Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Stereo MP3's vs. CD's

I play flac files over my network, so yes, they're stored on a hard drive.

Of course, if you want the mp3 format, software such as JetAudio can create an mp3 file from a flac file. I do this to load my player.

OK they're stored on a hardrive but how do they get there?

From a computer.

Just like you can rip CDs to make mp3s, you can choose to create .flac files instead of .mp3.

Have a look here, here, and here.

There are plenty of player programs available. I like this one; it suits my needs. YMMV.

Read:

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?

http://flac.sourceforge.net/

http://www.winamp.com/

You're welcome.

I don't want to! Here I am listening to a LP (ya know a record) and you fellows are doing this fancy new stuff

Sure, Bob; that's how "lossy" audio compression formats such as MP3 work. A large part of the digital data is removed in a way that in the best examples causes little or no audible loss of sound quality. For example, the CD format uses 44.1KHz sampling frequency X 16 bits X 2 channels = 1411.2 K bits/s. Even the highest MP3 rate of 320 Kbps therefore uses only a little over 20% of the total data. Nevertheless, the remarkable fact is that properly controlled blind listening tests have shown that this data compression can be inaudible, with the amount of compression that can be allowed varying with the specific music passages involved. As Alan pointed out, 320 Kbps has been shown to be audibly transparent. MP3s therefore aren't necessarily inferior in actually discernible sound quality.

I have all of my music stored in FLAC format on a 500 GB external drive... works great over the network.

For those storing their music in FLAC, what level of compression do you use? Does it Matter? I had no idea there was any choice until I started playing with Media Monkey.

This FLAC is new to me. Can you download these songs from a site on the internet such as I-Tunes, etc or do they have to be loaded onto the drive from CD's?

And I suppose that you need a special hookup to play a hard drive that my 2309 doesn't have.