Question for those that have ripped to FLAC

[shoehorn]

So - I understand the idea of ripping to FLAC... my question is....
Do you play your FLAC files around the house (over Sonos, SqueezeBox, etc.)
and have a duplicate set of MP3 files (compressed) for portable players?
In essence do you have two copies of the same music, one in FLAC and one in MP3, stored on you PC?

[Ragnarok]

I play flacs everywhere. They work properly on my Rockboxed Iriver.

[happyhomer]

I'm in the process of ripping my collection to FLAC, in preparation for getting either a Sonos or Squeezebox (haven't 100% decided which yet). My plan is to then use MediaMonkey to batch-convert the whole lot to a compressed format for use on my portable.

[miceri]

FLAC copies stored on internal drive.

mp3 from FLAC stored in external, created as and when needed. Deleted it needed also as i have the FLAC 'orignial' safe.

[lazymatt]

FLAC for playing around the house on Sonos
MP3 at 320 kbps for the iPod 60 Gb
MP3 at 192 kbps for the shuffle

[derekn]

Hi,

I'm still a novice but, thanks to help from this forum, have found a procedure that works for me. I use MMGold and rip FLAC to a "Rips" folder on my C drive, say 20 - 30 albums at a time. Then tag them before copying to my NAS (for Sonos) and then to external drive for backup. Finally batch convert overnight to a "MP3" folder on my C drive for my Creatives before deleting the initial rip. Two weeks in and hope to be finished by the end of next week .

The Sonos and, I'm sure, other similar systems open up a whole new way of listening to ones collection .

Regards,

[Autopilot]

Entire CD collection in FLAC (ripped with EAC) and streamed around the home using Squeezebox 3 and sometimes my HTC PDA (when mowing the lawn etc). Stored on PC and backed up on external HDD.

I use Foobar2000 to convert to LAME MP3 VBR for portable use, usually around 192Kbps (forget what VBR setting that would be).

I do most of my music listening at home, so i just use my Nokia N95 (pants, but always in my pocket) and mainly my HTC PDA with the brilliant Conduits Pocket Player which also does streaming over my home WiFi.

That said, i plan to take advantage of the strong pound and buy a few gadgets when i am in New York, so i will probably get an iPod and batch covert to LAME MP3 256-320.

[shoehorn]

Thanks all....

Originally Posted by lazymatt

FLAC for playing around the house on Sonos
MP3 at 320 kbps for the iPod 60 Gb
MP3 at 192 kbps for the shuffle

so lazymatt - does this mean you have 3 copies of the same music (albeit at differing qualities..) ?

[lazymatt]

Originally Posted by shoehorn

Thanks all....


so lazymatt - does this mean you have 3 copies of the same music (albeit at differing qualities..) ?

Yeah!!!

Bit sad, I know, but it works for me. Also handy for demoing the difference.

Thing is, once in FLAC (or any lossless format for that matter) it's easy to batch convert to any thing you want really.

[Ceejayav]

And another one with three copies. FLAC for lossless, and MP3 and AAC for different portable players in use by different family members. I automate the generation of the lossy files by using the MAREO add-on to EAC which does as many multiple compressions as you want. Not a huge space overhead, really.

[PJTX100]

I have 256K MP3 everything. CBR. (I somehow don't like an algorithm deciding that this bit of the music is perfectly OK at 92K or lower). But I know VBR seems to be in vogue now.

And for those special albums I really like I have... CD! I don't often play them though, 256K MP3 sounds pretty damn good in most environments.

I may rerip my favourite CDs to FLAC at some future date if the iPod (with the native firmware) ever supports it. I need the native firmware for my ICE setup (which i'm just about to upgrade with the new Alpine iPod-mimicing head unit - artwork and full tag navigation!). I do have some CDRs (live concerts etc) that I've backed up to FLAC. Don't rely on CDRs!

FLAC all the way with batch processing seems the way to go, if I could have bought 4 or 5 Tb of storage for reasonable money when I converted my collection I'd certainly have gone that way. (twice what I needed but remember to back it all up folks!)