.flac files

[ErnieM]

possible dumb question

OK - if I rip my regular CDs and save them as FLAC files - is that overkill? Are FLAC files at a higher quality than the data on a regular (non SACD) CD ? If so, then why rip to FLAC from CDs as any copy can never be better than the original?

Please help me understand this! Thanks.

 

[its phillip]

If you rip your cds (or anything) to flac, you are simply making an exact copy of whatever you rip. Nothing more, nothing less.

 

[MDS]

OK - if I rip my regular CDs and save them as FLAC files - is that overkill? Are FLAC files at a higher quality than the data on a regular (non SACD) CD ? If so, then why rip to FLAC from CDs as any copy can never be better than the original?

Please help me understand this! Thanks.

The only reason to rip to FLAC is to reduce the amount of space needed on the storage medium (hard drive, ssd, usb flash, etc). With hard drives so cheap nowadays it's not really all that necessary but one advantage to using FLAC over WAV (uncompressed PCM) is that they can be tagged just as most lossy compression formats can.

Lossless compression does not remove anything from the original, it just makes it smaller. So, it's misleading to say they sound amazing. They are going to sound exactly the same as the CD. Now if the CD or uncompressed PCM you rip from the CD sounds amazing then so will the FLAC.

 

[Beatmatcher247]

.Flac sounds amazing compared to heavily compressed mp3... but yes, no better than what the material you are converting to a .flac is to begin with.

 

[Fastnbulbous]

There was a point where I thought I would keep all my CDs forever. When I lived in my studio apt with the walls lined with CDs, it was like a musical womb, where I could access any CD in just a few steps. When I got married and moved into a condo, suddenly it wasn't so convenient. I found myself moving from room to room a lot between the office, kitchen, living room and bedroom, which was difficult to have continuity in listening to a CD. I'd be in the bedroom at night and want to hear something, but just wouldn't bother, as I'd have to walk to the other end of the place, turning on lights as I go to dig up the CD. After researching for about a year, I settled on using the wireless Squeezebox setup and dbPoweramp for ripping to flac.

It took me about six months to rip my entire collection of 7,000 CDs. I had to buy a 6TB capacity NAS (4.5 usable space, just under 3TB used so far) and back it up at work, and it was totally worth it. CDs that collected dust for over a decade get played much more frequently now that they're plugged into playlists that I rotate between. I have my entire collection backed up at work, which is a nice feeling to be able to hear anything I want at my workplace that I spend more waking hours than home during the week. I use MediaMonkey for making playlists, then save to the Squeezeserver and re-index.

Now I can play my music in three rooms simultaneously if I want, and control with a remote anywhere in the house. I definitely listen to and enjoy more of my music more often because of that.

 

[LAB3]

There was a point where I thought I would keep all my CDs forever. When I lived in my studio apt with the walls lined with CDs, it was like a musical womb, where I could access any CD in just a few steps. When I got married and moved into a condo, suddenly it wasn't so convenient. I found myself moving from room to room a lot between the office, kitchen, living room and bedroom, which was difficult to have continuity in listening to a CD. I'd be in the bedroom at night and want to hear something, but just wouldn't bother, as I'd have to walk to the other end of the place, turning on lights as I go to dig up the CD. After researching for about a year, I settled on using the wireless Squeezebox setup and dbPoweramp for ripping to flac.

It took me about six months to rip my entire collection of 7,000 CDs. I had to buy a 6TB capacity NAS (4.5 usable space, just under 3TB used so far) and back it up at work, and it was totally worth it. CDs that collected dust for over a decade get played much more frequently now that they're plugged into playlists that I rotate between. I have my entire collection backed up at work, which is a nice feeling to be able to hear anything I want at my workplace that I spend more waking hours than home during the week. I use MediaMonkey for making playlists, then save to the Squeezeserver and re-index.

Now I can play my music in three rooms simultaneously if I want, and control with a remote anywhere in the house. I definitely listen to and enjoy more of my music more often because of that.

WOW I had to read this two times. I have the same problem but I have less CD (600) 400 DVD movies,150 Blurays, 400 cassettes, 450 331/3 LP, 200 7" R2R reels of music and 65 10.5" reels of music for R2R. Hundreds of family pic's. Minus the analog tapes I want ALL the digital on a PC or???? And have my flatt screen as the monitor. Retired now as was thinking of building walls of shelves for all the different formats. Will do this anyway. But after reading how you can acess this.......YES. I need to do a LOT of research as I have somewhat PC challenged. We have Verizon FIOS HD TV and wireless for going online.

 

[sholling]

WOW I had to read this two times. I have the same problem but I have less CD (600) 400 DVD movies,150 Blurays, 400 cassettes, 450 331/3 LP, 200 7" R2R reels of music and 65 10.5" reels of music for R2R. Hundreds of family pic's. Minus the analog tapes I want ALL the digital on a PC or???? And have my flatt screen as the monitor. Retired now as was thinking of building walls of shelves for all the different formats. Will do this anyway. But after reading how you can acess this.......YES. I need to do a LOT of research as I have somewhat PC challenged. We have Verizon FIOS HD TV and wireless for going online.

Once you have instant fingertip TV remote control like access to your music you'll never want to go back and you'll have access to even higher quality recording from specialty sites like HDTracks.

Unless someone has kids I'm less sold on storing videos online because outside of concert and nature videos I don't rewatch a video more than once every year or two. But it still makes sense from a storage point of view because all of those DVD cases take up a ton of room. Hard disks are cheap but make sure that you have a way to back up those drives because trust me it's no fun to have to sit down and re-rip several hundred CDs.

 

[Pyrrho]

There was a point where I thought I would keep all my CDs forever. When I lived in my studio apt with the walls lined with CDs, it was like a musical womb, where I could access any CD in just a few steps. When I got married and moved into a condo, suddenly it wasn't so convenient. I found myself moving from room to room a lot between the office, kitchen, living room and bedroom, which was difficult to have continuity in listening to a CD. I'd be in the bedroom at night and want to hear something, but just wouldn't bother, as I'd have to walk to the other end of the place, turning on lights as I go to dig up the CD. After researching for about a year, I settled on using the wireless Squeezebox setup and dbPoweramp for ripping to flac.

It took me about six months to rip my entire collection of 7,000 CDs. I had to buy a 6TB capacity NAS (4.5 usable space, just under 3TB used so far) and back it up at work, and it was totally worth it. CDs that collected dust for over a decade get played much more frequently now that they're plugged into playlists that I rotate between. I have my entire collection backed up at work, which is a nice feeling to be able to hear anything I want at my workplace that I spend more waking hours than home during the week. I use MediaMonkey for making playlists, then save to the Squeezeserver and re-index.

Now I can play my music in three rooms simultaneously if I want, and control with a remote anywhere in the house. I definitely listen to and enjoy more of my music more often because of that.

I listen to music differently than you do. Also, I don't have multiple pairs of Apogee Stage speakers for every room of my house, so the fidelity would suffer from listening in different rooms. I also am not so infirm that walking from one room to another in my home is a serious problem.

The only way I would consider moving to hard drives is if it were totally portable and I could also take it with me in my car. In other words, something like an iPod, only I would require that it hold a couple thousand CDs in a lossless format.

 

[Pyrrho]

... Hard disks are cheap but make sure that you have a way to back up those drives because trust me it's no fun to have to sit down and re-rip several hundred CDs.

That means that it is no fun to set it up in the first place. And that is one of the reasons I have not put my CDs on hard drives.

Again, it is fine if others wish to do so with their music collections, but I currently have no real desire to do so with mine. Maybe I will eventually, but I might never do so.

 

[sholling]

The only way I would consider moving to hard drives is if it were totally portable and I could also take it with me in my car. In other words, something like an iPod, only I would require that it hold a couple thousand CDs in a lossless format.

I waiting on buying a new car until they start coming with a supermodel or playmate of the month. That's the only way I'd consider buying a new car. Almost anything is doable with enough money but I'm sad to say that I can't afford the Lambo much less the maintenance on the super model.

While I wouldn't consider playing MP3s at home they make more sense than lossless in a car. The noise factor and the quality of the speakers make high bit-rate MP3 an acceptable format and the size makes storage more reasonable/affordable. They aren't super common but hard disk based car stereos with MP3 playback have been around almost 10 years. They've even had systems to automatically wirelessly sync the contents with your home PC when you pull in the garage for a good 8 years. The limitation was always the size and durability of a hard drive bouncing around in a car but I guess if you had the money you could throw a large solid state drive at it. I don't own such a system but my MP3 ready 6 disc changer holds 4-5ish high quality MP3 (HQ VBR) albums per disc times 6 discs. That's a good variety. One of the nice things about dbPowerAmp is the ability to have it run a batch conversion and make MP3 copies (for the portable or car) of your entire flac collection while you sleep.

That means that it is no fun to set it up in the first place. And that is one of the reasons I have not put my CDs on hard drives.

That's individual taste. The key is having the right tools and doing it in batches so that you can approach it as a hobby and not a chore. Doing a few dozen per session while listening to music and surfing the web isn't too bad and was even fun for a while but I like my computer's speakers. A tool like dbPowerAmp automatically identifies the album, tags, names, and files everything to your personal taste leaving you nothing to do but feed it discs. It's when you have to redo a 1500CD rip because of stupidly not backing up your work that it gets to be a frustrating chore. It's like my one and only attempt to write a book, after 8-10 hours of typing without saving we had a power outage and I lost everything. The first time was fun but I had no desire to start over and do it again. That's why I have multiple redundancy, both RAID storage and backups on top of keeping the original material.

Again, it is fine if others wish to do so with their music collections, but I currently have no real desire to do so with mine. Maybe I will eventually, but I might never do so.

If it's not for you then it's not for you. It's a hobby and like any hobby one size rarely fit all.

 

[Fastnbulbous]

I also am not so infirm that walking from one room to another in my home is a serious problem.

Was that really necessary? There is nothing to argue about here, I was simply sharing my experience. No need to be a **** about it. I run 50 miles a week and yeah, by the time I'm in bed I don't always feel like getting up again.

I have Rega R3 speakers in the office, and Wharfedale Evo 20s in the bedroom (though I switch to headphones after 9 at night). I actually like hearing the different sound signatures when I walk into different rooms. I don't listen to music just one way, obviously. I also often sit in one spot and listen to entire albums with my full attention.

Portability would be nice. They announced over a couple years ago that SDXC cards can go up to 2TB, but so far they aren't even selling 256GB ones yet. We'll get there someday.

 

[LAB3]

Once you have instant fingertip TV remote control like access to your music you'll never want to go back and you'll have access to even higher quality recording from specialty sites like HDTracks.

Unless someone has kids I'm less sold on storing videos online because outside of concert and nature videos I don't rewatch a video more than once every year or two. But it still makes sense from a storage point of view because all of those DVD cases take up a ton of room. Hard disks are cheap but make sure that you have a way to back up those drives because trust me it's no fun to have to sit down and re-rip several hundred CDs.

I want to do this but if I had a PC failure, on a fixed income (retired)....again I am not PC savy so I would want
acess to my disc for movies and music. All our autos have CD players so I still burn CD for music. hey I still have a Factory cassette/Cd player in 96 Vette I have owned for 14 years. I still have a Kenwood duel cassette recorder play back I got new 1990. I make tapes for Vette when I am bored. The CD in the car sounds a little cleaner

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

Since I bought Shure SE425 headphones for primary use of commute listening - I can't stand sound of badly compressed mp3 files. Luckily for me my phone supports FLAC files (Droid G1 w/CM7) and has 32gb micro-sd card...
It can't hold my entire collection, but more than enough to skip daily updates

 

[sholling]

I want to do this but if I had a PC failure, on a fixed income (retired)....again I am not PC savy so I would want
acess to my disc for movies and music.

It doesn't have to be crazy expensive for music and DVDs but BD is more bandwidth intensive and requires more effort to get up and running - like running cable. But hey you're retired and have nothing but time.

The way that I started out was keeping the main storage on my PC. In the family room I had a Western Digital TV live ($~85), a cheap wireless network adapter (available for ~$30-80), and a cheap external hard drive (~$100 - optional), and a CD ripper (dbPowerAmp Reference is $38). The hard drive was because my PC is a huge power drain and I wanted to shut it off when not in use, plus it provided for a backup of my data. Everytime I added a CD to my collection I copied it across the network to the drive in the family room.

CDs are easy and DVDs aren't hard but BDs are a whole different can of worms. Doable but that's the advanced class.