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Technically, an issue with lossy formats is if they get saved, moved, and/or re-encoded then there is a risk of media degrading over time, over iterations. So you could potentially hear the difference.
But FLAC is lossless.
If the user likes the MP3 sound better then clearly they actually enjoy the lossy hum and buzz of compressed audio. I'm sure they would enjoy Vinyl.
Yes, transcoding. At least re-encoding, I'm not sure if simply moving the file degrades it...
All of this talk is making me miss what.cd. You'd get the boot if you uploaded a transcode
What.cd was the greatest collection of obscure music the planet has probably ever seen. I dont even particularly care about lossless codecs, I was fine with 320kb/s mp3 as it was more convenient but even their mp3 rips were way better than other places, and you knew everything would be tagged and sorted correctly. And they had EVERYTHING you could think of, it was wild.
I ended up buying more things because of the interviews they had on what than ever before, and it kickstarted my bandcamp collection.
Yeah, I am still doing everything I can to keep my collection backed up on external HDDs (probably should upload it somewhere). Not only obscure stuff, but incredible vinyl (and in some cases Reel-to-Reel) rips of classic albums.
And yes, you absolutely could tell the difference.
I would usually get v0, but would sometimes pick up FLAC, especially if it was one of the staff recs where you'd get upload credits but no download hit... Pumped that ratio up.
In the context that automated systems will compress files for transfer to save bandwidth then it could potentially result in loss.
That's not really correct.
If you re-encode (at the same level) you could not lose some of the signals, but maybe you will.
If you lose data when "saving or moving" then both the formats are at risk.
I like to witness this grey area in between misconceptions that comes up with a hybridation of absurd takes and obvious truth.
It's a file, if you get it fucked by copying it will just break, not "degrade" in sound quality.
If you reencode a lossy encoded file you will turbofuck it, obviously.