Any reason to rip to flac instead of 320kbs MP3s for car listening?

FLAC good, mp3 bad

 

First, I certainly sync my music via iTunes to an iPhone; plug it into my car/truck; and tune out the commute. I have Tidal's, Apple Music's and my own collection on my iPhone. It's great.

Some questions and commentary:

• How many people have a commute longer than 1 hour?

• Who has gotten frustrated with how autos handle USB sticks and sluggish iPhone/iPod Connections?

• Who takes the original CD with them in the car!?

There is a high probability that most are driving for less than a continuous hour every morning and evening. If you are driving for longer bring more CDs. I have tested iPhone's and iPod in almost all auto manufacturers systems. They all have quirks and not nearly as quick/easy as the device itself- yet because you are driving you are forced, safety reasons, to use the car's control systems. Further, those who use bluetooth AND 320Kbps are just not getting the most fidelity out of their music. It's enjoyable, convenient but it's too much of a compromise in fidelity(1). Bluetooth drawbacks include compression and interference. Best practices for CD Audio in the car is to always use a CD-R. Let the copy get scratched, exposed to the sun and toss it when it no longer plays.

It's all about trade offs and formed habits. No good or bad here.

 

Depends on where you live. Many people commute more than an hour a day in both directions for their job. That is a LOT of time behind the wheel!

Some cars handle USB better than others. I have had no issues in my car, other than that the brand of USB seems to make a difference. I have good luck with SanDisk, problems with Lexar, and Sony just doesn't seem to want to work at all. The software a company uses makes a difference, too. I have not streamed using a smartphone yet.

The only way I would play an original CD in the car is if I just bought it, and I want to hear it on the way home.

Remember that many people take long car trips. I take one about every other week.

That said, I do use 320 mp3 in the car, not because I can't hear the difference between it and lossless in the car, it's because I keep an mp3 copy of my lossless collection. It's no hassle to just load up hundreds of albums on a USB, then play them in the car for a couple of months at a time. The cool thing about having so much music in the car is so that if I get a hankering to hear a song while driving, it is a good chance it will be there, and not at home.

I can play lossless from a USB if I want in the car, but my lossless is in FLAC, and the car only plays WMA lossless and mp3.

And, by using USB or a phone, you are being more environmentally friendly by discarding CD-Rs you don't need anymore.

 

Play the original CD in the car. Make sure to handle in properly. No need to waste time burning it to cd-r unless we are talking MFSL or DCC or some rare item. Otherwise just use a streaming service.

 

CDs tend to get stuck in my player, so I only ever use cdr or brick walled CDs I could care less if they never ejected.

I almost always use my iPod classic or old iPhone (essentially an iPod now that it is deactivated) in the car now.

 

I drive a Lexus Land Cruiser with the Mark Levinson audio system. I stream from my phone at, what, 64 kbps for Pandora? Sounds great. Fantastic really.

 

I know we had/have our differences in another thread but hey, we're all on the same team here really.

Anyway, for me at least, I'd be straining to hear the difference between streamed > BT > 320 and streamed > BT > FLAC. I'd rather concentrate on driving AND as soon as I vent the sunroof, as I do in 99% of driving situations, any perceived difference goes out the window, pun intended. With respect to my shared data plan, I'll happily take the negligible SQ hit in the car vs the nearly 10x bandwidth I need for streaming the HD version of the track in question

 

Again these aren't moral decisions, they are trade offs.

 

Did anyone say anything about morals? Did you use the wrong word, because you didn't make your point, if there was one.

 

You did.

 

That is not a moral issue.

 

I disagree. I do appreciate your contrarian approach here.

 

Providing your car isn't unusually noisy and the system in your car is decent, you should hear a substantial difference between MP3s and FLACS. I have a VW Passat, with an aftermarket Pioneer deck I put in, running the Eurovox speakers that were standard in the car. I have an IPod Classic 160gb. I used to use MP3 320 on the IPod. Then I realised that the Ipod Classic took ALAC files, so given the substantial storage space on the Classic - I changed to ALAC. Let me tell you its bliss, MP3 320s were OK but the ALACs are sonically superior and noticeably so. Don't mess around go FLAC if you have the room.

 

NO...320 works fine in the car.

 

320 kbps AAC is fine in the car. When provided the opportunity to listen to music in its delivery format, a bitperfect/one for one lossless copy, why degrade the music?

The trade offs are clear:

• Maximum number songs vs number of lossless songs.
• Ambient noise, in a automobile, vs the ability to hear the difference.

To mitigate these trade offs: Use CDs, a high capacity media player / mobile phone to hold more Lossless audio or a devices with a data plan with access to a lossless streaming service or a homebrew VPN /JRiver streaming server.

Next, use noise dampening and/controlling materials to reduce the ambient noise as crusing speeds. Drive at the speed limit, the noise is less. I used the JL Audio app and a Radio Shack SPL meter, both showed about a 3dB drop from 70mph to 65mph.

If the user decides to go with maximum songs, given high ambient noise, so be it. They have choosen quantity over quality.

 

FLAC and ALAC are the same thing: lossless. There is no difference in the sound. But, if you're using iStuff, FLAC probably isn't an option anyway.

 

Um... OK. I still don't see what that has to do with anything. Plenty of people use this forum who aren't beholden to physical media.

 

And aren't interested in selling their music.

 

Nah - stay with the 320 for car use. If you end up using the same source library for good headphones, though, then its worth the upgrade.

 

The best music is the music you have with you!

(My default has been to rip the stuff I really care about into lossless for the 'archive' and in-home play, MP3-320 for portable use, and I keep the CD. Stuff that I have but don't care about so much goes to MP3-320, and then the CDs go on Discogs!)

 

Completely agree. I am out of town most weekends and at a minimum have the rear slider (truck) window open to keep an ear on what is going on in the boat trailer that I'm towing. 320k to BT works perfect for me with the added convenience that I have my entire digital library available at my figertips all weekend long.

Friday night I was sitting at a picnic table in the dark sippin a beer listening to a mixture of the waves lapping on the shore accompanied by Miles Davis on a BT speaker, my weekend system requires no CD's or planned playlists.

 

You sure it's wasn't... the music

 

Yo! Fellow '91 S10 owner here. How many miles have you got on yours? Mine has 230,000. Rain reinforcement provided by packing tape applied a couple weeks ago.

 

IMO: Always rip to FLAC for personal archiving. Copy to mp3 if you're short on space on a portable device.

In any event, it is inconceivable to me that anyone could reliably distinguish ~256kbps from lossless while driving on the highway.