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What is the best way to obtain Flacs? Since I'm getting myself a shiny new pair of audiophile headphones, I thought I might start upgrading some of my music collection to Flacs. I've been using mp3/wmv until now because iTunes/iPhone don't support Flac. I've been downloading a few albums from the interwebz in Flac but I was wondering if ripping Flacs directly from CDs give a better quality file. If so, what is the best CD ripper to use? I don't care about size or compatibility or whatever, I just want the highest quality, uncompressed files I can get.

a 256-320Kb/s MP3 is fine for listening to. So long as it's sampled at 44.1-48KHz

There's no point using FLACs to listen to. Their only really justified use is for editing.

Supposing my headphones really are good enough to distinguish between flac and mp3, would rips give me higher quality files?

Gregorovich wrote:Supposing my headphones really are good enough to distinguish between flac and mp3, would rips give me higher quality files?

Your headphones might be. The human ear, however... Can't.

a 256Kb/s MP3 is more than enough to equal CD quality. So FLAC is just wasting space. And ripping from a CD is the only way to get a FLAC file...

Jake couldn't be more wrong. the human ear CAN distinguish between hi res files and lossy files, if properly trained. I never use FLAC files because itunes doesn't support them. you can however rip CDs into itunes using the Apple Lossless converter. the files have the same amount of resolution, but are half the size as FLAC files. AND you can put them into itunes, and on ipods.

Back to being able to tell the difference... if you are using your headphones through the audio port on your MAC or PC, or ipod, you probably won't be able to tell the difference. the digital to analog converters in these devices are not top quality, you need to spend another $400 on a hi res D/A converter which i doubt you want to do.

with your new headphones, you will be able to hear new things in songs you've heard hundreds of times before. example; "Entertainment" by Rise Against, i bet you've never heard a tambourine in that song before (not sure if you like them or not?).

TheWatchmaker wrote:with your new headphones, you will be able to hear new things in songs you've heard hundreds of times before. example; "Entertainment" by Rise Against, i bet you've never heard a tambourine in that song before (not sure if you like them or not?).

By a strange coincidence, I was listening to that song with them today but there was loads of noisy traffic outside so I didn't hear any tambourines.

Screaming Bloody Murder sounds insane but atm I'm using VLC which is shit at auto-making playlists and doing smooth song transitions so I'm trying to get a FLAC patch for WMP.

For some reason, I think people convert flac to mp3. I'll listen to my music and then BAM there's a loud fucking song because of the flac. I really don't like flac at all. Flac

Sum41Ant27 wrote:For some reason, I think people convert flac to mp3. I'll listen to my music and then BAM there's a loud fucking song because of the flac. I really don't like flac at all. Flac

the type of file has nothing to do with the loudness of a song.

Converting mp3 to FLAC does make them go a little funny.

And doing it makes you retarded.

I'm still finding it difficult to understand why you would waste time on FLAC files for just listening to. MP3 doesn't loose any audiable sounds - its a bit silly with low frequency bass, but AAC overcomes this.

Jake wrote:Converting mp3 to FLAC does make them go a little funny.

And doing it makes you retarded.

I'm still finding it difficult to understand why you would waste time on FLAC files for just listening to. MP3 doesn't loose any audiable sounds - its a bit silly with low frequency bass, but AAC overcomes this.

I've been listening to both the flac and mp3 of SBM recently and I have to say I did find a very slight difference at some parts, like the chorus of SBM or verse of BIME. But everything depends on your headphones - Sennheiser actually suggest using lossless file formats for the HD 518s because they're part of the 'audiophile range' which can tell the difference. My current headphones aren't quite that range, but they're good enough to give awesome sound quality with or without flac files.

In my experience, FLAC files are a waste of space. At most very little difference can be heard compared 256 VRB MP3s. Sadly, the human ear isn't the best for listening though you may hear a difference there will be tons of stuff your ear just can't pick up.

Converting MP3s to FLAC is pointless. All the noise lost converted to MP3 will also be lost in the FLAC file. Anything you hear is a placebo. The only way to get the best FLAC files would be straight from the source but the CD is the next best thing in most cases.

Boni Boy Blue wrote:Converting MP3s to FLAC is pointless. All the noise lost converted to MP3 will also be lost in the FLAC file. Anything you hear is a placebo. The only way to get the best FLAC files would be straight from the source but the CD is the next best thing in most cases.

I wasn't talking about converting from mp3 which is obviously a pointless procedure. I'm talking about flac straight from CD.

A CD is still a digital format, so it's not going to be completely lossless. But it is the only way of getting hold of them yourself.