Technical Playing FLAC music files?

[gar074]

With apologies for being such a techno-duffer, my son - home for the holidays - has offered to set up my laptop to store all my CDs as FLAC files. I'll then want to download some of them onto a memory stick so I can play them in the Panda. Does anyone know whether the audio set-up in the Cross will play FLAC files?

 

[R1NGA]

I don't I'm afraid - I fear it may be MP3's only. However, there's a very easy way to find out

 

[pasotibbs]

Not sure about FLAC so I'd go MP3
but..
Points to consider
1. You need the ign on to use the USB and that can be a pain if you want to listen while parked !
2.It seems the tracks are played in alphabetical order not numerical ?
3.The Blue and Me system is not easiest to use.
4.Unless you use a UltraFit USB you'll risk breaking it or the port.

You should get 10+ MP3 albums to a CD so I'd go with that (in fact I am going to do this as the USB is such a pain)

 

[jrkitching]

With apologies for being such a techno-duffer, my son - home for the holidays - has offered to set up my laptop to store all my CDs as FLAC files. I'll then want to download some of them onto a memory stick so I can play them in the Panda. Does anyone know whether the audio set-up in the Cross will play FLAC files?

Not many car audio systems have native flac support; I would be astounded if the latest Panda does.

The best way to deal with this is to store them on your laptop as flac files and transcode them onto a memory stick in mp3 format for use in the car. One good free tool for doing this is foobar2000 ( you'll also need to pop over to rarewares and pick up a free copy of the LAME .mp3 encoder). Full instructions on how to do this are in the links on the foobar2000 site; start with the hydrogenaudio wiki here.

FB2k is free, fast, efficient, and can handle large media libraries (>10,000 CD's) without performance issues on modest hardware. It's a technical challenge to master the finer points, but it's capable of dealing with pretty much anything you'll ever need to do with digital audio.

 

[gar074]

Many thanks for the help. I can't believe how unnecessarily complicated this is. And my generation thought the VHS/Betamax divide was hard to navigate. I'll look into foobar2000, but I'm a Mac user, so it's (predictably!) not straightforward. Apparently I need something called WineBottler. At this rate, I'll certainly need a bottle opener!

 

[babbo_umbro]

Many thanks for the help. I can't believe how unnecessarily complicated this is. And my generation thought the VHS/Betamax divide was hard to navigate. I'll look into foobar2000, but I'm a Mac user, so it's (predictably!) not straightforward. Apparently I need something called WineBottler. At this rate, I'll certainly need a bottle opener!

Not sure why things would be more complicated for a Mac user - I've always found everything easier than on a Windows PC. There seem to be several apps for converting FLAC to MP3 - there seems to be some controversy about the supposed superior quality of FLAC files, though they're certainly much bigger than MP3 - I understand about six times. So why not convert your CDs straight to MP3 - assuming your Mac has a CD drive (ie not the very latest) iTunes will do the job very simply.

I use my MacBook Pro for transcribing, recording and producing scores but my notation software won't tackle FLAC files.

 

[AndyCalling]

OK, so a FLAC file is lossless compressed audio, much like using ZIP files (though technically all digital audio is a lossy compression of the analogue waveform, but I digress). MP3 is a lossy compression (a bit like JPEG picture files, but for music). Assuming you own the original CDs and treat them well then you don't really need to keep a FLAC copy (a saved ISO of the ripped CD can be kept for a backup as it's easier to reburn if you damage the original and can be zipped if you need to compress it losslessly for storage) unless you are an audiophile and if so you don't need my help. Just rip to MP3 for use in the car etc. Never convert (or transcode) lossy formats, always re-rip from the CD. You can transcode from lossless FLAC to any other format fine, but if you have the CD why bother? If you don't have the CD then stop being a dirty pirate. Simples.

 

[gazz_bee]

With apologies for being such a techno-duffer, my son - home for the holidays - has offered to set up my laptop to store all my CDs as FLAC files. I'll then want to download some of them onto a memory stick so I can play them in the Panda. Does anyone know whether the audio set-up in the Cross will play FLAC files?

Blue and Me compatible file types are wma, mp3, wav and aac so no FLAC support.

For what it's worth, I converted all my vinyl to a lossless format to keep as master digital copies and then made mp3 versions for general use. Because CD's are more easily converted, these are just ripped straight as mp3. I tend to rip mp3 at 192kbps bitrate which is probably higher than required for car audio. This is because I also use these files in a home media server and my hifi does expose poor quality recordings.

Unless you plan to use your audio files in some top end hifi from the likes of Linn or Naim, then I wouldn't personally use FLAC.

 

[babbo_umbro]

Blue and Me compatible file types are wma, mp3, wav and aac so no FLAC support.

For what it's worth, I converted all my vinyl to a lossless format to keep as master digital copies and then made mp3 versions for general use. Because CD's are more easily converted, these are just ripped straight as mp3. I tend to rip mp3 at 192kbps bitrate which is probably higher than required for car audio. This is because I also use these files in a home media server and my hifi does expose poor quality recordings.

Unless you plan to use your audio files in some top end hifi from the likes of Linn or Naim, then I wouldn't personally use FLAC.

Sounds like a good plan - archive the data in the best possible quality and convert to what makes sense in the context of listening - as you say, the highest bit rate MP3 is surely better than in-car audio is going to need.

 

[babbo_umbro]

If you're set on FLAC, I just received a Macintouch notification about a product called Swinsian, which supports the common formats plus FLAC, WMA, Ogg Vorbis and others, and interfaces to iTunes. $19.95 with a free trial download.

 

[jrkitching]

Unless you plan to use your audio files in some top end hifi from the likes of Linn or Naim, then I wouldn't personally use FLAC.

FLAC is great for archival because it preserves all of the original CD content. Ripping CD's is time consuming and if you store the rip in FLAC (or any other lossless) format you will only ever have to do it once. Transcoding from FLAC to mp3 (or whatever best suits your media device) is trivial, particularly in bulk.

Vinyl is commonly ripped to 24bit FLAC, and availability of 24bit FLAC downloads is improving. On high end equipment, the difference is audible.

For the car, 192bit VBR mp3 will do just fine.

 

[gazz_bee]

FLAC is great for archival because it preserves all of the original CD content. Ripping CD's is time consuming and if you store the rip in FLAC (or any other lossless) format you will only ever have to do it once. Transcoding from FLAC to mp3 (or whatever best suits your media device) is trivial, particularly in bulk.

Vinyl is commonly ripped to 24bit FLAC, and availability of 24bit FLAC downloads is improving. On high end equipment, the difference is audible.

For the car, 192bit VBR mp3 will do just fine.

My vinyl is indeed ripped to 24bit FLAC for the reasons you mention - vinyl rips at real time so you definitely only want to do it once. And I think that's where our opinions divide slightly. A few years ago, I started off ripping my CD's to FLAC. These files took up a bit of space and I found the transcoding of FLAC files from an external HDD to mp3 for iPod use to be significantly slower than the original CD ripping time along with nuisances of ID tags and album art going missing. So I have since stuck with a single pass of mp3. Yes, I can hear the compromise of mp3 on my hifi but when I want the quality of the original, I play the original.

Incidentally when I last had my turntable serviced, my dealer let me hear a Linn Klimax system playing a 24bit FLAC studio master and the quality over the CD version of the same recording was breathtaking. The difference between the same CD and high bit rate mp3 however was less obvious.

 

[gar074]

Many thanks for the further replies. My reason for wanting to rip my CD and vinyl collection to FLAC is that my listening time is divided between 3 different locations (not counting the Panda!), but my CDs & LPs are stored in one of those locations, so for much of the time I don't have the option of listening to the music from the original CD/LPs I have very good hifi setups in all 3, hence the desire to store the archived material in the best possible format. Furthermore, I only want to go through this wretched time-consuming process once, and as some of you have pointed out, it's much quicker and easier to convert from FLAC to MP3 than it is to rip the source material (to whatever format) in the first place.

 

[AndyCalling]

The most compatible lossless format for direct playback, then, would be WAV files. These are uncompressed files (except the inherent digital compression of your analogue vinyl, though modern vinyl is often created from a digital source anyway so...). Personally, I'd still archive CDs to ISO files and keep an MP3 for playback, but I'm not an audiophile.

 

[AndyCalling]

FYI, regarding finding a suitable utility to convert your FLACs, CyberLink's Power2Go (currently version 11, just released) should do it. The Windows version does, and there's a Mac version too. I'm using the Windows Platinum version if that matters, but I think all versions support FLAC and MP3. It can just convert files or knock out an MP3 CD. It can also handle a whole load of other discs and formats including BluRay video.