Good site for purchasing FLAC music?

[nsafreak]

Well I've recently purchased a portable DAC/headphone amp (I also use it at home with my PC) and overall I've been quite happy with the performance of the unit I know that typically the FLACs I've ripped sound better than the 256kbps mp3 files that Amazon has available. I thought I was going to be using HDTunes as my source for FLAC downloads but since they can't even send me a link to download their test album that they promote for free I'm not terribly confident on purchases from them. Do you folks have any recommendations on sites for FLAC purchases that are reputable and have a pretty good variety of music in their catalog?

 

[Thump553]

Out of curiousity, why don't you just rip your own? It's fairly simple and not all that time consuming. I did my CD library a few years back as a "project" and am thrilled with the results. I used Exact Audio Copy (highly rated freeware) and the hardest part of the project was getting all the settings correct and deciding on how to structure my library. Just nibble away at the project-five/ten albums at a time.

 

[Soccerman06]

Out of curiousity, why don't you just rip your own? It's fairly simple and not all that time consuming. I did my CD library a few years back as a "project" and am thrilled with the results. I used Exact Audio Copy (highly rated freeware) and the hardest part of the project was getting all the settings correct and deciding on how to structure my library. Just nibble away at the project-five/ten albums at a time.

Correct me if Im wrong here, but arent most cds not anywhere near FLAC quality (unless DVD or SACD)? So trying to convert a 144kb 16bit cd into a 250-300kb 24bit FLAC format might be pointless.

 

[weez82]

I've never used it but HDTracks offers 88.2 kHz/24 bit and 96 kHz/24 bit files. But in all honesty, it's more cost effective to just buy the cd and then rip it yourself. You'll be hard pressed to hear the different between 88.2 kHz/24 bit and 96 kHz/24 bit files from HDtracks (or anywhere else) and 16bit flac flies you rip from cds

 

[Carson Dyle]

Correct me if Im wrong here, but arent most cds not anywhere near FLAC quality (unless DVD or SACD)?

That's incorrect.

FLAC is just a lossless codec. It doesn't have a say in what the audio bit depth or sampling rate are of the audio that it's encoding or decoding. Whatever is encoded is what you'll get back. Could be redbook CD (16 bit /44.1 KHz) or 24/44.1 or 24/48 or 24/88.2 or 24/96 or 24/192 or anything else.

So trying to convert a 144kb 16bit cd into a 250-300kb 24bit FLAC format might be pointless.

You're talking about upsampling, but that has little to do with FLAC.

 

[Carson Dyle]

Do you folks have any recommendations on sites for FLAC purchases that are reputable and have a pretty good variety of music in their catalog?

I don't think there are any good services offer downloads of CD-quality FLAC files with any sort of large catalog. You'll find some indie artists offering FLAC and there may be a couple of record labels that offer it, but they all rely so heavily on the iTunes and Amazon music stores selling MP3s, that most don't bother.

Buy CDs and rip them yourself. It's a great time to do so, as there are people selling entire CD collections for a dollar or two per CD. Check your local Craigslist.

 

[mshan]

https://www.hdtracks.com/index.php (google search for HD audio tracks)

http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=67909.0

 

[Anarchist420]

Sometimes I've had to buy the CD, sometimes I've had to torrent, and a lot of artists release their albums digitally in FLAC.

 

[Gintaras]

Correct me if Im wrong here, but arent most cds not anywhere near FLAC quality (unless DVD or SACD)? So trying to convert a 144kb 16bit cd into a 250-300kb 24bit FLAC format might be pointless.

Lossless Audio Compression

24/192 Music Downloads
...and why they make no sense

Converting CD files to FLAC in EAC

 

[nsafreak]

Lossless Audio Compression

24/192 Music Downloads
...and why they make no sense

Converting CD files to FLAC in EAC

Yeah I've already started converting my CDs to FLAC files using EAC. It's pretty simple to do although it takes a bit more time than a rip to mp3 but I can deal with it. I was hoping to start just purchasing music in FLAC format from one central site but mp3 has the widespread acceptance factor that FLAC doesn't quite have. Oh well I'll make FLAC purchases from label sites when possible and just rip CDs when it's not since there's a Second Spin nearby that has pretty reasonable prices on used CDs. I'm just happy that this DAC I purchased works easily with my S3 so I can listen to FLAC files on the go or at home with no change in quality.