can someone tell me the major differneces, im a former music major and am curious

the major difference: while flac is lossless, mp3 is compressed so taking less memory.

flac files are bigger than mp3, but disks and memory are nearly free nowadays.
the difference in setup/rip time is none.
i never have to touch my physical cd's ever again, i can transcode from flac to anything else i want (for ipod for instance), and its lossless. so i go for flac.

what to choose, can you hear difference between a properly encoded mp3 and a flac?
don't know: how good is your system? how good are your ears?

form your own opinion, making your own test:
if you can hear no difference, then there is no difference.
if you can hear a difference, then decide if it is worth doing.

thanks johnny b

Flac is to audio what .zip & .rar are to other types of files. I think of .flac as a container which is then compressed to take out any 'space', so that it's easier to send, doesn't take as much room to store. Flac doesn't lose any information in it's compression, you get out exactly what you put in.

So: if you put in a .wav file ripped from a cd for instance, you will get exactly that .wav file back when you decompress. If you where to put an mp3 into a flac you would not upgrade that mp3, it would stay exactly as it was.

mp3s are typically .wav files that have had audio information removed to bring the file size down to a manageable level, for instance in sending over the net, portable music players etc. The method of compression is arcane but one understandable characteristic is that everything below about 80hz & above about 16khz is chopped off.

There are other forms of compression. Shorten (.shn) & wavpack (.wv) are 2 other forms of lossless compression, whereas .wma is another lossy compression system.

As j.b.goode has pointed out: it's all in the ears

Lossless Compressed Formats

If you care about audio fidelity, lossy compression just doesn't cut it. No matter high the sampling rate or how good the compression algorithm, lossy files don't sound quite as good as the originals. (Remember that word "lossy"—you lose something in the translation!)

If you want to create a high fidelity digital archive, a better solution is to use a lossless compression format. These formats work more or less like ZIP compression; redundant bits are taken out to create the compressed file, which is then uncompressed for playback. So what you hear has exact fidelity to the original, while still being stored in a smaller-sized file.

Of course, a lossless compressed file isn't as near small as a file with lossy compression. While an MP3 file might be 10% the size of the original, uncompressed file, a file with lossless compression is typically about 50% the original's size. This is why lossless compression isn't recommended for portable music players, where storage space is limited. If you're storing your CD collection on hard disk, however, it works just fine—especially with today's cheap hard disk prices. You can easily store 1,000 CDs on a 300GB hard disk, using any lossless compression format.

What formats can you choose from? The list isn't quite as long as with lossy compression, nor or the formats quite as well known. Here's a short list:

Apple Lossless Audio Codec (ALAC, M4A)—A lossless compression option available for use with Apple's iTunes and iPod.

Free Lossless Codec (FLAC)—An open-source lossless format, embraced by many consumer electronics manufacturers and usable with all major operating systems, including both Windows and Linux.

Windows Media Audio Lossless (WMA), Microsoft's lossless compression format, available in Windows Media Player versions 9 and 10—probably the best option for lossless compression today. (Uses the same WMA file extension as normal Windows Media Audio files.)


Lossy Compressed Formats

Lossy compression works by sampling the original file and removing those ranges of sounds that the average listener can't hear. A lossless encoder uses complex algorithms to determine what sounds a human is able to hear, based on accepted psychoacoustic models, and chops off those sounds outside this range. You can control the sound quality and the size of the resulting file by selecting different sampling rates for the data. The less sampling going on, the smaller the file size—and the lower the sound quality.

The problem with shrinking files to this degree, of course, is that by making a smaller file, you've dramatically reduced the sampling rate of the music. This results in music that sounds compressed; it won't have the high-frequency response or the dynamic range (the difference between soft and loud passages) of the original recording. To many users, the sound of the compressed file will be acceptable, much like listening to an FM radio station. To other users, however, the compression presents an unacceptable alternative to high-fidelity reproduction.

The most popular lossy compressed format today is the MP3 format, although there are lots of other formats that work in the same fashion. Here's a list of available lossy formats:

Advanced Audio Coding (AAC)—Also known as MPEG-4 AAC, this is the proprietary audio format used by Apple's iTunes and iPod. AAC offers slightly better sound quality than MP3 files along with strong digital rights management (DMA), to prevent unauthorized use. Unfortunately, most non-Apple music players won't play AAC-format songs—but if you're an iPod user, this is the format you'll be using.

MP3 (MP3)—Short for MPEG-1 Level 3, the MP3 format remains the most widely-used digital audio format today, with a decent compromise between small file size and sound quality. The primary advantage of MP3 is its universality; unlike most other file formats, just about every digital music player and player program can handle MP3-format music.

OGG Vorbis (OGG)—An open-source encoding technology originally known as "Squish," OGG Vorbis was designed as a substitute for MP3 and WMA. It uses variable bitrate compression, which encodes different parts of a song with higher or lower compression, to produce better quality when needed.

QuickTime Audio (MOV)—Essentially the same MPEG-4 technology as the AAC format,

RealAudio Media (RA, RM, RMA)—Proprietary format used by Real Networks, designed particularly for real-time streaming audio feeds.

Windows Media Audio (WMA)—Microsoft's digital audio format is promoted as an MP3 alternative with similar audio quality at half the file size. That may be stretching it a bit, but WMA does typically offer a slightly better compromise between compression and quality than you find with MP3 files. It also provides strong digital rights management.

Great info!

Lots of wear and tear on my eardrums over the years from playing music too loud and working around machines. I however, find that regardless of file format, listening thru upgraded iPod speakers (and good amp/speakers at home) makes a huge difference for any format. Speakers or headphones that can't reproduce highs and lows basically mimic what compression does. So, if your speakers/headphones are not good, you may notice little, if any difference.

I use iTunes on a Mac, and get 5 choices for encoding: MP3, WAV, AAC, AIFF and Apple Lossless. I tend to import music as either Lossless or if using MP3, I use a high bit rate (320). They use more space on my hard drive, and iPod, but I know if I ever pass them to someone who can tell the difference, they get the best possible sound.