You might listen to pop music on Spotify and be fine. But Inception is different. Here is the breakdown:

The way Zimmer uses the shepard tone — an auditory illusion of infinite rising pitch — to mimic dream descent. In FLAC, that psychological build doesn’t flatten. It climbs forever.

If you are acquiring this album in FLAC format, you are ensuring that the "binaural" mixing techniques and the LFE (Low-Frequency Effects) channel are preserved exactly as they were in the theatrical mix. The score relies heavily on sub-bass frequencies that are often rolled off or muddied in lower-quality streaming formats.