[bigshot]

At least you can trade in a CD if you don't want it any more. Try that with a digital download!

 

[Feedback]

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At least you can trade in a CD if you don't want it any more. Try that with a digital download!

 
This. I just feel funny buying a digital download if can get it on CD. It doesn't feel like I actually own anything if it's a download.

 

[roadcykler]

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Ummmm, you might want to double check your understanding as well.  FLAC files are most certainly compressed.  They are lossless, however.  That's the more important part. WAV files are lossless and uncompressed.

 
 
Thank you. I was not aware of that but now it makes sense why .WAV files are so much larger than .FLAC.

 

[Markfm]

If you start from CDs, freac is a pretty solid free CD ripper, allowing you to pull the CD contents off to mp3, FLAC, and other encoding standards. (Personally I use mp3 320K for everything, as my older ears don't notice a quality difference compared to lossless). A nice thing about freac is that it will automatically look up a CD on CDDB (the online CD Database), so it can tag the converted tracks properly for use on players.

mp3 is lossy and compressed. FLAC is lossless and compressed. WAV is lossless and uncompressed. Roughly speaking, a FLAC file (using standard bit depth and sampling rate) is about 3x the size (megabytes) of an mp3 320K, and a WAV (again using nominal bits/sample and sampling rate) is about 3x the size of a FLAC.

Modern hard disks are cheap, but I'm too lazy to want to bulk convert to FLAC and then recode for mp3 320K. If I ever really want FLAC I can recode the original CDs/albums (the specific ones I need in FLAC format).

 

[tbollier]

Record labels often sell FLAC downloads, in addition to physical media. Check the label websites.

 

[KoshNaranek]

If you start from CDs, freac is a pretty solid free CD ripper, allowing you to pull the CD contents off to mp3, FLAC, and other encoding standards. (Personally I use mp3 320K for everything, as my older ears don't notice a quality difference compared to lossless). A nice thing about freac is that it will automatically look up a CD on CDDB (the online CD Database), so it can tag the converted tracks properly for use on players.

mp3 is lossy and compressed. FLAC is lossless and compressed. WAV is lossless and uncompressed. Roughly speaking, a FLAC file (using standard bit depth and sampling rate) is about 3x the size (megabytes) of an mp3 320K, and a WAV (again using nominal bits/sample and sampling rate) is about 3x the size of a FLAC.

Modern hard disks are cheap, but I'm too lazy to want to bulk convert to FLAC and then recode for mp3 320K. If I ever really want FLAC I can recode the original CDs/albums (the specific ones I need in FLAC format).

I have not had good results with Windows ripping programs. I ended up settling on K3B with the CDParanoia and FLAC add ons intalled. You can use Mac, BSD or Linux versions. FLAC then gtes tranferred to the music server. In my case Vortexbox 2.4

Vortexbox has the ability to bulk convert your entire collection to MP3 as a background process. This way, you can have both FLAC and mp3 available.

 

[psuKinger]

Where do I find FLAC music. Ive looked up a couple of albums and have only gotten 1 album so far in FLAC. Is there a good place to get FLAC music? Im trying to find Animal Collective music btw.

As others have suggested, almost all of the FLAC files I have I made by ripping CDs (losslessly) using software that can create FLAC files (I use Exact Audio Copy, fwiw).

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Because you seem to be confused, I'll try and spell it out for you. A FLAC file is nothing more than music that hasn't been compressed. If you have a cd and you rip it to your computer, depending on what programme you use to rip it, you can choose FLAC, WMA, MP3 or maybe others. When you rip it in FLAC, you generally aren't compressing the music at all so it is just like it is when you play the cd itself. If you use MP3, you can compress it to save space to fit more music on a drive but you run the chance that it might not sound quite as good as FLAC. MP3s that are ripped at a very high bit rate, 320 or close to that, will likely have no noticeable sound difference from FLAC regardless of what anyone will try and tell you.

So basically, a FLAC file is just a type of uncompressed file as is WMA and some Apple file (I don't do Apple so I don't know which one it is).

As a previous poster indicated, FLAC files are in fact "compressed", they're just losslessly compressed such that when you use a player that can properly read a FLAC file, it can uncompress back to original quality (no loss in detail/fidelity). Most of my CD's end up at about ~60% of their original size when I rip them to FLAC rather than uncompressed WAV files.

How much (if any) that it matters depends on a whole lot of things, including what kind of music you listen to, what kind of gear you use, your ears, etc... and The Law of Diminishing Returns could (should?) be taught using audio compression/bitrates. Every step up from 64 kbps to 128 kbps to 192 to 256 to 320 to CD is a case-in-point on it. From my own experience, "hard rock" benefits only a little beyond 320 kbps... hip-hop/rap doesn't benefit at all (at least not to my ears/on my gear). Accapella music like Straight No Chaser or Easy Listening like something from Norah Jones can better showcase the difference between lossless CD quality FLAC rip and a compressed 320 kbps MP3.