How many of you have been in the process of replacing all your CD's with MP3's over the past few years? And how many of you have been in the process of replacing all your CD's and cassettes with MP3's over the past several years? Or for that matter, replacing CD's, cassettes, and vinyl with MP3's? I know some of you have got rid of old CDs once you have an MP3 copy of it on your computer or your iPod. Good idea? I think not. Little do you realize how low the quality is of those MP3's you are rocking on your laptop speakers or the earbuds on your iPod. It seems to sound great to you, but you have probably reached the limitation for the speakers you are using. Which is why to you, whether you are listening to a 320k MP3 or a 192k MP3, it all sounds the same to you. Well what happens when you get older and can actually afford to buy yourself a nice sound system, a good hi-fi, or maybe a rockin system for your ride. What good are those MP3's then? They sound horrid on good stereo equipment not to mention their bad quality and addition of digital artifacting can actually cause damage to good stereo equipment. ENTER...FLAC, the Free Lossless Audio Codec.
So what is FLAC? FLAC stands for Free Lossless Audio Codec, and it is an audio compression format like MP3, but while MP3 uses a "lossy" compression, which basically discards audio information that humans can't hear, FLAC uses a lossless compression, which will not change the quality of the compressed audio.
This means that if you rip an Audio CD track to a FLAC file, that file will retain the same quality of the original (CD quality), like a WAV file, but it will take less space (usually about one third of the corresponding Wav file). An MP3 file would take a lot less space (about one tenth of the corresponding Wav file) but to get this compression rate MP3 (like other lossy compression algorithms, such like Ogg Vorbis or WMA), throws away part of the sound information. Of course lossy compression algorithms try to discard info that an average human can't hear, but if your ears are sensible and well trained, you will appreciate the high quality of FLAC lossless compression.
I don't want to hear any crying about the lack of MP3's here. FLAC only, trust me, in the next ten years you will appreciate me for making you listen to FLAC rather than MP3's.
How many of you have been in the process of replacing all your CD's with MP3's over the past few years? And how many of you have been in the process of replacing all your CD's and cassettes with MP3's over the past several years? Or for that matter, replacing CD's, cassettes, and vinyl with MP3's? I know some of you have got rid of old CDs once you have an MP3 copy of it on your computer or your iPod. Good idea? I think not. Little do you realize how low the quality is of those MP3's you are rocking on your laptop speakers or the earbuds on your iPod. It seems to sound great to you, but you have probably reached the limitation for the speakers you are using. Which is why to you, whether you are listening to a 320k MP3 or a 192k MP3, it all sounds the same to you. Well what happens when you get older and can actually afford to buy yourself a nice sound system, a good hi-fi, or maybe a rockin system for your ride. What good are those MP3's then? They sound horrid on good stereo equipment not to mention their bad quality and addition of digital artifacting can actually cause damage to good stereo equipment. ENTER...FLAC, the Free Lossless Audio Codec.
So what is FLAC? FLAC stands for Free Lossless Audio Codec, and it is an audio compression format like MP3, but while MP3 uses a "lossy" compression, which basically discards audio information that humans can't hear, FLAC uses a lossless compression, which will not change the quality of the compressed audio. This means that if you rip an Audio CD track to a FLAC file, that file will retain the same quality of the original (CD quality), like a WAV file, but it will take less space (usually about one third of the corresponding Wav file). An MP3 file would take a lot less space (about one tenth of the corresponding Wav file) but to get this compression rate MP3 (like other lossy compression algorithms, such like Ogg Vorbis or WMA), throws away part of the sound information. Of course lossy compression algorithms try to discard info that an average human can't hear, but if your ears are sensible and well trained, you will appreciate the high quality of FLAC lossless compression. I don't want to hear any crying about the lack of MP3's here. FLAC only, trust me, in the next ten years you will appreciate me for making you listen to FLAC rather than MP3's.
Monday, August 8, 2011
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