Does Bit rate matter in FLAC constant or variable ?

[GQ72]

...new to FLAC and am doing some trial and error, still experimenting

I started ripping to FLAC 'uncompressed' but found I do not need to do this (data is still losseless no matter which encoding level is selected) I then did a dozen using Level 8 (highest) which is much smaller file size then the uncompressed.

I then compared an album that I had done in both levels and noticed quite a significant difference in each one's Bit Rate

The uncompressed ranged from 1412kbps to 1430kbps ... these look very similar to what I used to get with WAV files
The Level 8 Bit Rates ranged from 517kbps to 1035kbps ... not sure why the huge swing other than it being variable (VBR) and not constant (CBR)

my questions...

should I be doing these in CBR if there is a setting I need to change? ... I used to rip everything to MP3 320 CBR

is there ANY AUDIBLE difference in the different bit rates of any kind? ... I do not know much about this stuff just want it done the right way lol to overall perfection ... i.e., I want the exact same quality sound I get from my SONY multi-disk changer to come out of my PC and media player of choice (still need to choose what will work best, looking at mediamonkey ... is there a forum topic for various media players here)

reviewing the two sets of data on the same album I just found a very odd occurence....
track *3 in the uncompressed level is the highest bit rate 1430kbps @ 11,023 KB file size ... in the level 8 it is the smallest bit rate of the bunch at 517 kbps @ 4,118 KB in file size
-- What is going on here? it does not make much sense ... does anybody have a clue or some valuable helpful explanation

thanks

[Spoon]

Re: Does Bit rate matter in FLAC constant or variable ?

FLAC is lossless in all modes, that means the decoded audio is identical for each encoding method employed.