Topic: What is the easiest way to determine if a FLAC is mp3 sourced?

[gladcarrot]

I'm sure there's a thread about this somewhere but here goes...

What is the easiest way to determine if a FLAC is mp3 sourced?

I use Audiochecker but I've heard some criticism of it.  I have a lot of shows from around 2000 that have turned out to be mp3 sourced.  I suppose this was before torrenting when people shared mp3s on P2P networks then burned them to CDr and eventually re-ripping as WAVE or FLAC. 

[vanark]

I find that looking at the Frequency analysis and Spectral view is the best way.  Good discussion the topic over at the Trader's Den.

http://www.thetradersden.org/forums/showthread.php?t=4288

A whole forum on lossy or lossless.  Lots of info there.

[guysonic]

Agree looking at a simply spectrum graph is most revealing.   MP3 audio typically has above 12-15K Hz audio totally missing, or if VBR encoded, has the higher frequencies poping up and then disappearing.

[mmedley.]

Even easier is to just use Traders Little Helper to test for MPEG. Pretty damned accurate.

Analysis > Test wav files for mpeg

[Ziggz]

TLH can be inaccurate at times, especially on FM sources and stuff that's had noise reduction done.

[Johnny Thunder]

Yup, read up on this at The Trader's Den. ALL the information is already there.

-Johnny