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MP3 vs. CDs & FLAC

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N.Cotman

New Member
Hi everyone,

So I have basically all of my music as MP3 files. I have recently really started to notice the lack of dynamics and richness MP3s have once I started listening to them next to the radio and CDs.

I was wondering if using FLACs would be a good option? Is their quality as good as that of a CD? When I burn CDs, can I convert them to FLAC rather than MP3?

Note: I am using a Mac!

Thanks!
Nick
 
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Yes, when you burn a CD, burning to FLAC will save/preserve all the data that's on the CD. Any lossy compression scheme will throw away part of the data. I use either Exact Audio Copy (EAC) or FREAC (Free Audio Converter) to rip my CD's to FLAC. Both applications are Freeware and are available as free downloads.

IMO FLAC files simply sound better. Lossless compression is better than any lossy compression. Unfortunately once a file has been converted to MP3 the baby is gone with the bath water. IE: You can't recover the data that was thrown away with the MP3 conversion.

The solution is to save all future files as FLAC files. It's too late for the MP3 files you already have.
 
Since you're a Mac user, FLAC is less than ideal.

I too am a Mac user and if you want lossless, you have two ideal choices. AIFF or ALAC. AIFF is not compressed whereas ALAC is, although it's still lossless.

For Mac, the best converter is XLD.

N.Cotman said:
Hi everyone,

So I have basically all of my music as MP3 files. I have recently really started to notice the lack of dynamics and richness MP3s have once I started listening to them next to the radio and CDs.

I was wondering if using FLACs would be a good option? Is their quality as good as that of a CD? When I burn CDs, can I convert them to FLAC rather than MP3?

Note: I am using a Mac!

Thanks!
Nick
Click to expand...
 
Sorry, I'm guilty of not reading the entire post. AIFF or ALAC is the way to go. My preference is for lossless. HDD space is cheap. If you want to use the files on a portable device you can always convert lossless files to whatever lossy format you want.
 
Regardless of your O/S, you will find ripping CD's to their native resolution (16bit/44. kHz or possibly 24bit/98kHz for HDCD pressings) or downloading higher resolution uncompressed file music online will be far superior to almost all MP3 file resolutions.

This is just my ear but 16bit/44.1 native resolution and 320 kbps mp3 files are very close in resolution but there seems to be a bit more depth and soundstage to the uncompressed file flac, AIFF or ALAC.
 
If you have a large collection, you should test lossy versus lossless for yourself before investing the time to replace your files.

You might be surprised at your ability to differentiate between compressed and uncompressed (though if your MP3s sound worse than FM, they may be encoded at a VERY low bitrate, in which case an update definitely makes sense).
 
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