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

I'm playing my Sansa via the auxiliary jack in my car and I was wondering if any difference could be detected in a car system between the above-mention file types? It would seem to me that flac files would give pretty equal sound to a cd, but then MP3s ripped at 320 probably would be fairly indistinguishable, wouldn't they? Again, this is about playback in a car system (Nissan), not a general discussion of the superiority of one format over the other.

 

I'd assume that no real difference would be noted. I don't even bother with anything other than mp3 @192 for car listening, as the car I'm currently driving has a pretty lousy system anyway.

 

Depending on how critical your car stereo is, in my experience, 320mp3's are fine and I am pretty picky.

 

My iTunes library/portable collection is all 192 kbps MP3 because even though when given ideal circumstances, it's easy to hear the lossy nature, when I'm listening on the go, it's perfectly acceptable.

 

192 is ok, but a good vbr at about the same file size will trounce it quality wise.

 

I listen to 320 VBR Mp3's in my VERY quiet '13 Volkswagen GTI with a Dynaudio system, and would be hard pressed to notice a difference except possibly when the car wasn't running, or I was at a light. The system is impressively resolving with the car off, but thats not the normal driving environment, is it? In this case I definitely choose getting as many songs onto my 32gb SD cards vs. lossless quality and I'm very happy with how it sounds.

 

SANSA+ plays FLAC in the car no bother.

 

Me personally? I wouldn't be able to tell.

But the best test is with your ears...just have a few songs setup as a test, play them back to back while driving (one as MP3, one as FLAC) and see if you can tell the difference. Then you'll have your answer.

 

As an aside, do you just record mainly songs on your 32gb SD card, or albums as well? At 320, I am wondering how much I can get on a 32gb card. I would imagine it would be a massive amount. (I plan to record full albums.)

 

220 hours, +/- a little. 320kbs is 2.4MB/minute.

 

Check to see what file types your car system can handle. Mine can't do FLAC, but it can do WMA lossless from a USB or data CD.

If you play something through the AUX, it shouldn't matter what the player or file format is.

 

well I would go with FLAC since I don't even bother with MP3's

storage is so cheap it's a non issue, really.....it's more work to rip & convert to more than 1 format: I just keep everything FLAC & rotate albums from my media server if I need a change

 

Short answer: Not in my opinion.

Sort of long answer:

I recently left a friend of mine speechless when I told him connecting my phone via bluetooth was good enough for me in the car. "Even I insist on a direct 3.5mm connection, I figured there's no way somebody with your interest in audio would find bluetooth sufficient!". I told him basically these days it's all or nothing for me. The benefits to be reaped just aren't in line with the efforts IMO. Finding a portable player with sufficient size, keeping it up to date with a changing library of lossless files, etc. Now I listen to music like a detached millennial unless I'm at home and it's wonderful.

 

Agree here even if the plan is to listen to MP3 in the car.

The one thing i'd definitely do is rip to flac or any lossless, that way you can convert to whatever you want, now or in the future, without any time consuming rerips.

This really only applies if ripping a lot of cds - a handful then not so much.

 

The self-noise of the car would wipe out the potential advantages of higher bit-rates.

 

Not true. If you have a car that is acoustically reinforced, you can hear the details much better.

 

I'm not familiar with Sansa, but I've worked at trying to simplify to flac files for everthing for years... and have finally achieved goal. I now use flac files on smart phone for car listening for convenience vs. sound quality. I have the ability to batch convert, but don't any longer.

 

I'm old fashioned, so it's always albums. I just put what I think of as the essentials on the cards - stuff from the last 50 years or so that I like to hear over and over again. I let my iPhone hang on to stuff I just bought and autofill, or I'll take the odd CD in the car. I have two 32gb cards. There is a LOT on them, of course. Not even sure how I could easily give you an idea. I'll just say that I have about 7000 CD's and I don't feel I'm missing much in terms of stuff I consider core classics.

 

256 kbs for me. My iPod had albums that I had ripped at various rates through the years (192k-320k), and earlier this year I "thought" I noticed some mp3 compression sound quality issues on a track. I checked it out and it was one of the ones I ripped early on at 192kbs. I've had the iPod for 5+ years and this was the first time I noticed any issue. I went back and re-ripped all my early discs at 256kbs. It took me 5 years to even notice an issue (my iPod is mainly used for car listening) so who knows if it was really worth it. Most of my library is ripped at 256+ so this was just getting the early rips up to snuff.

 

If the self- and outside noise is identical regardless of format, I'd think that the higher bit rate, the better the sound, even with the limitations. On the other hand I'm not an engineer so what do I know...

 

IMO, never rip to MP3. Rip to FLAC or ALAC, then convert to MP3 for your player.

I fill my phone with 256k AAC files for use in the car, running and at the gym. Sound quality is fine for those purposes... But I wouldn't be satisfied with it for "reference" listening at home.

 

I can play WAV files in my car (2010 TL, ELS system) using DVD-A to store them so I get some reasonable runtime out of a single disc but I never bother. Hell I actually just listen to the radio nowadays. I have had more than my share of really nice car stereo systems and while fun, they were mostly just an excuse to make loud, clean sound. I'd rather drive, than focus on music, honestly.

 

Surprisingly, I was really annoyed with the low (64kbps-48kbps) bit rate of Sirius Radio in the car. It sounds metallic, flangey, distorted, and has that "chewing on aluminum foil" kind of sound that makes me recoil. Once it goes about 192kbps, I generally don't have that problem. At 320kbps, it's fine.

 

Unfortunately my 91 Chevy S10 with duct tape holding the CD player together isn't acoustically reinforced (whatever that is). It's barely rain reinforced. If I played a 24/192 track it would still sound like 64kbs mp3!

 

If you don't know what that means, I would suggest an audio science primer.