Comment by mark-r
7 years ago
I rip my CDs in a two-step process: first to FLAC, then convert to mp3. The mp3s go in my phone, I have 33GB so far and my collection isn't even half ripped. I haven't checked how big the FLACs are lately but I'm sure they'd be a much bigger burden.
If you are concerned about space, consider vorbis, AAC, or opus. They all will achieve a higher quality at a given bitrate (or equivalently a lower bitrate for a given quality).
Note that the difference is not large. A 128 kbps opus or AAC might be comparible to a 160 or 192 kbps MP3. So it's less than 2x improvement of file size.
AAC has an additional advantage though, which is that many phones and receivers can transmit AAC files over Bluetooth without reencoding. this is technically possible for MP3 too, but very few devices implement it.
the loss of quality from transcoding lossy to lossy is usually a lot worse than the difference in quality between codecs and bitrates (within reason).
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I'm not that concerned, 256K mp3 has been good enough. Although it wouldn't be hard to automate a conversion to another format for my entire collection, given that I have lossless originals.
If I have a large FLAC collection and want to export the whole thing to MP3 or AAC copies, what would I do to automate that?
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Slightly off topic, but do you use something other than iTunes for this process? I'm looking for a good way to manage a FLAC library.
On Windows "foobar2000" is fantastic for playback and transcoding, looks pretty basic, but performs well and has lot's of plugins to modify look and feel as well as extra functionality.
On Mac, XLD is great for ripping and transcoding, but I'm not sure what's the hot favourite for playback these days.
Thanks for the pointer. I'm largely on Linux and my wife largely on Mac, but I'm sure I can spin up a VM somewhere if the software is worth it.
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As far as I am aware, iTunes is not even able to play back FLACs, so when I am on a Mac, I use Clementine, (https://www.clementine-player.org), or cmus, (https://cmus.github.io).
Converting etc. I do exclusively on my Linux desktop, so can't help you there.
iTunes doesn't support FLAC, but it does support ALAC, whose implementation is also open-source. And it has a neat feature where it can store ALAC on your computer, and automatically transcode to a (much smaller) lossy format when syncing to a mobile device.
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Heh. I'm actually on a Linux desktop but figured most people would reply with an iTunes-based solution. Cmus looks interesting I'd love to hear what your workflow is for converting, naming, tagging, getting artwork, etc.
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I use an older version of Media Monkey on the PC. I would have upgraded to a newer version but they removed the interface to the LAME encoder. This was before the patents expired so I should check them out again, but the old version does everything I need. I quite like it.
I made comment a little further up before I saw this, but there's lossless format that iTunes and Apple devices support called ALAC. You can convert to and from FLAC files with avconv.
I've been ripping to FLAC, and then convert to ALAC via avconv. The ALAC files go into iTunes, FLAC files stay on my server as an "archive". I then let iTunes convert the files it syncs to my phone / ipad to which ever size I need for that device, and I can still listen to uncompressed songs when I'm at my desk.
I keep the Flac around in case sometime in the future I want to change formats for whatever reason.
Why do you think FLAC is better than ALAC for your archive? They are both open source, lossless formats.
This is pretty reasonable. 16/44.1 FLACs aren't that large, especially considering that 4TB HDDs are available for $70 these days.
I do the same. MP3s of yy entire CD collection sit on an SD card in my car and a Sandisk Ultra Fit USB drive in my wife's car. The FLAC files live on an external USB drive in my home.
I still have Spotify for the times I want to listen to something I don't own or want to listen to one specific song without drilling down multiple menus to find it.
Do you manually convert to mp3? iTunes has an option to convert lossless audio to a lossy, space saving AAC at a bitrate of your choice on the fly when syncing to an Apple device. I‘m sure there are similar solutions in Android land.