Rant: FLAC sucks!

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awdrifter

awdrifter

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Why would anyone use FLAC? What's wrong with separate MP3s? I just spent more than an hour manually separating the tracks back to individual MP3s. (btw, is there any program that can automatically detect the end of a song and separate it for you automatically?) I thought release groups are all about efficiency, why are they adopting this gay ass format? It's still 3 times the size of 320k/s MP3s, and the sound difference are negligible on most people's systems, it's not playable on portable mmusic players. Unless you have few grand invested into your audio, you won't be able to tell the difference, and if someone is willing to spend a few grand on audio, they'd probably bought the real CD anyways.
 
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FLAC is lossless (i.e. an exact copy, just compressed), MP3's are not (data is lost).

Personally I stick to v0 quality MP3's. The loss is minimal.
 
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Exactly, 320kb/s MP3 have mininal quality loss, and you won't need to reconvert it for your portable music player. It seems like a much better release format than FLAC.
 
Glad you got that off your chest. I personally have no problem with any MP3 above 192kb/s. I suppose I would if I cared about the quality, but I don't.
 
I wanted to put a few of the songs on my phone, which only plays mp3 and m4a format files. 192kb/s (or even 128kb/s) is good enough for portable music players, but I guess 320kb/s would be a better compromise bewteen quality and size for releases. FLAC's sizes are just rediculous, it's not even that much smaller than uncompressed .wav files.
 
awdrifter said:
Exactly, 320kb/s MP3 have mininal quality loss, and you won't need to reconvert it for your portable music player. It seems like a much better release format than FLAC.
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/facepalm

Your noob is showing. ;)


FLAC is just a file format. As is MP3's, WAV, AAC, etc. etc. etc. All of them can be used the same way. FLAC does not have to be one file and usually isn't. Infact I believe most FLAC rips are broken up into tracks just like most MP3-based rips are. The ripper just opted not to. They could have just as easily ripped to a single MP3 file if they wished.

FLAC is to MP3 as PNG is to JPEG. Both FLAC and PNG are lossless and produce a much better result. However keep the compression low enough (i.e. high bitrate) and the differences, while still noticable, are less apparent (ever listen to a 128kbps MP3 and realize how absolutely terrible it sounds?). Even 320kbps isn't that great. I prefer variable bitrate anyway (v0 setting). It works out to around 200kbps for most tracks.

Plus not everyone uses portable music players, although there are plenty of ones that support FLAC.


FLAC isn't for most people, but don't knock it. You make yourself look silly. ;)

awdrifter said:
I wanted to put a few of the songs on my phone, which only plays mp3 and m4a format files. 192kb/s (or even 128kb/s) is good enough for portable music players, but I guess 320kb/s would be a better compromise bewteen quality and size for releases. FLAC's sizes are just rediculous, it's not even that much smaller than uncompressed .wav files.
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Again, use a variable bitrate. Fixed bitrates are retarded. For example, NiN's Ghosts I-IV is 284MB as MP3 320, 189MB as MP3 VBR V0, and 561MB as FLAC.

And FLAC is about 46% of the filesize of a CD while still containing every single bit.
 
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My only bone with FLAC is that Ipods can't read them. After i lost my HDD i made a mistake redownloading my music collection (about 10GB mp3) in FLAC, only to find out i can't copy it on Ipod therefore i had to download the mp3s and now it takes 5 times as much space.
 
ViperVX said:
My only bone with FLAC is that Ipods can't read them.
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Your bone should be with Apple. ;) I mean, they support AAC (the MP4 format designed to replace MP3), but not FLAC. Bah!
 
Additionally, most release groups not only pirate films, TV shows, software and music, but also refuse to accept the notion of "intellectual property" and software patents on ideological grounds.
That's why they use open source, patent-free codecs/containers like FLAC, Ogg Vorbis or Matroshka instead of patented, copyrighted, closed-source aequivaltents like, in this case, MPEG1 Layer 3.
 
I don't get it either... unless you're a complete audiophile with a SUPER PC setup and awesome speakers + perfect hearing, you'll never hear the difference between 320kbps MP3 and FLAC.

Hell, I heard even recording studios say that 256 kbps is plenty

I don't really care about filesize either, I have 8 gigs on my Creative, which is plenty... only beef I have with it it's unreadable by MP3 players
 
The main reason why stuff is available in FLAC is so that people can then choose in what way they want to store the music. IF you download stuff in mp3 format, yet you like a lower bitrate, or vbr stuff, it can be done but it is not advisable since you're going from one lossy format to another. Same goes for mp3 to ogg recodes. When you download in FLAC, you get your music in a lossless format, and can choose your own lossy or lossless format in which you like to store your music.
 
Yeah, FLAC is stupid, use MP4/AAC. Much better than paleolithic MP3s. Step into the modern era. :p

and I'll bet you that your single file had an index to seperate the tracks that you just didn't know how to use
 
I also can not see the real use of the format.
Friends of me are DJing in Discos/Clubs and using Traktor Scratch with 320kbit mp3s. Sounds perfect... Even a "good" club sound system isn't THAT good that you would say... this sounds worse then normal CD audio/flac. But there is a noticable difference between 128 or 192 and 320kbit mp3. But just not between 320 and flac...

PS: Isn't there a .cue file with the rip that can be used to cut it?
 
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I think FLAC has slightly better in-room bass, but there's hardly any difference on headphones. Still, I've got the space and the bandwidth, and I use them, so what the hell's your problem? It's not like anything's uploaded exclusively in FLAC.
 
Geez lay off the FLAC hate, yeah? As it's already been said, it's not meant for everyone. FLAC is made for people who want an exact copy (sound wise) of a music CD. There is already plenty of FLAC to MP3/ACC converters out there. Winamp comes with FLAC support standard for a few years now and so does Nero. Don't like FLAC? Don't download it. :p

Viper007Bond said:
Your bone should be with Apple. ;) I mean, they support AAC (the MP4 format designed to replace MP3), but not FLAC. Bah!
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The main reason for this is 'cause they already have a propiatery lossless format with Apple Lossless. I ripped Dark Side of the Moon with this and I gotta say, you can really hear the difference.
 
Viper007Bond said:
Again, use a variable bitrate. Fixed bitrates are retarded. For example, NiN's Ghosts I-IV is 284MB as MP3 320, 189MB as MP3 VBR V0, and 561MB as FLAC.
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Why are fixed bitrates retarded? Just because the filesize is bigger? Well, of course higher quality = bigger file, but I don't see why it's retarded to shoot for the best quality for the particular format. If filesize isn't an issue (but a person still wants to stick with the mp3 format), it makes more sense to go for the higher overall quality of a constant bitrate, such as 320kbs. The only real advantage of a variable bitrate is that you save some hard drive space, but you will lose quality. So if you have plenty of room, might as well go for the best quality available for the format.

EDIT: I'm only talking about max quality (320kbs for mp3). With anything less, a variable bitrate would be the the better choice of course.
 
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But a constant bitrate is only better if you do the max, if you don't do the max then at some points there won't be enough bits to have it sounding as good as it sounded a second ago, thus why variable bitrate is the smart choice. Also having silence take up the same amount of space as a really loud part is retarded.

Whatever, I have too much music to have a stupid high bitrate anyways. Which is also why I use M4A instead of MP3 - better quality on lower bitrates. M4A makes MP3 sound like crap.
 
Ramseus said:
But a constant bitrate is only better if you do the max
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That's what I was saying too. I was really only talking about max quality. If you have extra space, might as well go for max quality. Otherwise, yeah, variable is the way to go.
 
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