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Audio Format Transcoding for Compatibility?
brandorf asks: "With the multitude of compressed audio formats that are available today, (MP3, Ogg, AAC, and FLAC to name very few) our music libraries start to spread across quite a few different formats. While this isn't a problem for desktop/media PC use, as programs like Winamp or iTunes have plugins available for almost every format. However, when it's time to start using a portable unit, it's unavoidable that some files will get transcoded. Have there been any studies or experiments as to how similar the codecs really are? Will transcoding from Format A to B sound worse than going from A to C? What's your experience with this?"
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?show topic=32440
The site insists on proper ABX tests too, not some thirteen olds insisting they can tell the difference between FLAC and Monkey's Audio codecs.
"Hasn't this been asked a thousand times already"
No, RTFA. I'll give you a little clue: read the bit about A to B and A to C.
"Derp de derp."
As long as your original is in a lossless format, then you can transcode to a lossy format (like MP3, AAC, or OGG) for portable players without excessive degradation.
Different lossy codecs throw away different parts of the audio stream. Trasncoding from one lossy format to another is essentially throwing away the superset of those parts. If you encode at a high enough bitrate, a "lossy" codec throws away almost nothing. If you think that there is no discernable difference, then how do you explain the fact that neither of the lossy formats throw away the entire superset to begin with for superior compression? Codecs have something called a "bitrate". The higher the bitrate, the less they throw away. If you set the bitrate high enough, they become extremely conservative at what they throw away.