I tried ripping one song yesterday from my CD to FLAC and it took up 31.3mb and it’s only 4:04! When I rip the same thing in mp3 at 320kbps it takes up 9.33mb … less than 1/3 the size of FLAC! For this it just can’t be worth it IMO, well, not unless I had a 160gb hardrive.
Bob: when you say encode from FLAC to mp3 that’s virtually the same as ripping into mp3, right? Same sound quality?
@ackers wrote:
I tried ripping one song yesterday from my CD to FLAC and it took up 31.3mb and it’s only 4:04! When I rip the same thing in mp3 at 320kbps it takes up 9.33mb … less than 1/3 the size of FLAC! For this it just can’t be worth it IMO, well, not unless I had a 160gb hardrive.
Bob: when you say encode from FLAC to mp3 that’s virtually the same as ripping into mp3, right? Same sound quality?
Like I said in my previous post, for many people it may not be worth it for sound quality alone, but there are many other reasons that definitely make it worth while.
And yes, ripping straight to MP3 should give the same result as transcoding FLAC to MP3. But if you ever change your mind and want to use a different bit-rate or codec, you’re SOL if you ripped to MP3. In that case, to get a good result you have to rerip your CDs. With FLAC, you just change your transcoding preferences.
Yes, from FLAC to MP3 wil sound the same as CD to MP3. The obvious advantage is that you can archive your CD collection onto the hard drive in far less space.
FLAC capability on the device itself means you can plop a direct FLAC track onto the Clip to check it out, or hear it in the highest quality possible.
To the audiophile, this is key. Though many prefer to load a collection of music onto the device, the audiophile is content with the quality first and foremost, so loading a few CDs worth onto the entire memory is fine, as that’s all that’s going to be listened to in a particular listening session.
Along that line of thinking, that’s part of the overall equation, why I have 400 pounds (about 180kg) of speakers, and 1600W of “ugly” amplifier (75 pounds) to drive them.
The wee Clip is the first device that’s made my ears happy in many years, having tried them by happenstance.
Come to think of it, I could take some favorite vinyl recordings, build a wav file of the happy sounds, and send it to the Clip as FLAC. Hmmm… an analog-to-digital converter with balanced inputs… One could go nuts!
Bob 
I almost jumped out of my pants when i saw the changelog for the firmware.
Thanks you sansa for FLAC support!!
FLAC’n awesome.
Thankyou Sansa.
@neutron_bob wrote:
Come to think of it, I could take some favorite vinyl recordings, build a wav file of the happy sounds, and send it to the Clip as FLAC. Hmmm… an analog-to-digital converter with balanced inputs… One could go nuts!
I know it’s a little off topic, but you’re looking to rip vinyl, you might want to check these out:
If you already have a pro-level sound card:
ART DeeJayPreII Phono Preamp with RIAA EQ Curve
Or if you want an all in one solution that doesn’t require a separate sound card:
ART USB Phono Plus V2 RIAA Phono Preamp
I’m thinking about getting a DeeJayPreII to rip vinyl with my Presonus FireBox. I’ve played around hooking a turntable up to my FireBox via an old receiver with a phono preamp and the results were shockingly good. I would expect one of the above solutions to be even better.
The recoding process is pretty painless and the results are really good, but it’s definitely a huge PITA to split out the individual tracks, clean up any bad pops/clicks and get everything converted to FLAC and tagged. So I only do it for titles I really love that were never available on CD.
Actually, I guess it is somewhat on topic, since ripping vinyl is another strong argument for FLAC. It’s such a huge PITA that, believe me, you never want to have to do it again if you decide to transcode. At least FLAC give you that peace of mind, even if FLACs superior sound quality wasn’t a priority.
Cool stuff. I want to isolate the PC sound card from the audio source, especially to limit ground loops.
I am looking forward to editing the tracks, quite used to the old school one-track at a time method.
My previous backups are on 10.5 inch NAB reels, 1/4 inch tape. I can get a nice noise floor, no dbx encoding, going straight to digital. My LPs are pristine. It will be nice to hear the old Sumiko Virtuoso Talisman (MC cartridge) singing through the Sansa.
Staying on topic, FLAC will be a worthy digital playback method, otherwise, I’d simply go with CDs.
Bob :smileyvery-happy:
well FLAC is CD Quality in files, so basicly you can put your CDs on your sansa ;D
Thanks to all in this thread, especially Skinjob, for the clear explanations of the advantages of ripping CDs to FLAC. And why it’s so good to use that for archiving.
I’ve made master backups of many of my CDs, but they’re 320kbps mp3s. It seems it’s worth the time it takes to rerip in FLAC.
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