[drbig]

The interesting thing about audio chains is that they do NOT follow the "as bad as the weakest link" principle. A poor quality MP3 will be much more listenable on an overall crappy setup than on a high-end setup, mostly because the crappy setup will cut out both the lows and highs and leave you with an OK "background music, more or less".

If you're not about playing your FLAC collection via either decent headphones and/or decent HiFi setup then pretty much the only thing you should care about is "is there noise?". Which probably isn't there. And if it is - start with your cables, then your PSU.

Also, check software. Maybe your old setup had some software shenanigans (or your new one has - like a "headphone" profile selected) and that's the difference you are perceiving.

In terms of caring about "quality" you do need to start with CD-level material, and then the rest of the chain should follow according to your needs and preferences; there is no point buying a $400 USB DAC and hooking it to a $15 headphones; and if 128kbps MP3s sound OK to you then congrats your audio needs are effectively non-existent, anything will do (and I do not say that disparagingly; it's _fine_).

[yuye]

>The interesting thing about audio chains is that they do NOT follow the "as bad as the weakest link" principle. A poor quality MP3 will be much more listenable on an overall crappy setup than on a high-end setup, mostly because the crappy setup will cut out both the lows and highs and leave you with an OK "background music, more or less".

As someone who sometimes listens to music digitized from analog sources, this has been my experience, too. Tape hiss, cracking/pops and distortion are easier to notice on my headphones+DAC than on my (somewhat cheaper) IEMs.

At that point, it doesn't matter whether you have FLAC or MP3.

[rimunroe]

> if 128kbps MP3s sound OK to you then congrats your audio needs are effectively non-existent, anything will do (and I do not say that disparagingly; it's _fine_).

Ignorance is bliss. I'm extremely happy I've never learned to notice higher or lower quality audio. The last time I've had to research at all about audio hardware was when I was trying to find a card which supported EAX for games back in the early 2000s. Since then it's been all onboard audio all the time, with the only exception being my wireless headset's USB dongle. It's great!