[J Tran]

If I wanted the best possible quality out of my CD, would FLAC be the answer? And also, what is the average size of each song, or album in FLAC?

Thank you!

 

[TheMarchingMule]

FLAC is mathematically the same as the CD, thus a 'lossless' format.

Size-wise, let's just say it would eat up your Mini hard drive like Cookie Monster to a cookie festival.

IMO, and esp. on a Mini, you probably couldn't tell the diff between FLAC and 128 AAC.

 

[K2Grey]

300MB or so per CD.

 

[J Tran]

Oh no, not on my mini. I was just reading some threads about backing up music on a portable hard drive. So I thought about it... good idea, so that's what I'm gonna do in the near future.

I plan on a 250gb hard drive. And I don't have very many CDs either, but at age 14, I got many years of music ahead of me... Oh I better change my sig, got my 580s!

So yeah, I guess that clears everything up for me, I'll be back on here to ask about a program that rips in FLAC sooner or later. Thank you!

 

[K2Grey]

EAC (ExactAudioCopy). Download flac.exe and point EAC to flac.exe. Put in appropriate settings. As a bonus you can convert from flac -> mp3/ogg/etc. with ease.

 

[Altoids]

First of all, I pity anyone who can't tell the difference between flac and 128 aac, no matter what the system. Second, use wavpack -- better compression and much faster.

 

[Febs]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Altoids First of all, I pity anyone who can't tell the difference between flac and 128 aac, no matter what the system.

It's ridiculous statements like these that cause people to waste space using formats and/or bitrates that are overkill for their purposes.

 

[ralphp@optonline]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Altoids First of all, I pity anyone who can't tell the difference between flac and 128 aac, no matter what the system.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Febs It's ridiculous statements like these that cause people to waste space using formats and/or bitrates that are overkill for their purposes.

Here's the big problem with anything but lossless compression: What happens to the music (read: file) when it gets passed around, as music and files so often do these days?

My guess is that the sound quality very quickly goes all to hell. One man's "sounds just like the CD" may be another man's "sounds like complete crap".

Always archive into the best quality format available - either no compression or, if one must, then lossless compression. Only use a lossy compression format for personal use, such as loading a file onto one's portable player and never for archiving. Once the "bits" are lost they ain't coming back!

Quote:

Originally Posted by ILikeMusic Use FLAC for archiving CDs and LAME -V2 (or -V1 or -V0 if you like) on your portable. In spite of what you may read there will be absoulutely no audible difference between these formats 99.9% of the time.

I completely agree with Mr. Music except that I don't archive to my computer. I have over 2,000 LPs which I do not want to convert to digital - I love that analog sound! - and I've yet to hear a computer based CD system which sounds anywhere near as good as my stand alone McCormmack CD player so why should I give up my CD collection?

As for portable use, I use MP3s created via EAC and LAME with a -V0 setting, which sound really sweet.

 

[wanderman]

actually wavpack is better imo. I would read the lossless documentation on the hydrogen audio wiki.

 

[Sparky191]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Altoids ....use wavpack -- better compression and much faster.

FLAC has more wide spread support. But IMO doesn't really matter both are are lossless and are good archival formats. Are the speed and compression differences that significant?

 

[wanderman]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sparky191 FLAC has more wide spread support. But IMO doesn't really matter both are are lossless and are good archival formats. Are the speed and compression differences that significant?

yes, just transcode a flac file to wavpack and compare the original and the flac version. Or read the documentation at the hydrogen audio wiki.

 

[Sparky191]

Quote:

Originally Posted by wanderman yes, just transcode a flac file to wavpack and compare the original and the flac version. Or read the documentation at the hydrogen audio wiki.

..or you could just tell us.

 

[wanderman]

link here

 

[Sparky191]

... you're not selling it to me...

 

[wanderman]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sparky191 ... you're not selling it to me...

that is why you should transcode a single file and compare for your self