mp3 to flac

neyloj2 · « **on:** 20 Sep 2010, 05:09 pm »

No laughing at me here, can I change all my itune mp3's to flac and would this be advised?

srb · « **Reply #1 on:** 20 Sep 2010, 05:16 pm »

Quote from: neyloj2 on 20 Sep 2010, 05:09 pm

No laughing at me here, can I change all my itune mp3's to flac and would this be advised?

You can, but it wouldn't be advised. The MP3 is a compressed lossy file, and you can't increase it's quality. In fact, converting an MP3 to a FLAC will usually result in a larger file size with no increase in quality.

Steve

ted_b · « **Reply #2 on:** 20 Sep 2010, 05:17 pm »

For what reason would you convert to a format that iTunes can't read (natively)?

And by the way, this is not a hirez discussion so I'll move it to the discless forum.

neyloj2 · « **Reply #3 on:** 20 Sep 2010, 05:27 pm »

Ooops wrong circle,sorry. I'm fairly new to digital other than d/l itunes so I thought flac had a better audiophile sound quality. I just ordered a Squeeze Box Touch and won't have an external dac for a while so I wanted to get the best sound possible and from what I read it seems flac is better than mp3.

ted_b · « **Reply #4 on:** 20 Sep 2010, 05:53 pm »

FLAC is only "better" than MP3 in that coincidentallly most downloadable music that is stored in FLAC was originally ripped in its original sample rate (i.e 16/44 or 24/96k, etc) and therefore it is considerably better than MP3. FLAC, however, is simply a lossless compressed storage mechanism (and as such can hold ANY music quality), whereas MP3 is a lossy quality designation as well (there are various levels of MP3 quality, but all are quite a bit less than original cd or hirez file quality). And as has been already stated, if you ripped in MP3 then moving it to FLAC will not create a better quality.

neyloj2 · « **Reply #5 on:** 20 Sep 2010, 06:30 pm »

Thanks Ted, my vinyl is so much easier. Can you tell me the best place to d/l hi rez audio and will it work with my SBT thats on the way. Should I just stick to itunes. I have hdtracks and Songbird.