asking to be sure

[WOA76]

I am slowly going through a lot of my old mp3 CDR backups to my Harddrive I just got a lot stuff over the years

is mp3s ok?
lot give me stuff I lost and others made sets so cool I like give back

I know mp3 alot people do not want and I don't want to get in trouble with my disability I ve done that lately and feel bad so those I ask

I also like FLAC but if all I have ill take mp3s

Anyhow I hope this right place to ask I was unsure

[alphabeatles]

Can you provide a list of the items in question? If the material is readily available elsewhere in FLAC, there would be no need.

If some items exist only as mp3 and no one else has them, then we gladly take what we can get until such time a lossless upgrade appears.

My personal rules for my own audio collection (ie, these items are OK as mp3):

•Interviews
•Radio specials
•Crappy audience tapes of concerts (I've even stopped collecting these in favor of soundboards)
•Some mono items
•Anything by Ringo, ha!
•Cover versions of Beatles/solo songs
•Other rock and blues artists' CV and live stuff, depending on who it is (I do still keep a lot of lossless and even hi-res/multitracks)

[Lord Reith]

mp3 is never okay. A lot of people collect mp3s and then, when it comes to a trade, realise that nobody wants mp3 and so transcode it to flac. Therefore there are vast swathes of "flacs" on the net which are just jumped-up mp3s.

[FilmObscurest]

mp3 is never okay. A lot of people collect mp3s and then, when it comes to a trade, realise that nobody wants mp3 and so transcode it to flac. Therefore there are vast swathes of "flacs" on the net which are just jumped-up mp3s.

Yeah, that's a big problem. Spek and programs like it (I like Fakin' The Funk & Dester's AudioChecker myself) help with that, but sometimes it's hard to tell the difference if it's been futzed with. I've even heard of people transposing the audio up a couple octaves, lowering the volume, and layering it over the original to "trick" said spectrum analyzers. Despicable.

Lossless (preferably FLAC or similar) is best - but if you have something unique & rare, please share, even if just MP3. In some rare cases only MP3 copies exist, which sucks, but it happens. Those are great to have backuped too.

[alphabeatles]

mp3 is never okay. A lot of people collect mp3s and then, when it comes to a trade, realise that nobody wants mp3 and so transcode it to flac. Therefore there are vast swathes of "flacs" on the net which are just jumped-up mp3s.

Sure it is, as per my list above

Of course I know not to up-rez mp3s, so that is not an issue coming from me. I've been known to post actual FLACs here then later edit the content and mash them to mp3s for myself.

Any such stuff in my collection subsequently stays in my collection. And if I did ever have a scenario to share such items, I would make clear what they were.

[Lord Reith]

Mp3 can often produce a LARGER filesize than flac. The size of a flac is dependent on two main things: whether the left and right stereo tracks are exactly identical (then you get a 50% reduction straight off the bat) and what the frequency range of the material is. So a fairly low quality mono audio file, or an ordinary speech file will actually come out smaller encoded to flac than even a 320kb/s mp3. So there is no need to use mp3 for low quality/speech quality stuff - just encode in flac and the filesize will be very small.

The other variable is the mp3 encoderitself . Some of them produce worse results at 320kb/s than a good one does at 128. The streaming platforms seem to have especially awful lossy encoding even at so called "higher quality" tiers. I suppose this is deliberate to exaggerate the difference between 320kb/s mp3 and lossless and push subscribers towards the deluxe tiers. The BBC has very good encoding even at 128, although they do offer streams with 320 too.

The last few years I've seen a lot of stuff in flac or even hirez formats that are obviously lossy. It seems to be deliberate.

[alphabeatles]

Mp3 can often produce a LARGER filesize than flac. The size of a flac is dependent on two main things: whether the left and right stereo tracks are exactly identical (then you get a 50% reduction straight off the bat) and what the frequency range of the material is. So a fairly low quality mono audio file, or an ordinary speech file will actually come out smaller encoded to flac than even a 320kb/s mp3. So there is no need to use mp3 for low quality/speech quality stuff - just encode in flac and the filesize will be very small.

The other variable is the mp3 encoderitself . Some of them produce worse results at 320kb/s than a good one does at 128. The streaming platforms seem to have especially awful lossy encoding even at so called "higher quality" tiers. I suppose this is deliberate to exaggerate the difference between 320kb/s mp3 and lossless and push subscribers towards the deluxe tiers. The BBC has very good encoding even at 128, although they do offer streams with 320 too.

The last few years I've seen a lot of stuff in flac or even hirez formats that are obviously lossy. It seems to be deliberate.

Thanks as always for the technical notes! I have been using XLD at 320's best settings. Otherwise the good stuff is still in FLAC.

[WOA76]

mp3 is never okay. A lot of people collect mp3s and then, when it comes to a trade, realise that nobody wants mp3 and so transcode it to flac. Therefore there are vast swathes of "flacs" on the net which are just jumped-up mp3s.

i hate this as well

[WOA76]

Can you provide a list of the items in question? If the material is readily available elsewhere in FLAC, there would be no need.

If some items exist only as mp3 and no one else has them, then we gladly take what we can get until such time a lossless upgrade appears.

My personal rules for my own audio collection (ie, these items are OK as mp3):

•Interviews
•Radio specials
•Crappy audience tapes of concerts (I've even stopped collecting these in favor of soundboards)
•Some mono items
•Anything by Ringo, ha!
•Cover versions of Beatles/solo songs
•Other rock and blues artists' CV and live stuff, depending on who it is (I do still keep a lot of lossless and even hi-res/multitracks)

as i just started locating CDRs and DVDrs ill make list here when i get stuff

yea i hate mp3s also
thank you so much everyone

[WOA76]

mp3 is never okay. A lot of people collect mp3s and then, when it comes to a trade, realise that nobody wants mp3 and so transcode it to flac. Therefore there are vast swathes of "flacs" on the net which are just jumped-up mp3s.

what your views on ALC ? is it really lossses like FLAC ?

now i seen other pages people encoding stuff .DSD and 10 gbs album

creacted me if wrong i like learn but DSD will not be any better then the scorce so if its 16bit or 24bit it wont be 128bit ?

cause i download record someone endoded with DSD and bitrate omn my Foobar was 0000 numbers never seen it efore but file was 200mb

am i wrong says if would been normal flac endoed 0 it sound same ?

i hope i said this right trying lrean