FLAC & hi-res music in one program?

[dcanham001]

Evening all,

The plan is to have 2 music libraries stored on my computer - one as 320 MP3s for out and about ipod listening and another with FLAC files for at-home headphone listening. I will use itunes for the MP3s.
I have had a look through previous threads and the following seem to be popular for creating FLAC files: dbpoweramp, media monkey and foobar2000.
My question is: if I download some higher resolution music (from B&W or HDtracks for example) am I able to get these tracks to appear alongside my FLAC files in all these programs?

Thanks!

 

[davejberry]

dunno about B&W but HDtracks and LINN offer hi res in flac format. I use J River to play them as it has wasapi plugin for windows 7

 

[dcanham001]

Thanks for the reply. So I shouldn't have a problem getting them to appear with the rest of my FLAC music regardless of which software I end up using?

 

[VoodooDoctor]

With Media Monkey you would only have to add the files to the Library for them to appear.

 

[tino]

Thanks for the reply. So I shouldn't have a problem getting them to appear with the rest of my FLAC music regardless of which software I end up using?

Shouldn't be a problem ... I use Foobar2K with mainly several FLAC libraries and an MP3 library. Everything appears OK. Make sure the tagging is consistent across the your libraries ... but also be aware if you have the same music in both libraries you might get music tracks appearing twice!

Have you thought of converting your computer based library (FLAC + 320K MP3s) down to a separate lower bit-rate MP3 library (say V0, V1 or V2 VBR quality) so that you'll fit more mustic on your iPod. I doubt that when you're out and about the difference between 320Kbps and the other VBR quality settings will be noticeable if at all.

 

[dcanham001]

Thanks for the replies everyone.
Tino - In truth not all my music will be in both lossless and 320 MP3. Only my favourite music will be in FLAC. Therefore it is likely that I will listen to some of my MP3s through my headphone set up when the mood takes me hence the 320 and not 120.
Good point though - if it was just for 'on the move' listening I would agree

 

[Anonymous]

Just to clarify, FLAC is the compression approach and file format, not the bit rate or bit depth. Bit rate and depth is specified in the header of the FLAC file.

Most of the hires downloads I have seen are in FLAC format. You can mix FLAC files of different bit rate and depth in the same directory, the question is whether your streamer is able to play them.

I have a mixed squeeze setup with some players that can cope with hires and some that cant. I have both hires (24/96) and standard 16/44.1 music stored as FLAC files. The files all show up on the squeeze system as normal.

A nice feature is that if you select a hires file on a player that cant cope, the system downsamples the file automatically on the fly and streams it to the player at a speed it can cope with.

 

[kena]

You could just store in FLAC and convert to MP3 as necessary when sending to your IPOD, thats what I do via Foobar2000

 

[dcanham001]

The DAC I'm considering can handle 24/192 over USB how would you recommend ripping my CDs for maximum sound quality? I am using media monkey to rip my CDs and I crank it up to maximum quality when doing so. When I right click on the track and look at the 'properties' > 'details' tab it tells me that the files have a bitrate of 984 and a frequency of 44 100.
Is it the frequency that I should be looking at? I'm not quite sure what these numbers actually mean - can anyone enlighten me? How will I know if this is a good match for the DAC?
Thanks,

 

[Anonymous]

When I right click on the track and look at the 'properties' > 'details' tab it tells me that the files have a bitrate of 984 and a frequency of 44 100

That's odd. Full CD bitrate is 1400kb/s (1411 iirc). What format are you ripping to?

Don't bother with hi-res, CDs are all 16/44.1, saving them at any higher sample rate or bit depth will only use more disk space for absolutely zero benefit.

 

[krazy_olie]

When I right click on the track and look at the 'properties' > 'details' tab it tells me that the files have a bitrate of 984 and a frequency of 44 100

That's odd. Full CD bitrate is 1400kb/s (1411 iirc). What format are you ripping to?

Don't bother with hi-res, CDs are all 16/44.1, saving them at any higher sample rate or bit depth will only use more disk space for absolutely zero benefit.

That sounds about right actually. If you are ripping lossles to something like FLAC, wma lossless the bitrate is sort of meaningless. It's usually just the file size divided by the time from what I can tell. I use WMA lossless and the "bitrate" seems to vary between about 800 kb/a and 1 mb/s due to some tracks just compressing better by chance.

 

[krazy_olie]

double post :/