[rockin_amigo14]

I HAD quite a few files in FLAC format, but converted them all to 320kbps MP3 files because the Zune doesn't take FLAC.

My question is: if I were to pick up a player that supports FLAC, how much sound quality would I lose by converting the files back to FLAC?

 

[3X0]

None whatsoever. It's inherently lossless.

I can't see why you would though; there's no benefits since the FLAC file will have the quality of the MP3 file it is based off of, with needless probable impact on the player's battery life.

 

[rockin_amigo14]

so I might as well just rip everything to 320kbps MP3, even if a player did support lossless?

 

[dwc]

What happened to the FLAC files? Gone eh?

"How much" is a quantitative question. What is your unit of measure here? if the unit of measure is a smile, I would say you would lose one and a half smiles per song.

 

[RubenNYC]

Quote:

Originally Posted by rockin_amigo14 /img/forum/go_quote.gif so I might as well just rip everything to 320kbps MP3, even if a player did support lossless?

What he's saying is that you already lossed some of the original sound quality when you converted down to mp3. Reconverting mp3 back to flac does you absolutely no good. However, if you still have the original FLACs ripped straight from the CD, those will be of a higher quality, but most people wouldn't be able to tell the difference.

 

[Pseudonym]

what youre describing is transcoding. transcoding is a big no-no on oink and many other torrent sites where people go to download very specific files and nothing else. here is a section from the transcoding faq from oink.

Why is transcoding bad?
Whenever you encode a file to a lossy format (such as mp3, m4a(AAC), ogg, or mpc) information is permanently lost. It doesn't matter what you do, it's impossible to get this information back without making a new rip from the original lossless source. If you reencode it to a different format or bitrate, all you're doing is reducing the quality. This applies to any lossy to lossy conversion, so even if you convert from 320kbps to 192kbps, the final file will still sound worse than if you had just ripped to 192kbps in the first place.

 

[krmathis]

Quote:

Originally Posted by rockin_amigo14 /img/forum/go_quote.gif My question is: if I were to pick up a player that supports FLAC, how much sound quality would I lose by converting the files back to FLAC?

Nothing! FLAC is a lossless audio encoder.
Meaning that is will store the exact same audio data as the source file (in your case the 320kbps MP3). It would be a waste of storage space though, since the resulting FLAC file would be about twice the size.

 

[majkel]

Best sounding players, i.e. iRiver's ifp series sound better when playing mp3s 320kb/s than other players supporting lossless. I've checked it out. The only players I know, being able to give advantage beyond mp3's limitations are:
Rio Karma
iRiver iHP-120/140 with Rockbox (my guess)
maybe some Rockboxed iPods
All others I have tried sound worse from lossless codec than iRiver ifp-799 from highest quality mp3s, so I sold them in spite of being more feature loaded. My priority is music and a step down would be unacceptable. B)

 

[Max F]

You got rid of your lossless files - why? Those should be your archives.

 

[ZARIM]

Some mp3 players soundquality generaly good if you play lower bitrate files and as soon you play lossless files they sound unnatural and worst. Because they can't handle higher bitrate files(mustbe internal DAC). So internal AMPs included mp3 players like Kenwood HD30GB9 sound way better than average mp3 player include ipod if plays lossless files. So iMod(with good cable and external AMPs help) and Kenwood HD30GB9 realy bring out the details and shows how much the difference between average mp3 files and lossless files. In my experience only Cowon D2 handle flace files with actual strength and shows realy good details.

 

[Febs]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ZARIM /img/forum/go_quote.gif Because they can't handle higher bitrate files(mustbe internal DAC).

I'm pretty skeptical about your claim. Both MP3 and FLAC are decoded by the MP3 player and the decoded PCM data is sent to the DAC. Since the DAC is handling decoded PCM data regardless of whether the original source is FLAC or MP3, the DAC should not make a difference, and it certainly should not make FLAC sound "unnatural and worst" compared to MP3 on a player that supports FLAC.