Does anyone here use FLAC ?

djklmnop · « **on:** 19 Apr 2006, 09:31 am »

Just curious if you guys use the FLAC format?

I've stopped ripping to MP3 now that FLAC is available. Nothing beats lossless compression!

Andy

pm314 · « **Reply #1 on:** 19 Apr 2006, 10:15 am »

Check out The Square Circle and the forums at slimdevices.com. You'll find plenty of discussion about the different formats, but yes, FLAC seems to be the handsdown favorite even over other lossless formats.

gychang · « **Reply #2 on:** 18 Sep 2007, 02:16 am »

Quote from: djklmnop on 19 Apr 2006, 09:31 am

Just curious if you guys use the FLAC format?

I've stopped ripping to MP3 now that FLAC is available. Nothing beats lossless compression!

Andy

I use it exclusively, no mp3 for me.

gychang

bpape · « **Reply #3 on:** 18 Sep 2007, 02:21 am »

Yup - nothing but FLAC. You'll find most of the Squeezebox owners here use it.

Bryan

Bigfish · « **Reply #4 on:** 18 Sep 2007, 02:42 am »

Guys, is FLAC better than WAV? I am pretty confident that I read in a recent review of a Squeezebox that the reviewer preferred .wav. I have saved all of my music in .wav foremat and am seriously interested in which foremat is better.

Thanks,

Ken

JRace · « **Reply #5 on:** 18 Sep 2007, 02:50 am »

Flac is a compressed loss-less version of wav.
Same sq better size.

I use FLAC whenever possible...even on my Ipod

yooper · « **Reply #6 on:** 18 Sep 2007, 03:38 am »

I will only rip via FLAC as well.

Bigfish,

As JRace already mentioned, FLAC files are smaller than WAV, roughly 50% smaller. The size of your files will become very important as your library grows.

I agree that there is no difference in sound quality as lossless is lossless. Some folks do believe they can hear a difference. I don't.

One big factor for me is the ability to tag FLAC files with ease. Another plus is if If I decided to convert all my FLAC files to say..Apple lossless, the tags will stay intact with the conversion.

WAV doesn't support full tagging.

Mark

yooper · « **Reply #7 on:** 18 Sep 2007, 03:41 am »

Quote from: JRace on 18 Sep 2007, 02:50 am

I use FLAC whenever possible...even on my Ipod

How do you play FLAC on your iPod? I assume your not using iTunes?

Mark

pm314 · « **Reply #8 on:** 18 Sep 2007, 10:35 am »

Quote from: yooper on 18 Sep 2007, 03:41 am

Quote from: JRace on 18 Sep 2007, 02:50 am
I use FLAC whenever possible...even on my Ipod

How do you play FLAC on your iPod? I assume your not using iTunes?

Mark

You have to load Rockbox on your ipod. Its a open source firmware replacement for many "mp3" players including the ipod. It supports FLAC playback.

JRace · « **Reply #9 on:** 20 Sep 2007, 04:18 pm »

Rockbox:
http://www.rockbox.org/

Quote

Rockbox is an open source firmware for mp3 players, written from scratch. It runs on a wide range of players:

Apple: 1st through 5.5th generation iPod, iPod Mini and 1st generation iPod Nano
(not the Shuffle, 2nd/3rd gen Nano, Classic or Touch)
Archos: Jukebox 5000, 6000, Studio, Recorder, FM Recorder, Recorder V2 and Ondio
Cowon: iAudio X5, X5V, X5L, M5 and M5L
iriver: H100, H300 and H10 series
SanDisk: Sansa e200 and e200R series
Toshiba: Gigabeat X and F series (not the S series)
More players are in development

It runs over the apple OS and is very easily removed without voiding the warranty. It loads the music as if your ipod is a drive - and not via the itunes database. And it has Doom!

Although now that my music collection is reaching 100gb I think I will need to convert my music from FLAC to MP3 for use on my Ipod which means I will not have as much need for rockbox...
another great thing about archiving to FLAC is the abilty to transcode to MP3 for portable devices.

pm314 · « **Reply #10 on:** 20 Sep 2007, 05:01 pm »

Quote from: JRace on 20 Sep 2007, 04:18 pm

Rockbox:
http://www.rockbox.org/
Quote
Rockbox is an open source firmware for mp3 players, written from scratch. It runs on a wide range of players:

Apple: 1st through 5.5th generation iPod, iPod Mini and 1st generation iPod Nano
(not the Shuffle, 2nd/3rd gen Nano, Classic or Touch)
Archos: Jukebox 5000, 6000, Studio, Recorder, FM Recorder, Recorder V2 and Ondio
Cowon: iAudio X5, X5V, X5L, M5 and M5L
iriver: H100, H300 and H10 series
SanDisk: Sansa e200 and e200R series
Toshiba: Gigabeat X and F series (not the S series)
More players are in development

It runs over the apple OS and is very easily removed without voiding the warranty. It loads the music as if your ipod is a drive - and not via the itunes database. And it has Doom!

Although now that my music collection is reaching 100gb I think I will need to convert my music from FLAC to MP3 for use on my Ipod which means I will not have as much need for rockbox...
another great thing about archiving to FLAC is the abilty to transcode to MP3 for portable devices.

And if you do need to transcode your collection from FLAC to MP3 I would recommend using flac2mp3. It is a free perl script that is relatively easy to set up and works great. You can find a lot of information on it on the forums at Slimdevices.com. I converted my entire collection (~3000 songs) a few weeks ago. It took all weekend, but it also has net change capabilities.

posternutbag2000 · « **Reply #11 on:** 9 Oct 2007, 12:04 am »

One big factor for me is the ability to tag FLAC files with ease. Another plus is if If I decided to convert all my FLAC files to say..Apple lossless, the tags will stay intact with the conversion.

What do you use to tag your flacs? I have lots of untagged flacs (downloaded live concert files) and havent figured out the best way to proceed...I'm on OSX, fwiw...I'm ionterested in the easiest way to batch tag for use on my SB3...

thanks in advance for any help...
scott

I'm going to check out Rockbox too...looks pretty slick...