Today, I sat down with a true digital copy:

If you love this song, do yourself a favor. Find the FLAC. Close your eyes. And press play.

Then comes the bassline. John "Jellybean" Benitez’s production has never sounded this warm. The low end in Like a Prayer - Madonna.flac is a round, punchy heartbeat. You feel it in your sternum, not just your headphones. It’s the difference between looking at a photograph of a fire and actually feeling the heat.

The true magic, however, is in the silence. FLAC preserves the dynamic range. During the pre-chorus— “Life is a mystery, everyone must stand alone...” —listen to the silence around Madonna’s voice. In MP3, that space is filled with digital artifacts. In lossless, it’s a void. That void makes the subsequent explosion of the gospel choir so powerful that it gave me chills.

Have you heard the FLAC version of a classic 80s track that changed your mind about digital audio? Let me know in the comments.

[Your headphones/speakers here, e.g., Sennheiser HD 600 / Audioengine A5+] Sample Rate: 44.1 kHz / 16-bit (CD Rip)