Getting sick of using MP3's

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Ribstaylor1

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#1  Edited By Ribstaylor1
Member since 2014 • 2186 Posts

So I'm big on trying to find music files that are of high quality, and it's not only really hard to do it's almost damn near impossible when it comes to music. In this day and age of everything being faster and more efficient, sound files are still basically stuck at MP3 for it's format, Ruining sound quality and making music sound horrible. Now I didn't used to care, but a friend introduced me to good quality speakers and vinyl and I've been having a hard time going back to the crap I'm finding on the net.

I've taken to downloading flac files, but 99% of the time all that is available is MP3 at 320kbps or lower. Even from the legal channels of acquiring music. Which to me seems odd, as I would actually not mind paying for higher quality music files over a more compressed version. Maybe I'm missing certain avenues to find the higher quality versions, but if not it begs the question, why isn't this being sold? With an industry hit hard in sales numbers for CD's and downloads you'd think companies could use every dollar their music could bring in.

I know most say you can't tell the difference and I can see how some wouldn't. Everyone's hearing has it's limits but between the two it's like knight and day to mine. A lot clearer, crisper, or I guess a good way of putting it would be to say it sounds more full bodied. So if it's this way for me I'm assuming there are others out there that can hear the difference, and possibly feel the way I do.

So what do you guys think? Do you mind MP3's various sound qualities or do you prefer to use higher quality files when available?

Oh and if you know where to find higher quality music let me know.

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bulby_g

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#2  Edited By bulby_g
Member since 2005 • 1861 Posts

To be honest I find 320kbps MP3's fine. I've got decent equipment, an acoustically treated studio and I can barely tell the difference between a good 320 and a WAV. When I'm working with audio files I insist they're uncompressed but a DECENTLY ENCODED 320kbps MP3 is fine for playback of the final product.

I know it's possible to get FLAC and WAV files for a lot of dance music but not sure what sort of stuff you're listening to? CD's tend to be better quality than MP3 so you could always buy physical if it bothers you that much.

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PfizersaurusRex

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#3 PfizersaurusRex
Member since 2012 • 1503 Posts

Now that I have some spare HDD space I try to get FLAC whenever I can. I can barely tell the difference, tho. The highs are a little crispier and that's it. No big deal if you ask me.

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Old_Gooseberry

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#4 Old_Gooseberry
Member since 2002 • 3958 Posts

just buy the actual cd and convert it into flac and play it that way. I've never paid real money for a crappy mp3 file. Either download flac or buy the cd. Unless its just so so music then it really makes no difference, all depends on how much you care about it.

With the huge size of hard drives now and faster internet speeds then 15 years ago, mp3s really aren't needed anymore, may as well have everything in its original quality. I converted a lot of my cds into mp3s 10+ years ago but i been too lazy to convert them all into flac but its definitely gonna happen someday. Unfortunately back then hard drives were not quite big enough to hold all my stuff. They have like 6tb hard drives or something now, its crazy.

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#5  Edited By Kh1ndjal
Member since 2003 • 2788 Posts

@Old_Gooseberry said:

With the huge size of hard drives now and faster internet speeds then 15 years ago, mp3s really aren't needed anymore, may as well have everything in its original quality.

for audiophiles, certainly. but this day and age is of the mobile and the wireless. compression is king when when you don't have access to hard drives and wired connections.

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ShepardCommandr

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#6 ShepardCommandr
Member since 2013 • 4939 Posts

MP3s are for peasants.

If you know where to search you can find high quality vinyl rips.

24bit-96000/192000Hz

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KHAndAnime

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#7 KHAndAnime
Member since 2009 • 17565 Posts

I use mostly FLAC. I'll use 320kbps to sample an album, but if I keep it, FLAC is a must. Just about all music is available in FLAC format, both for those who like to acquire their music legally and illegally. Is it harder to find? Perhaps. But I listen to primarily obscure (non-popular) music and I've had zero issues locating all my music in a lossless format. There's definitely not a big difference between 320kbps and FLAC in sound, but I typically experience that MP3 files corrupt and degrade on the hard drive over time compared to FLAC. Often an MP3 from an album will become glitchy, requiring me to redownload the album or find it in FLAC. The size difference between FLAC and 320kbps isn't big enough for me find the compression worthwhile.

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#8  Edited By DJ_Headshot
Member since 2010 • 6427 Posts

Have you actually abx tested a lame encoded 320KBS MP3 vs the original FLAC file of the same music track in foobar2000 needs to showing you can pick out the flac file at a statically high enough rate to not be guessing? Since the difference is so "HUGE" to you should be easy to do this several times for a bunch of different songs hell record your self doing it since should be a quick video as you will be able to quickly pick between the inferior mp3 and the superior FLAC Version right away!

Make sure there level matched so ideally convert the file your self to mp3 from flac using the latest version of the Lame Encoder you can do all of this including the abx testing in foobar2000 with the right plugins. I think you will find there is not nearly as big as a difference as you claim honestly unless you have trained yourself specifically to pick out audio artifacts I wouldn't expect you to do well here. There will always be a few so called "Killer" Tracks that for whatever reason don't come out fully transparent on the specific mp3 encode.

But for the overwhelming majority of songs for the overwhelming majority of people listening even if they really focus just for this test which is not how they would listen to music normally mind you but thats besides the point. Even with this extra critical listening on a high quality pair of headphones or speakers they would not be able to tell a properly encoded 320KBS MP3 apart from the Original FLAC File. This fact alone speaks volumes for how "HUGE and Drastic" the difference is hint its not nearly that big a difference at all hell for most people on most audio setups there is no difference at all! Hell they could get away with much lower bitrates and still sound transparent to them!

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#9  Edited By Senor_Kami
Member since 2008 • 8529 Posts

320k MP3 is fine. Sub .001% of people would be able to have music played for them and then identify whether the track was from a properly encoded 320k MP3, FLAC, or CD.

@KHAndAnime said:

There's definitely not a big difference between 320kbps and FLAC in sound, but I typically experience that MP3 files corrupt and degrade on the hard drive over time compared to FLAC.

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#10 DJ_Headshot
Member since 2010 • 6427 Posts

@Senor_Kami said:

320k MP3 is fine. Sub .001% of people would be able to have music played for them and then identify whether the track was from a properly encoded 320k MP3, FLAC, or CD.

@KHAndAnime said:

There's definitely not a big difference between 320kbps and FLAC in sound, but I typically experience that MP3 files corrupt and degrade on the hard drive over time compared to FLAC.

LOL this made me laugh harder then it should have but yeah that's some top level audiophile audiophoolery right there!

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#11  Edited By KHAndAnime
Member since 2009 • 17565 Posts

The only foolery is you attempting to lay claim to my life experience. It's not foolery at all. I've had to redownload MP3 albums dozens of times in the past because the songs happened to be more likely to corrupt from HD usage over time. The same has never happened for my lossless files. Not a single time. Many people can attest to this happening to them - I don't know what causes it, but it definitely happens. There are dozens of websites and programs dedicated to fixing/repairing corrupt MP3 files, but none for FLAC files. Larger files should be more prone to corruption because they take up more space (which means more data that can possibly get corrupted), but I've never had one lossless file refuse to play for me in my entire life. Maybe MP3 files are less likely to work after data corruption due to their nature of the files? I don't know. It's not like I'm talking about seeing a ghost. I'm guessing different filetypes have different limits on file integrity.

If you haven't had both lossless and lossless versions of your albums stored for 3+ years, you likely won't have any idea what I'm talking about. I've got a couple of old Zunes in my closet, each that had identical music a few years ago, but now are a bit different because many tracks don't play anymore (and not the same ones on each Zune). Seems like whenever hard drives degrade, my MP3s are the first to go bad. As I said, haven't experienced it once with lossless files.

@DJ_Headshot said:

Have you actually abx tested a lame encoded 320KBS MP3 vs the original FLAC file of the same music track in foobar2000 needs to showing you can pick out the flac file at a statically high enough rate to not be guessing? Since the difference is so "HUGE" to you should be easy to do this several times for a bunch of different songs hell record your self doing it since should be a quick video as you will be able to quickly pick between the inferior mp3 and the superior FLAC Version right away!

Make sure there level matched so ideally convert the file your self to mp3 from flac using the latest version of the Lame Encoder you can do all of this including the abx testing in foobar2000 with the right plugins. I think you will find there is not nearly as big as a difference as you claim honestly unless you have trained yourself specifically to pick out audio artifacts I wouldn't expect you to do well here. There will always be a few so called "Killer" Tracks that for whatever reason don't come out fully transparent on the specific mp3 encode.

But for the overwhelming majority of songs for the overwhelming majority of people listening even if they really focus just for this test which is not how they would listen to music normally mind you but thats besides the point. Even with this extra critical listening on a high quality pair of headphones or speakers they would not be able to tell a properly encoded 320KBS MP3 apart from the Original FLAC File. This fact alone speaks volumes for how "HUGE and Drastic" the difference is hint its not nearly that big a difference at all hell for most people on most audio setups there is no difference at all! Hell they could get away with much lower bitrates and still sound transparent to them!

I did this on my KRK Rokit 8's. Could pick FLAC with ~80% correctly compared to MP3 files. There are some people can do this with 100% accuracy and have posted results to audiophile forums. Compression effects sound differently so some audio is a lot easier to "hear out" than others. Most people can't hear the difference (mostly because people lack good enough audio equipment). If the OP thinks FLAC sounds a lot better, I don't see any reason to doubt him. ABX testing is a good way to figure out how compression affects sound quality, so with some practice you get a bit better at it.

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#12 JigglyWiggly_
Member since 2009 • 24625 Posts

...? What?

Are you just basing that off anecdotal evidence? I think what you are trying to describe is bitrot except hard drives do checksums on those types of things so that isn't going to happen in any normal circumstance. If it does happen you are talking about one bit of data, that is nothing. It will do nothing to change the audio quality.

Different file types do not have different data integrity. Your OS and the HD manages that, the files are not being written to. If you really wanted to check if a mp3 degraded then you can check the md5 sum of the file or do a hex comparison(same thing for practical purposes). You won't find any differences.

If your zune used flash memory then it is potentially possible for the data to degrade. However what you'll end up with is an usable file, not quality loss. Flash memory needs voltage applied to it every so often depending on the type of memory, but that's most particular to ssds in computers, not the nand they use in flash drives.

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#13  Edited By KHAndAnime
Member since 2009 • 17565 Posts

@JigglyWiggly_ said:

...? What?

Are you just basing that off anecdotal evidence?

There's definitely not a big difference between 320kbps and FLAC in sound, but I typically experience that MP3 files corrupt and degrade on the hard drive over time compared to FLAC

Life must be so confusing when you can't read :( I didn't once talk about quality loss. I said the data degrades (corrupts), causing them to become unplayable. If you get confused, best to read and reread. These Zunes were disk drives (32gb) and I filled each one to the brim with 128kbps and 256kbps. It was *a lot* of music. And as I said, mp3 files went bad gradually on each device, different ones. Same thing on my upstairs computer, where I store 250+ gb of music. Tons of bad Mp3 files (haven't bothered to replace them) since I downloaded them, but all the lossless music works perfectly.

Different file types do not have different data integrity.

.rar files don't work at all if a checksum doesn't match - other filetypes potentially can. Not sure if this is the same case for what I'm describing - I have no idea what causes it. All I'm simply saying is I've experienced a few dozen cases of me having to replace MP3 files because they don't work anymore or begin to skip, and I've never had to replace a lossless file once in my life. It's something I've simply experienced which causes my preference for lossless music for long-term storage. If you can't accept this, then I don't know what to tell you :\ Maybe the boogieman went through my files and rewrote them? Can't say.

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#14  Edited By DJ_Headshot
Member since 2010 • 6427 Posts
@KHAndAnime said:

The only foolery is you attempting to lay claim to my life experience. It's not foolery at all. I've had to redownload MP3 albums dozens of times in the past because the songs happened to be more likely to corrupt from HD usage over time. The same has never happened for my lossless files. Not a single time. Many people can attest to this happening to them - I don't know what causes it, but it definitely happens. There are dozens of websites and programs dedicated to fixing/repairing corrupt MP3 files, but none for FLAC files. Larger files should be more prone to corruption because they take up more space (which means more data that can possibly get corrupted), but I've never had one lossless file refuse to play for me in my entire life. Maybe MP3 files are less likely to work after data corruption due to their nature of the files? I don't know. It's not like I'm talking about seeing a ghost. I'm guessing different filetypes have different limits on file integrity.

If you haven't had both lossless and lossless versions of your albums stored for 3+ years, you likely won't have any idea what I'm talking about. I've got a couple of old Zunes in my closet, each that had identical music a few years ago, but now are a bit different because many tracks don't play anymore (and not the same ones on each Zune). Seems like whenever hard drives degrade, my MP3s are the first to go bad. As I said, haven't experienced it once with lossless files.

@DJ_Headshot said:

Have you actually abx tested a lame encoded 320KBS MP3 vs the original FLAC file of the same music track in foobar2000 needs to showing you can pick out the flac file at a statically high enough rate to not be guessing? Since the difference is so "HUGE" to you should be easy to do this several times for a bunch of different songs hell record your self doing it since should be a quick video as you will be able to quickly pick between the inferior mp3 and the superior FLAC Version right away!

Make sure there level matched so ideally convert the file your self to mp3 from flac using the latest version of the Lame Encoder you can do all of this including the abx testing in foobar2000 with the right plugins. I think you will find there is not nearly as big as a difference as you claim honestly unless you have trained yourself specifically to pick out audio artifacts I wouldn't expect you to do well here. There will always be a few so called "Killer" Tracks that for whatever reason don't come out fully transparent on the specific mp3 encode.

But for the overwhelming majority of songs for the overwhelming majority of people listening even if they really focus just for this test which is not how they would listen to music normally mind you but thats besides the point. Even with this extra critical listening on a high quality pair of headphones or speakers they would not be able to tell a properly encoded 320KBS MP3 apart from the Original FLAC File. This fact alone speaks volumes for how "HUGE and Drastic" the difference is hint its not nearly that big a difference at all hell for most people on most audio setups there is no difference at all! Hell they could get away with much lower bitrates and still sound transparent to them!

I did this on my KRK Rokit 8's. Could pick FLAC with ~80% correctly compared to MP3 files. There are some people can do this with 100% accuracy and have posted results to audiophile forums. Compression effects sound differently so some audio is a lot easier to "hear out" than others. Most people can't hear the difference (mostly because people lack good enough audio equipment). If the OP thinks FLAC sounds a lot better, I don't see any reason to doubt him. ABX testing is a good way to figure out how compression affects sound quality, so with some practice you get a bit better at it.

I don't doubt that there people who can hear the difference for FLAC vs MP3 but I don't like when people spread BS like MP3 sounds terrible when it clearly doesn't the actual quality of the recording and mastering job done on and all the other things done to said track of music before it became a sound file on your computer matter a hell of alot more then whether its a 320KBS Mp3 or FLAC file.

I'm not even going to argue with you on the other point about digital files degrading over time I can see I will get no where and will just be a waste of time for both of us so lets just agree to disagree right now if you feel the need to get the last word in then go ahead I don't intend to respond.

I remember a guy on here legitimately believed he could easily spot see the difference between a game running at 1080p vs 720p on his 34" HD CRT from 25 feet away! Despite informing him only an eagle would have eyes capable of such a feet he stuck to his original statement saying he could easily tell a difference in draw distance and other stuff that a change in resolution would have no effect on.

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#15  Edited By JigglyWiggly_
Member since 2009 • 24625 Posts

@KHAndAnime said:

@JigglyWiggly_ said:

...? What?

Are you just basing that off anecdotal evidence?

There's definitely not a big difference between 320kbps and FLAC in sound, but I typically experience that MP3 files corrupt and degrade on the hard drive over time compared to FLAC

Life must be so confusing when you can't read :( I didn't once talk about quality loss. I said the data degrades (corrupts), causing them to become unplayable. If you get confused, best to read and reread. These Zunes were disk drives (32gb) and I filled each one to the brim with 128kbps and 256kbps. It was *a lot* of music. And as I said, mp3 files went bad gradually on each device, different ones. Same thing on my upstairs computer, where I store 250+ gb of music. Tons of bad Mp3 files (haven't bothered to replace them) since I downloaded them, but all the lossless music works perfectly.

Different file types do not have different data integrity.

.rar files don't work at all if a checksum doesn't match - other filetypes potentially can. Not sure if this is the same case for what I'm describing - I have no idea what causes it. All I'm simply saying is I've experienced a few dozen cases of me having to replace MP3 files because they don't work anymore or begin to skip, and I've never had to replace a lossless file once in my life. It's something I've simply experienced which causes my preference for lossless music for long-term storage. If you can't accept this, then I don't know what to tell you :\ Maybe the boogieman went through my files and rewrote them? Can't say.

There is no distinction by the OS or HD about file types. What you are describing is anecdotal , you are not backing up any of your claims. Why at the data level would an mp3 file be more likely to decay than a flac file? They don't. Maybe the program that is parsing those mp3 files has an issue and starts writing data to the mp3s. That is not a fault of a mp3 file.

To counteract your argument, I've never had a mp3 file go bad.

.rar files are the same way, the os does not care about its extension. Winrar the program cares about the file and does a checksum first. What does that have to do with anything?

If perhaps your hard drive was having bad sectors, then yes your files are going to start to corrupt. If the majority of space on the hard drive were mp3s, then yes they have a greater probability to corrupt than flacs.

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deactivated-5bda06edf37ee

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#16  Edited By deactivated-5bda06edf37ee
Member since 2010 • 4675 Posts

320kbps MP3 file doesn't sound bad, even with studio grade audio hardware. confirmation bias in action right here. if i would pull double-blind test on you with FLAC and MP3, i'm 100% sure you would fail it miserably.

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#18 kraken2109
Member since 2009 • 13271 Posts

Buy CDs and rip to FLAC.

@ShepardCommandr said:

MP3s are for peasants.

If you know where to search you can find high quality vinyl rips.

24bit-96000/192000Hz

Not sure if serious

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#19  Edited By KHAndAnime
Member since 2009 • 17565 Posts

@JigglyWiggly_ said:

@KHAndAnime said:

@JigglyWiggly_ said:

...? What?

Are you just basing that off anecdotal evidence?

There's definitely not a big difference between 320kbps and FLAC in sound, but I typically experience that MP3 files corrupt and degrade on the hard drive over time compared to FLAC

Life must be so confusing when you can't read :( I didn't once talk about quality loss. I said the data degrades (corrupts), causing them to become unplayable. If you get confused, best to read and reread. These Zunes were disk drives (32gb) and I filled each one to the brim with 128kbps and 256kbps. It was *a lot* of music. And as I said, mp3 files went bad gradually on each device, different ones. Same thing on my upstairs computer, where I store 250+ gb of music. Tons of bad Mp3 files (haven't bothered to replace them) since I downloaded them, but all the lossless music works perfectly.

Different file types do not have different data integrity.

.rar files don't work at all if a checksum doesn't match - other filetypes potentially can. Not sure if this is the same case for what I'm describing - I have no idea what causes it. All I'm simply saying is I've experienced a few dozen cases of me having to replace MP3 files because they don't work anymore or begin to skip, and I've never had to replace a lossless file once in my life. It's something I've simply experienced which causes my preference for lossless music for long-term storage. If you can't accept this, then I don't know what to tell you :\ Maybe the boogieman went through my files and rewrote them? Can't say.

There is no distinction by the OS or HD about file types.

I'm not saying there is, I'm saying file types have different amounts they can corrupt before they are unusable by a program. OS has nothing to do with it.

What you are describing is anecdotal , you are not backing up any of your claims

No shit? Obviously this is anecdotal. I never laid claim to concrete evidence or theory that this happens, as you are making this conversation out to be. All I've done is I was explain my experience with MP3 files going bad. All I can back up my claims with 12+ years of storing MP3 files on hard drives, as I've mentioned before. If you haven't been storing MP3 files for a long time, it's not likely you'd experience it, but I've had discussions with multiple people who claim in the past that this has happened to them too.

.rar files are the same way, the os does not care about its extension. Winrar the program cares about the file and does a checksum first. What does that have to do with anything?

You're completely misinterpreting what I'm trying to say. I'm not necessarily saying MP3 files decay faster. Their rate of corrupting beyond usability is what decays faster. Once an MP3 begins to differ from the checksum even slightly - I'm guessing the files are less likely to work than if a FLAC file began to differ in checksum. Similar to the example of a .rar file. There's a reason why .rar files do a checksum - there's no saving a .rar file once it begins to corrupt. MP3 files and FLAC files can still work, but my guess is that MP3 files go completely bad with the least amount of file corruption.

To counteract your argument, I've never had a mp3 file go bad.

If you're not utilizing aging hard drives, I doubt you'd have much experience with many files going bad. I keep my current collection on a much newer, nicer HDD, utilize flash storage and I stream my music so I don't really have any chance at experiencing any more file corruption anymore. Were you collecting many thousands of MP3s on a somewhat older hard drive, while consisting using the hard drive? That's precisely when it would happen to me.

I've had a few inexplainable incidents with audio (such as many of my files magically being converted from FLAC to MP3 from a mere drag'n'drop). Just because I can't explain it doesn't mean I'm going to deny it happened.

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#20  Edited By bulby_g
Member since 2005 • 1861 Posts

I remember sending another producer a load of demos and they asked if I would re-send in WAV as 320kbps isn't good enough. I thought I'd just re-render the MP3's as WAV's for a laugh and see what happens. He didn't notice. ;)

It is definitely possible to tell them apart if your ears are good and you've trained yourself in what to listen for but a decent 320 sounds absolutely fine IMO, especially for digitally produced stuff. I can understand wanting to keep stuff in an uncompressed format though, I certainly keep copies of all the stuff I've made myself that way and any vocal recordings etc. Perhaps it's unnecessary as I have backups of all the projects too but it's nice to feel safe. If you want to use the audio in another project, let's say a video for example, you definitely want to be working with an uncompressed file there as it'll likely get compressed again (possibly even more than once).

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#21  Edited By DJ_Headshot
Member since 2010 • 6427 Posts

@bulby_g said:

I remember sending another producer a load of demos and they asked if I would re-send in WAV as 320kbps isn't good enough. I thought I'd just re-render the MP3's as WAV's for a laugh and see what happens. He didn't notice. ;)

It is definitely possible to tell them apart if your ears are good and you've trained yourself in what to listen for but a decent 320 sounds absolutely fine IMO, especially for digitally produced stuff. I can understand wanting to keep stuff in an uncompressed format though, I certainly keep copies of all the stuff I've made myself that way and any vocal recordings etc. Perhaps it's unnecessary as I have backups of all the projects too but it's nice to feel safe. If you want to use the audio in another project, let's say a video for example, you definitely want to be working with an uncompressed file there as it'll likely get compressed again (possibly even more than once).

LOL you sent them a lower quality audio file in actuality as converting a lossy audio file will always result in some degradation of the sound quality and they just accepted it as better due to the file name. But to be fair humans are very prone to bias and impressionability its why Double Blind test should be the gold standard in audio testing. Although its not the end all be in all in my opinion.

We have tools that can pretty much perfectly measure the response of a set of speakers and other factors that go into sound quality people love to romanticize audio equipment and make it out to be for more of an art then the science that it really is but that's a topic for another day I can write so much about this but to be honest I think I'll just link to a post on head fi on someone who already posted my thoughts into words just give the entire post thread a read its a very good read imo!

http://www.head-fi.org/t/477103/a-different-kind-of-ad700-review-eqd-v-flat/15

Also this doesn't just apply to just audio its why you can give people the same exact $5 wine but tell them one is a cheap $5 a bottle wine and the other is an expensive $500 a bottle wine hell make the bottle look all extravagant and expensive in comparison for added effect and there brain will do the rest they will find all sorts of difference in the taste and texture of the wine that aren't actually there!

http://scienceblogs.com/cortex/2007/11/02/the-subjectivity-of-wine/