Fear of FLAC (vs WAV) for compact disk conversion- decluttering

[target2019]

Spotify is high quality with a paid subscription.
https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/201...quality-sound/

[Music Lover]

Quote:

Originally Posted by target2019 Spotify is high quality with a paid subscription. https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/201...quality-sound/

320 kbps is "high quality" mp3 but not really high quality when compared to lossless audio. However, it's certainly better than the free 160 kbps and definitely good enough for casual listening.

I get the free version...maybe now I'll upgrade.

[target2019]

Free always has limits. Everything is inferior when you think about it. Mobile listening is the new norm for many. No CD travels well.

[Music Lover]

Quote:

Originally Posted by target2019 Free always has limits. Everything is inferior when you think about it. Mobile listening is the new norm for many. No CD travels well.

I have 1600 mp3's on my phone. It's very convenient and in most of the situations when I'm playing music through my phone CD or lossless quality isn't a priority.

[NoiseBoy]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Focus After deciding to get rid of all my CDs, I ripped them and uploaded them to Google Play Music (now YouTube Music). Music is a passion and I had collected CDs since their inception, so it was no small task. That was about a year ago. Know how often I have accessed those files? Very few times.

My best friend, who is a true music lover, ripped his collection of more than 1,000 CDs to a Terabyte HD using I think a Windows lossless format. He too has made hardly any use of his music library in its digital state. In his case I think the issue is that he never made a plan for how he would access and listen to his digital tracks. He tried copying some to a thumb drive and plugging that into his car's stereo, but the playback features were very limited so he got frustrated and basically gave up. I am not sure why he doesn't load his music onto his phone.

I point this out because I think it's relevant to the OP's question. If the main goal is to get rid of the physical CDs, then ripping to FLAC is the easy answer. But if the OP wants to use those digitized tracks, then thinking through the whole workflow is worth a little time. To me, the question still hangs on whether or not the OP uses Apple products. If so, then for better or worse, choosing a format that can be managed in iTunes/iCloud is the easiest solution. If not, then FLAC and an app or even a dedicated portable music player is the way to go. I listen to my ripped music all of the time, in part because it's always with me (iPods & iPads), even though I've never owned an iPhone.

Note: I do own stock in Apple so the OP should definitely go out and get an iPhone 12!

[statsman]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Music Lover 320 kbps is "high quality" mp3 but not really high quality when compared to lossless audio. However, it's certainly better than the free 160 kbps and definitely good enough for casual listening.

Agreed. 320 kbps works well in our vehicles, but for our home stereo, lossless audio is best.

[RetMD21]

OP here. I don't have Apple products. I have a big stack of disks that I have ripped to FLAC. I need mp3 format for the car. Is there a favored 1 click solution to convert while keeping the tags and file structure?

I bought a CD this year. It was older popular music not available on my available streaming platforms. The price on Amazon for the CD was 1$ more than the mp3 download.

[NW-Bound]

"Fear of FLAC (vs WAV) for compact disk conversion- decluttering"


Is there a scientific word for the above affliction? Can we call it flaccophobia?

[Qs Laptop]

Quote:

Originally Posted by RetMD21 OP here. I don't have Apple products. I have a big stack of disks that I have ripped to FLAC. I need mp3 format for the car. Is there a favored 1 click solution to convert while keeping the tags and file structure?

I'd been interested to know this as well.

Are you certain the FLAC conversions have tags intact?

One thing I've noticed is the album art .jpg file is typically pretty small, maybe 300 X 300 pixels and when I play the song in my truck with 8.4" screen the album art looks like crap.

I use free, open source Audacity to convert FLAC to mp3's. I can adjust recording levels and add a touch of bass emphasis (if desired.) I typically use 320 kpbs bit rate for conversion to mp3's although I've noticed if I run variable bit rate a lot of tracks seem to have better dynamic range.

Then I run the entire album of converted mp3's through the free, open source program mp3 Tagit and inspect and change the tags as I see fit, including adding album art. Then I save to my PC's hard drive. Finally, I copy and paste from my PC to 32GB thumb drives which I use in my vehicle.

I'm fairly OCD about the process, but it's worth it because my truck has voice commands for playing specific tracks by name, or I can ask for a genre, or an album, or an artist's name. If the tagging isn't done properly I lose some functionality.

So, yeah, a one click solution for converting FLAC files to mp3's with all tagging info intact and good album art images would be great!

[Qs Laptop]

Quote:

Originally Posted by target2019 Spotify is high quality with a paid subscription. https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/201...quality-sound/

That's 320 kbps bit rate. Considered high quality for mp3's but otherwise, no.

[Qs Laptop]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ERD50 I don't think many will hear(*) a difference in a high-rate mp3 (or even a lower rate mp3) and lossless. That's not really the point IMO. It's about having a 'master', so that if you need to convert later, you are not adding artifacts to artifacts, at that point, it may become more noticeable. (*) - Even on my fairly high end stereo, the difference in mp3 and lossless is not readily apparent. But we know that something has been removed from the music. I've tested this by doing a subtraction of the compressed and originals in an audio editing program. You can now hear what is missing - little details, transients, tails of the reverb, etc. These little things are not obvious in a short A vs B, the algorithms do a very good job, but...

The deficiencies of mp3 vs. lossless is actually fairly easy to hear if you know what to listen for. The easiest difference to detect is the clarity and length of a strike on the cymbals. For example, listen to the opening stanzas of The Doobie Brothers "Listen to the Music" and focus on the cymbals. There is a cymbal struck at about the 0:09 second mark. Just listen to that on a good stereo system using a CD and then switch to the recording on an mp3. I guarantee you will hear the difference. The mp3 cymbal seems to spatter and sizzle and then dies out quickly while the CD version has a crystal clear ring to it and goes on for several seconds.

Other musical instruments can be revealing. Higher frequency piano notes and harps are not good in mp3 format. Violins don't sound as full and impactful.

[Music Lover]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Qs Laptop That's 320 kbps bit rate. Considered high quality for mp3's but otherwise, no.

I find 320 kbps good enough for casual listening...on the deck, at the cabin, around the campfire etc. But for a true audio experience it has to be lossless and through good speakers.

[ERD50]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Qs Laptop I'd been interested to know this as well. Are you certain the FLAC conversions have tags intact? ...

I use this app, "Soundconverter" to do batch conversion from FLAC to mp3 or ogg, but it appears to be Linux only. Easy/powerful/flexible user interface (the screenshots in the link tell the story, lots of options in the pull-downs). It seems to do fine with whatever tags were included when I ripped the CD. And it's fast, it manages to run all my CPU cores in parallel.

https://soundconverter.org/

I would imagine something similar exists in Windows.

-ERD50

[ERD50]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Qs Laptop The deficiencies of mp3 vs. lossless is actually fairly easy to hear if you know what to listen for. The easiest difference to detect is the clarity and length of a strike on the cymbals. ...

Yes, cymbals are complex, and can get "swishy" sounding with compression (or just bad audio recording techniques). They are among the most challenging for digital/compression, due to complexity (non-harmonically related structure), dynamics and randomness.

I use FLAC/lossless where ever I can, because in most cases (at least for serious listening), there's just no reason to compromise. Though I am still amazed at how good the compression algorithms work. I might get around to doing more A/B test and focus on cymbals as you point out. I'm surprised they can chop up the music and reconstruct it, and have it as good as it is. But I'll still chose unadulterated if I can.

-ERD50