Downloading music- What file type?

[Scraff]

When downloading music and wanting to get the best quality possible, what file types should I look for? I know FLAC files have better quality than MP3s, so I will Google an album name and add the words "torrent" and "FLAC", but some albums I'm looking for aren't shared in FLAC format (or at least i can't find them).

Any other suggestions? What do you folks do to get the best quality you can out of your music downloads?

[Skiz]

Flac is considered lossless. In other words it is an exact duplicate of the CD or original source. MP3s are lossy. There is a loss of quality when ripping music from a source such as a cd/record/tape/etc into MP3 format.

That being said, generally, your best MP3 format will be what is called "V0" which is a variable bitrate.

I would also suggest only downloading music in 192k or higher. Any lower than that and the poor quality can really show begin to show.

[djerholler69]

flac is great due to the ability of 'archiving' your music, and being able to transcode lossless-lossy should you need to save space/put it in your ipod. due to the huge amount of space however, most use lame v0/v2 encoding for size/quality efficiency.

yep, and of course never attempt to transcode lossy-lossy, it never works and it just screws your files up. for flac downloads, maybe you could try usenet, or get access to certain private trackers ;)

[n00bz0r]

FLAC ofc.
The ability to encode it into any format of your choice makes it the best format to share music in.If you have a decent setup , you can always hear the difference between an MP3 and a FLAC.
Best places to grab FLACs from: Pedros' , What.cd, waffles and E****.

[shipwreck]

FLAC is not the only lossless audio format.

Quality wise, there is no difference between the various lossless audio codecs like FLAC, APE (Monkey's Audio), ALAC (Apple Lossless), WavPack etc. - lossless is lossless, which means that there is no information lost in the encoding process (in contrast to lossy algorithms like mp3), and hence no quality difference to the uncompressed (.wav) format. You can compare it to file compression on your PC (e.g. .zip/.rar) -> reduction of the file size without any information being lost.

The only difference between the various lossless formats is efficiency (some compress better than others) and especially compatibility. FLAC is the de-facto lossless audio standard now, because it is efficient and free (open source -> no licence costs), and hence already supported by various audio hardware. FLAC therefore is the most compatible lossless audio codec, and first choice not just for pirates.

So if you can't find the music you are looking for in the FLAC format, try searching for other lossless formats as listed above. You can always convert them to the (lossless) format of your choice without any quality loss.

[$SnoopDo2G$]

FLAC is using such a big place... lol, 500 MB for an album and even more ? wtf
almost the size of a DVDRip LOOOL...

anyways i say grab good EAC's n VBR Rips n u'll be alright if you don't wanna waste space on hdd...

[zot]

Before FLAC got popular, Monkey's Audio (.APE) files were by far the most common lossless format on P2P, and you still see a lot of them on the ED2K network.

Just because it's lossless does not mean it's perfect; lossless files can still have skips and errors in them if the wav was poorly ripped or the CD was scratched. (That's when EAC comes in handy)

But for me, as hard as I've tried, I can't tell any difference whatsoever between a lossless and a high-bitrate MP3, and I doubt that many people can either.

[mbucari1]

Before FLAC got popular, Monkey's Audio (.APE) files were by far the most common lossless format on P2P, and you still see a lot of them on the ED2K network.

Just because it's lossless does not mean it's perfect; lossless files can still have skips and errors in them if the wav was poorly ripped or the CD was scratched. (That's when EAC comes in handy)

But for me, as hard as I've tried, I can't tell any difference whatsoever between a lossless and a high-bitrate MP3, and I doubt that many people can either.
What's also rarely mentioned is that CD's are actually a lossy encoding of the original studio recording. Studios record at a much high frequency and have a MUCH higher bit depth. You can sometimes get the original studio quality (or very close to it) with DVD-Audio or SACD. Those who say they have a great sound system should seriously look into DVD-A's and SACD's. If you hear the difference between CDs and V0 mp3's, Then you'll definately hear the difference between HD-Audio and CD's. Regular CD's will sound like crap in comparison.

[n00bz0r]

Before FLAC got popular, Monkey's Audio (.APE) files were by far the most common lossless format on P2P, and you still see a lot of them on the ED2K network.

Just because it's lossless does not mean it's perfect; lossless files can still have skips and errors in them if the wav was poorly ripped or the CD was scratched. (That's when EAC comes in handy)

But for me, as hard as I've tried, I can't tell any difference whatsoever between a lossless and a high-bitrate MP3, and I doubt that many people can either.
What's also rarely mentioned is that CD's are actually a lossy encoding of the original studio recording. Studios record at a much high frequency and have a MUCH higher bit depth. You can sometimes get the original studio quality (or very close to it) with DVD-Audio or SACD. Those who say they have a great sound system should seriously look into DVD-A's and SACD's. If you hear the difference between CDs and V0 mp3's, Then you'll definately hear the difference between HD-Audio and CD's. Regular CD's will sound like crap in comparison.
Thats true.
DVD-As and SACDs offer a higher bitrate and multiple channels.
They are the future :D

[the]

I encode my music into 32kb/s M4A format. Can't notice the difference than with 192kB/s MP3 format. Guess I should get my ears tested. :/

[shipwreck]

Before FLAC got popular, Monkey's Audio (.APE) files were by far the most common lossless format on P2P, and you still see a lot of them on the ED2K network.

Just because it's lossless does not mean it's perfect; lossless files can still have skips and errors in them if the wav was poorly ripped or the CD was scratched. (That's when EAC comes in handy)

But for me, as hard as I've tried, I can't tell any difference whatsoever between a lossless and a high-bitrate MP3, and I doubt that many people can either.
What's also rarely mentioned is that CD's are actually a lossy encoding of the original studio recording. Studios record at a much high frequency and have a MUCH higher bit depth. You can sometimes get the original studio quality (or very close to it) with DVD-Audio or SACD. Those who say they have a great sound system should seriously look into DVD-A's and SACD's. If you hear the difference between CDs and V0 mp3's, Then you'll definately hear the difference between HD-Audio and CD's. Regular CD's will sound like crap in comparison.

By that definition, all digital recording is "lossy", because no matter how high the sample rate / bit depth is, it will never be a 1:1 reproduction of the analogue source.

And that's the point, the source in most cases is the CD (16bit / 44.1 khz). FLAC and other lossless compression algorithms allow the indeed lossless compression of digital sources, not just CDs.

[The_Martinator]

Without continuing your debate, I'll say I only DL FLAC these days. I used to go for MP3s before (anything over 128 bitrate), but since getting into Pedro's and buying a new sound system it's FLAC all the way.

[cinephilia]

.wav ftw:snooty:

[john pal]

Most of the music I snatch I try to listen all of it. to do that I have to listen it in mp3 format due to my gadgets does not read flac. So mainly I download mp3 (V0). However If I had the space to and means I would download only flac.

[mbucari1]

Thats true.
DVD-As and SACDs offer a higher bitrate and multiple channels.
They are the future :D
Sadly, they're not the future. SACD's were introduced 10 years agon and DVD-A's 9 years ago. If they were going to replace anything, they would be more popular by now. The problem is twofold. First, in order to hear the difference you have to have a very good sound system and players capable of playing the disks. Second, most people don't care about the sound quality. Look at how many people buy ipods. They have some of the worst playback quality of any mp3 player on the market, yet they're by far the most popular. On top of that, people happliy downloaded 128kbps AAC's from itunes for years before they upped the encoding quality. And most of the people pirating their music are content to get a 128Kbps mp3 as long as it's the song they want. The low standards of the masses will end up limiting the availability of high quality audio.

EDIT** Another example of the masses settling is that they use youtube to listen to music. I understand the need to be able to pull up a song quickly, but there are a lot of music search engines that let you stream from the web. I've tried showing these to friends, but they don't care. They're content with what youtube has to offer.

[Judoka]

FLAC ... best quality!

[mbucari1]

FLAC ... best quality!
Even if someone transcoded an mp3 into a wav and then compressed it with flac?

General statements like yours aren't terribly helpful.

[2drunk]

as a music lover I want the best quality
mp320 or FLAC i donwload most.

[Hrusciov]

FLAC if you really like the music you are listening to.

[cinephilia]

FLAC if you really like the music you are listening to.
that's not a matter of loving the music you're listening, that's a matter of having the adequate hi-fi equipment to enjoy all the nuances of flac quality.

[Roooney]

You have to have good ears if you can hear the difference between a 320.mp3 and a flac.