FLAC?

FLAC is a Lossless Audio file

better than WAV

if you rip a CD in FLAC you basically lose no Quality. and Usually if you Google FLAC player you can find a few different players that will play it

i personally have a codec so my media player can play them

 

Winamp can play them.

 

Most audio encoders can do it, I think dbPowerAMP can...?

But then the question comes about, when you're using a BETTER audio file than mp3, why even bother converting anyways? That's like trading in a 5.1 surround sound system for a stereo.

 

Space? Things like MP3 players?

 

FLAC = Free Lossless Audio Codec

dbPowerAMP is godly. Especially the reference edition.

You would want to convert a FLAC to an mp3 due to player incompatibility and also the size is usually considerably better. Most people can't notice the difference, unless they have a trained ear. So unless you're going from FLAC -> 128kbps mp3, you shouldn't notice much of a difference,like for 320 or V0.

 

I use foobar2000 to play my audio, it can support practically any format. It can also batch converts anything to anything (FLAC -> MP3/Ogg Vorbis or FLAC -> WAVE, or whatever else you need) (necessary .exe versions of both LAME and OggEnc encoders can be found at RareWares (a site)). It also has CUE support. It can play and rip Audio CDs very well, but cannot burn them. I also really like its minimalist interface and all its features (ReplayGain, format converting, tag editing/manipulation).

speaking of which, Tomi, what drew you to dBpoweramp?

 

I started using it before I started using Foobar. I picked it because I head it was good, and so it was. *shrug* Not much to my reasoning, really.

 

I love dbpoweramp because it's powerful and easy to use at the same time. Simply right click the file you want to convert, select "Convert to", and you are met with the conversion screen. Plus it supports tons of formats (via Codec Central).

 

You nailed all the reasons why I love it too. It's so simple.

 

As far as i'm concerned, audiophiles love FLAC because they're the kind of people who love to think they can hear a massive difference between two things when actually the difference is pretty much indistinguishable to the human ear. Unless you've got an incredibly expensive sound system, a high bitrate MP3 and a FLAC file will sound almost identical.

 

It's also nice to have a lossless format because if you want to convert to a different format for any reason, or you want to burn to a CD, you're not transcoding.