Author’s Note: This article is part of a series on digital audio preservation. For more on LAME encoding settings and spectral analysis, subscribe to our newsletter.
First, let’s look at the landscape of digital audio bitrates: 640 kbps songs repack
If you want better than 320 kbps, you move to FLAC (Lossless). FLAC files are bit-for-bit perfect. A 640 kbps lossy file is in a "no man's land" where it's too big to be efficient and not high-quality enough to beat a FLAC. Author’s Note: This article is part of a
Instead of searching "640kbps," search for: FLAC files are bit-for-bit perfect
: Standard MP3 technology generally does not support bitrates higher than 320 kbps. If you see an MP3 labeled as 640 kbps, it is likely a "fake" or an upscaled file that offers no actual improvement in quality.
True 640 kbps MP3 files are a myth. However, 640 kbps AAC or mislabeled FLAC repacks are very real.