[benton]

Hey guys is there any audio format that is as good as or around as good as .flac? Becuase I am honestly sick of 21.7GB with only 1,000+ songs. Will MP3 320kbps sound that much worse than flac?

 

[FaBoLoUsRmX]

Looking at your rig, i dont think anything will be quite on par with flac. I would say go for 192-256kbs LAME vbrs if you are looking to save space, with the least loss in quality.

 

[Zowbombs]

I would contend you'd be hard pressed to hear any difference between flac and even 192 Lame VBR on your portable rig.

 

[Chri5peed]

I'd use high VBR mp3s on an iPod personally. Don't get rid of the FLACs, you'll miss them. Just make mp3 copies of them.

 

[benton]

Okay so looks like I am going to re-encode my CDs. What do you think the SECOND best thing to flac is that will take up considerably less room?

 

[Chri5peed]

Quote:

Originally Posted by benton Okay so looks like I am going to re-encode my CDs. What do you think the SECOND best thing to flac is that will take up considerably less room?

No CDs. Just use the FLACs to make your mp3s, you get mp3s identical to mp3s ripped from the CD.

 

[Red2Black]

^ Yeah, use dbPoweramp to do this.

 

[benton]

Alright thanks. What format would you reccomend?

 

[AudioNoob]

Get flacs, burn your flac archive on dl dvds, and use dbpoweramp and lame to convert them to 192kbs mp3s when you need them, that is -alt preset standart

 

[wanderman]

foobar is another good ap for transcoding flac files. If you still want to maintain lossless on your portable I would transcode to wavpack to save space. Wavpack is a more efficient lossless codec then flac.

if you want to find the best lossy setting for personal use I would take some time to use the foobar abx feature and determine which lossy codec and bitrate combo is best for you. If you are hard pressed on time to do something like that or just lazy I would just default to the hydrogen audio recommend standards for each lossy codec. Go check www.hydrogenaudio.org. A user at mistic river wrote the really good guide for anything you would need to know about ripping music and codec comparisons.

available here http://www.misticriver.net/showthread.php?t=14081 check his signature for more details.

I use lossless codecs to archive my collection and listen on my pc for my dap I use lame 3.97 b2 v2 vbrnew setting. Foobar is my music mangement program so I rip my files to wav with eac, transcode them to wav pack 4.31, and then transcode them to lame v2 for my mp3 player. I burn all my wavpack files on dvd and put them in a drawer and this whole collection is also on and hdd.

 

[Chri5peed]

^ Same with me I have a load of DVDs in a CD case(the one I used for mp3-CDs). Its about 50/50 WAV and FLAC. I originally used WAV before I knew of FLAC.
I also have a copy of my music on an external HDD too as well as having them on my primary HDD.
All the FLACs are 320K mp3s on my Zen too, so being 'backed up' is what I am.

 

[arielext]

convert from flac to mp3 or ogg (use rockbox on your ipod, it's a better firmware imho), using a batch transcoder which copies the tags like winlame, dbpoweramp, multifrondend ect. Make a nice batch, and run it in the background or overnight; tick the 'shutdown after done' option to save some energy

 

[KevC]

Use the latest LAME and -V 2 --vbr-new.

 

[TheMarchingMule]

Quote:

Originally Posted by KevC Use the latest LAME and -V 2 --vbr-new.

Seconded.

 

[FaBoLoUsRmX]

What bit rate of files does that setting create?