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A beginners guide to lossless audio

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This guide will explain what lossless audio is, how to convert lossless audio files (flac, shn) to mp3, how to burn lossless audio to CD etc. Windows and OS X are both covered. Read on..

  1. What is lossless audio?
  2. Where to download lossless music
  3. How to play lossless audio files (Windows and OS X)
  4. How to convert lossless audio to mp3 (Windows, OS X and Linux)
  5. How to burn lossless files as audio cds (Windows and OS X)
  6. Related Tutorials/Help (how to download w/ bittorrent etc)

1. What is lossless audio?

Lossless audio (.flac, .shn, etc) allows the exact original audio to be reconstructed from the compressed audio. This can be contrasted to lossy audio (.mp3, .aac), which does not allow the exact original audio to be reconstructed from the compressed. What does this really mean? If you encode a CD/audio file to mp3, you lose quality. If you encode a CD/audio file to .flac or .shn, you do not.

2. Where to download lossless music

 - archive.org (web or ftp)
 - bt.etree.org (bittorrent)
 - dimeadozen.org (bittorrent, registration required)
 - The Traders Den (bittorrent, registation required)
 - cotapers (bittorrent)
 - your favorite bands home page or online store (Gov’t Mule, Umphrey’s McGee, etc)

3. How to play lossless audio files

  1. How to play flac in Windows
  2. How to play shn in Windows
  3. How to play flac, shn and other audio formats in OS X
  4. How to play flac files in iTunes

4. How to convert lossless audio to mp3

  1. How to convert flac files to mp3 in Windows
  2. How to convert shn files to mp3 in Windows
  3. How to convert ape files to mp3 in Windows
  4. How to convert flac files to mp3 in OS X
  5. How to convert shn files to mp3 in OS X
  6. How to convert ape files to mp3 in OS X
  7. How to convert flac files to mp3 using Ubuntu Linux
  8. How to use Foobar2000 to convert audio files

5. How to burn lossless files as audio cds

  1. How to burn audio cds from flac files in Windows
  2. How to burn audio cds from shn files in Windows
  3. How to burn audio cds from flac files in OS X
  4. How to burn audio cds from shn files in OS X

6. Related Tutorials/Help

How to download files using Bittorrent in OS X
How to join (combine) multiple MP3 files in OS X
How to join (combine) multiple MP3 files in Windows

Posted in Linux, Mac, Windows.

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13 Responses

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  1. Jason says

    nvm guys i got it

  2. MIKE says

    I have played with a large number of compression programs that claim to be “LOSSLESS” and this is not one I would choose. There is no such thing as LOSSLESS compression schemes. They al discard parts of the music in the compression formulas and as a result cannot duplicate the real music when de-compressed. Working with single discrete tones and multiple tones, there is some loss and cannot be replaced during de-compression.

  3. Ross McKillop says

    Mike,

    They do not all discard parts of the music. From:

    http://flac.sourceforge.net/features.html

    Notable features of FLAC:

    * Lossless: The encoding of audio (PCM) data incurs no loss of information, and the decoded audio is bit-for-bit identical to what went into the encoder. Each frame contains a 16-bit CRC of the frame data for detecting transmission errors. The integrity of the audio data is further insured by storing an MD5 signature of the original unencoded audio data in the file header, which can be compared against later during decoding or testing.

  4. wow wallpapers says

    nice explanations!

  5. David Jacques says

    When converting flac to wav, what is the difference of converting at 44.100 khz 16 bit stereo 172 kb/sec and 48.000 khz 16 bit stereo 188 kb/sec? Which gives the best quality? Do all conversion methods of flac to mps result in the same quality? I am using winamp to wav and then itunes for wav to mp3. This method is free but I’m curious if some of the software that can be purchased results in a better (cleaner)mp3 result.

  6. Sven says

    @MIKE …u kidding me? Take a PCM file and run it with ZIP or RAR arciver, then decompress… any difference? NO period. Same with FLAC or any other compression that is lossless. It’s a mathematical process and NOT a lossy way that inwolves throwing away parts. Read and learn before giving your opinion.

Continuing the Discussion

  1. Here comes the flood - a weblog about music by Hans Werksman linked to this post on October 9, 2006

    A beginners guide to lossless audio…

  2. How to convert .ape files to .mp3 using OSX - Simplehelp linked to this post on May 12, 2007

    [...] You’ve downloaded a show or two from DimeADozen and now you want to convert the ape files to mp3 to take with you on your iPod or MP3 player. This tutorial will walk you through the steps to do just that, using OS X. note: this is another tutorial in the Beginners guide to lossless audio series. [...]

  3. How to convert .ape files to .mp3 using Windows - Simplehelp linked to this post on May 13, 2007

    [...] You’ve downloaded a show or two from DimeADozen and now you want to convert the ape files to mp3 to take with you on your iPod or MP3 player. This tutorial will walk you through the steps to do just that, using Windows. note: this is another tutorial in the Beginners guide to lossless audio series. [...]

  4. How to change default file types and the programs used to open them using RCDefaultApp - Simplehelp linked to this post on May 17, 2007

    [...] Select the Extensions tab to see what programs are associated with a given file type. In the example below, .shn files (a form of lossless audio) are opened with xAct. Since that’s not the program I want to open when I double-click an .shn file, select the drop-down list and choose Other…. [...]

  5. Mule Monday: Mountain Jam 2007 - Rock Music Daily linked to this post on June 3, 2007

    [...] All of the MP3s in this post came from flacs converted to mp3, via etree. I would strongly encourage you to download the flac sources so that you’ll have a lossless copy. I’ve been keeping track of the Mountain Jam torrents on this post – so check it out. Also – show your support of a band who I repeatedly refer to as the most fan-friendly group of musicians of our time by purchasing these shows from MuleTracks. AND… the next time you see a Mule-taper, offer to buy them a beer. It’s really the least you can do… [...]

  6. Regina Spektor - Live @ The Hammerstein Ballroom 10/16/07 - Rock Music Daily linked to this post on October 18, 2007

    [...] If you need help playing .flac files, converting them to MP3 or burning them as an audio CDs, see this guide (it has step-by-step instructions for Windows and OS X users, and all of the software involved is [...]

  7. How to convert HTML pages to PDF in Ubuntu Linux | The Apple Tech Blog linked to this post on December 13, 2009

    [...] Visit the project’s website for more info on it. —Related Articles at Simple Help: A beginners guide to lossless audioHow to convert .flac files to .mp3 using Ubuntu LinuxHow to install Adobe AIR in UbuntuHow to [...]



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