[west0ne]

I wholeheartedly agree. I finished the Philips goldenear challenge a few years back and was surprised how hard it was to differentiate flac and 192kbps mp3.

I've tried ABXing AAC 256 before and I failed miserably

Nevertheless, I still keep my songs in flac for that placebo effect of sounding "better"

Whether you think flac sounds better or not it still makes sense to use flac for archiving purposes. Compression technology is likely to change over time so keeping a lossless version stored will allow you to convert to new lossy formats when they come out and is going to be better than converting from one lossy format to another.

 

[brick42]

Since 3-4TB of FLAC files implies a HUGE collection, why not consider buying a couple of 200GB micro SD cards, format them as NTFS, and sift through your CD collection for your top 15,000 tunes (1000+ albums) as you rip the lot to an external hard drive. Gives you a chance to think about what you really like listening to & getting your album art & tags sorted & any playlists created. Personally, I would not rip directly to 320 but first go to FLAC middle compression. That way, if you want more than +15K tunes to play via BT in the car you can always & easily create a 320 version for on-the-go where top quality can't be full appreciated over road noise.

Some of this fits my listening habits and some not. I'm a big album person so they nearly always are retained as the full piece. I also don't do any playlists because albums are my playlists
Absolutely will be ripping everything to FLAC. What I meant was converting those files to 320 or v0 solely for the purpose of loading the x5. Still trying to wrap my head around it all, I'm needing to remind myself why I purchased this thing in the first place and it's because my Galaxy 7 phone sounds absolutely horrible. But this is used exclusively in the car (with stock bose) or to my portable JBL Charge 3 speaker I'll use in the yard. Currently I do not listen to music digitally via my home stereo at all. I gather I'm going to want something like Plex to run flac files to this? At least here I can have 100% of my music ready and at my disposal.
My FLACs (both ripped and downloaded) have also not been edited whatsoever. Reading this thread and your words is reminding me I have a massive task of cleaning up these files and folders. Tags and artwork have never meant a single thing to me in the past and even poor file names I could get away with (since all was originally or burnt to CD).
Man this is all stressful to think about
Once my plan and path and mission is clear I'll feel a lot better. The workload is what it is. Will just be great relief to know i have this figured out and no longer need to ponder and worry about shortfalls in execution.

Back to the x5 - What do I need to do to get things started? Is there a particular version of firmware that is most preferred? Any dos or don'ts in this earliest stage of setting things up?

 

[397324]

Are there any free utilities that can convert multiple folders at once to AAC256 or MP3 320 kps? My music is stored on my Laptop in two main folders (Card 1 and Card 2), then in those two folders are the artists folders and then in those the albums. All the free utilities I've tried to convert to MP3 320kps will only convert one folder at a time.

I've just bought an X5iii cheaply as it was an ex-demo unit and will be using it at the gym, beach and on trips away, so AAC356 or MP3 320kps would suffice, I think.

 

[seanwee]

Are there any free utilities that can convert multiple folders at once to AAC256 or MP3 320 kps? My music is stored on my Laptop in two main folders (Card 1 and Card 2), then in those two folders are the artists folders and then in those the albums. All the free utilities I've tried to convert to MP3 320kps will only convert one folder at a time.

I've just bought an X5iii cheaply as it was an ex-demo unit and will be using it at the gym, beach and on trips away, so AAC356 or MP3 320kps would suffice, I think.

I personally use mediahuman audio converter. It fully utilises your processor for max conversion speed.

You can drag and drop entire folders but it will all end up in one folder after conversion.

How much did you get the X5iii for by the way?

 

[397324]

.

 

[davidcotton]

Whether you think flac sounds better or not it still makes sense to use flac for archiving purposes. Compression technology is likely to change over time so keeping a lossless version stored will allow you to convert to new lossy formats when they come out and is going to be better than converting from one lossy format to another.

Plus "most" mp3 players seem to handle gapless better with flac than mp3 anyway.

 

[397324]

I personally use mediahuman audio converter. It fully utilises your processor for max conversion speed.

You can drag and drop entire folders but it will all end up in one folder after conversion.

How much did you get the X5iii for by the way?

Thanks for the answer, but that's the sort of issue I've had before. I'd like to preserve the directory structure.

 

[brick42]

How about dbpoweramp??
Pretty sure you can do large batch conversions and preserve what you wish.
I have yet to do this myself, but reading in music forums on this topic I've kind of gathered this is the case.
Worth looking into for sure because dppoweramp is useful in many ways

 

[397324]

Thanks. I tried the trial version, but it put all the albums from the same artist in one big folder, exactly the issue I've had with every other piece of conversion software I've tried.

 

[ghosthost]

Thanks. I tried the trial version, but it put all the albums from the same artist in one big folder, exactly the issue I've had with every other piece of conversion software I've tried.

dbPoweramp does exactly what you want it to do -- and exactly what you TELL it to do. If you don't specify exactly where you want the output it just uses default behavior. With dbPoweramp configured correctly, I can (for example) take multiple folders filled with WAV files, convert them to FLAC into the same folder they came from AND delete the original WAV files all in one go... simply by searching for *.WAV in the parent folder, right-clicking the results and selecting Convert. Brilliant software.

 

[HungryPanda]

dbpoweramp and foobar are the first programs I install on any computer I get

 

[Preachy1]

dbpoweramp and foobar are the first programs I install on any computer I get

Yup, those and Medievil Cue Splitter

 

[397324]

dbPoweramp does exactly what you want it to do -- and exactly what you TELL it to do. If you don't specify exactly where you want the output it just uses default behavior. With dbPoweramp configured correctly, I can (for example) take multiple folders filled with WAV files, convert them to FLAC into the same folder they came from AND delete the original WAV files all in one go... simply by searching for *.WAV in the parent folder, right-clicking the results and selecting Convert. Brilliant software.

I don't want them in the same folders as the original FLAC content, I want an exact copy of my FLAC folders, but in a lossy format in a different location, so I can then copy the new folders to a SD card.

 

[Brooko]

Make a copy of the entire FLAC library under a different root directory. Then do what ghosthost said - set it to transcode and replace. Done.

 

[397324]

That would be a way around it if a bit long-winded.