A wider range of bitrate streaming/caching options.
I use a Plex server with Flac files that range from ~800kbps to ~2000kbps. While I appreciate the option to transcode to 320kbps, I think it would be great to have options in-between 320kbps and “Original”.
Problem solved:
I wish to maintain the majority of my sound quality, but I wouldn’t like to be streaming say 2000kbps over cellular. Say an option at ~800kbps is a much better trade-off between music quality and data caps.
Brought benefits:
A wider range of bitrate options would allow users to better adjust their trade-offs between sound quality and streaming/caching limits/capacity.
@rubricsandstorm, are you aware that it has been proven in scientifically valid experiments (double blind tests) that people cannot hear the difference between 320 kbps MP3 and lossless audio (except for a very small group of trained professionals in an optimized studio environment)? Opus is known to be superior in quality over mp3, so whatever difference you think you hear with the Opus 320 encoded files, you only think you hear that because you know that you listen to that format and believe it must sound different. You do not really hear a difference.
That’s interesting! I’d love to read more about that, have you got any links to those studies? If that’s the case, then why is there such a huge community surrouding lossless audio? With my DAC and headphones, I personally can tell the difference between 320 and Flac 800, but like you said, it could just be placebo.
Here is another thread linking a paper in the first post:
The hype is there because people want to believe that they are able to recognize quality differences, and because it roots in the the hifi scene being very adamant in defending their buying (and selling) of expensive equipment. To sell something you must make your customers believe that they get something better than the rest. Labels support and advertise “hi res” audio to make extra money, notwithstanding the fact that hearing frequencies beyond 20kHz is extremely rare (especially among adults) and thus sample rates over 48kHz for playback (!) are nonsense (it is a different story for audio editing).
Storing music in a lossless format like FLAC absolutely makes sense, because you can convert to whatever format from there. For listening, especially on cheap equipment like smartphones and their headphones, you do not need lossless audio encoding though.