I've always wondered why listening to Shaggy's hot shot album (2000) it never sounds the same as it used to when I listened to it in 2002. Turns out it's because my dad had bought the original album CD. A thread on lossy vs lossless audio formats

The quality in the original album is not the same as in a .Mp3 file which comes at 128, 190 or 320kbps beat rate. To achieve the original quality, I have to rip the music to a .FLAC format or an equivalent with between 800-1500 kbps

Mp3 belongs to lossy audio formats ie some data is missing from the original file while lossless eg FLAC has almost all the data from the original file and is bigger

Other lossy audio formats are AAC and OGG. Other lossless audio formats are WAV, AIFF, APE & Apple lossless

If you're an average listener with average headphones say <$50, you might not perceive the difference but as you go up the ladder, the difference can be felt. Lossless audio takes up a lot of space so you have to be consider your storage options before shifting

If you want to shift to lossless, you may use WAV or AIFF. Both are uncompressed but the latter is usually for Apple products. FLAC and apple lossless are compressed formats that are an equivalent and take up less space than WAV and AIFFL

Last but not least, we have APE which has the best compression but the least compatibility. If you're using your music across multiple devices, you might want to ensure all your devices support this

Lossless audio is best listened to using supported headsets, a supported decoding device that supports the various lossless audio formats . Here is an example