be part of a community that shares as many releases for each album that you care, download/try then all and see which one sounds best. There may be some opinions on the internet of people sharing which release is best for each album that you could rely too, but those are hard to come by.
As rules of thumb, for old artists always try their original release. Try remasters from the 80s and early 90s. Be very suspicious of remasters from the mid 90s all the way to 2015 (loudness wars, discs were made to sound louder instead of better), make sure you compare those to the original releases. Never prefer a vinyl over the best CD release, unless it's something that was released before the 80s and you have actually verified it to sound better than the best CD mix.
For more contemporary artists from the mid 90s to 2015 try to see if they have new releases from after 2015 OR something from a label like mobile fidelity.
Any remaster made by the Mobile Fidelity (Mofi) label is likely good, even from the loudness war period.
It's the master and original source that matters most, an mp3 is fine if it was reasonably encoded, but obviously you ideally want a lossless (flac) encode. Even though mp3 encoders have been fine for the last 20~ years you still encounter botched encodes that are actually multiple generation of reencodes and god knows what. There is a bit of a "prestige" when something is encoded in flac, it's less common for those to be botched but you never know...