Why We Should Buy Music In FLAC

soodoo writes "We have plenty of HDD space and broadband internet. Why don't we demand full CD quality audio in an accessible format from online music stores? The advantage of lossless compression is not only the small audio quality improvement, but better future-proofing and converting capabilities. FLAC is a good, free and open format, well suited for this job."

Comments

Compatibility

[Ralish]

Because FLAC is very poorly supported among both portable media devices and media center devices? Further, the difference in actual perceptible quality between a high quality mp3/ogg/wma/whatever encoding and a FLAC encoding is between negligible and non-existent, negating pretty much any benefit of FLAC. Media archival is one area where FLAC is an obvious choice for, but bit-for-bit storage is generally something only a subset of music enthusiasts care about, and so unless constantly transcoding FLAC into a format that your chosen non-PC device supports is your idea of a good time, then it's just not worth the effort...

Re:Compatibility

[Malc]

Portable support is not the point. Being able to batch encode is. I've been ripping my CDs for years. When I gave up on the whole OGG Vorbis thing and went back to MP3, no problem. When I switched to iTunes + iPhone, no problem encoding to AAC. No decrease in quality transcoding from one lossy format to another. No doubt I'll want to re-enocde again in the future if there is an improvement in the encoders.

Re:Compatibility

[walter_f]

As to portable media players supporting FLAC:

Sandisk (Sansa Fuze, Fuze+, Clip, Clip+)
iRiver (B30, E100, E150, E200, Lplayer, P7, Spinn, S100)
Archos (Vision 3, 24, 28, 32)
Samsung (Yepp M1, YP-Q1, YP-Q2, YP-Q3, YP-R0, YP-R1)
Philips (GoGear Muse)
Sweex (MP470, MP480)
Transcend (MP860, Tsonic 870)

and last but not least,
Cowon/iAudio (all of them)

Prices:
The most affordable player capable of FLAC (and Ogg Vorbis), the Sweex MP480 Vidi 8GB, from GBP 22 (ca USD 35) in the U.K.

Re:Compatibility

[hazydave]

The big issue with FLAC isn't just player compatibility, but storage. I have a few 24-bit/96kHz FLAC-encoded albums, averaging over a gigabyte each in size. Unless you're using one of the hard-drive equipped Archos devices or something similar (if anyone else uses HDD anymore), you're not going to keep many albums on your player this way.

You're also probably listening via earbuds, maybe some better cans if you really care, but still... there's not that much need for the higher quality on a portable device. Unless you're using a Cowon device, you may not have the audio chops in the device hardware needed to get much better sound out of these files, either. But it's nice to know you can play that latest HDtracks download without the need to transcode.

And for those living in the 21rst century (dedicated audio players being so 1990s), FLAC is also supported in many Android media players.

Re:Seems fairly obvious why not

[Required Snark]

Online sources want to sell the same info to you as many times as they can. Obsolescence is part of their business plan.

For example, Harper-Collens has put a limit on how many times a library can use a copy of an ebook http://ebooks.dreamwidth.org/32051.html The book can only be circulated 26 times before the DRM license runs out.

This is outrageous and stupid. If possible, boycott all their products.

Re:FLAC is bullshit

[Rik Sweeney]

Obviously you're joking, but just in case you're not:

Converting a lossy format (MP3) into a lossless format (FLAC) will not magically restore the bits lost in the original conversion to MP3.

What you're doing is the equivalent of taking an 800x600 image, scaling it down to 1x1, saving it, re-opening it, scaling it back up to 800x600 and complaining that all you have is a single colour image rather than the original.

Re:If you want CD-quality audio, buy CDs

[paimin]

Why doesn't TFA at least mention that Apple supports an open format that's also lossless, and also supported widely? Its a shame they don't sell it, but they do support it. Implying that they simply don't support lossless audio compression doesn't help sell FLAC as an option, it just makes you look like a liar.

Re:If you want CD-quality audio, buy CDs

[brusk]

Adjusting for CPI, $14 in 1983 is about $31 in 2011. $20 today is about $9 in 1983 dollars.

Re:If you want CD-quality audio, buy CDs

[tepples]

Also, what the hell are you going to do with a CD once you have it but rip it?"

Sell it used.

At which point you are required to destroy the original, as I understand it.