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."

FLAC is bullshit

[ZankerH]

I tried converting my entire mp3 library to FLAC and couldn't hear any difference. It's just audiophiles circlejerking. I bet you all use golden audio cables and $500 cable stands, too.

Re:FLAC is bullshit

[Arancaytar]

Hey, that would work in Hollywood OS.

"Enhance!"

Rotational Velocidensity

[bmo]

I have a PhD in Digital Music Conservation from the University of Florida. I have to stress that the phenomenon known as "digital dust" is the real problem regarding conservation of music, and any other type of digital file. Digital files are stored in digital filing cabinets called "directories" which are prone to "digital dust" - slight bit alterations that happen now or then. Now, admittedly, in its ideal, pristine condition, a piece of musical work encoded in FLAC format contains more information than the same piece encoded in MP3, however, as the FLAC file is bigger, it accumulates, in fact, MORE digital dust than the MP3 file. Now you might say that the density of dust is the same. That would be a naive view. Since MP3 files are smaller, they can be much more easily stacked together and held in "drawers" called archive files (Zip, Rar, Lha, etc.) ; in such a configuration, their surface-to-volume ratio is minimized. Thus, they accumulate LESS digital dust and thus decay at a much slower rate than FLACs. All this is well-known in academia, alas the ignorant hordes just think that because it's bigger, it must be better.

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BMO

Re:FLAC is bullshit

[greg1104]

Wait, did you connect your computer to the network using a regular cable when you did the conversion? There's your problem. You need to use a good network cable [amazon.com] or the bits aren't polished properly when you convert from MP3 to FLAC. You might think "but I didn't even use the network when I was converting". Doesn't matter--the audio bits leak out of there if you're not using the right cable.