Flac to Lossy

[Dreamday]

I read somewhere online that said Be aware that FLAC files are high quality files and that converting them to MP3 or AAC will permanently delete much of the data from the original music files. To maintain the integrity of FLAC files it is important that they are converted to a lossless or uncompressed file format such as Apple Lossless, AIFF or WAV. This is not only recommended but essential! is this true or mislead?

[Oggy]

Re: Flac to Lossy

I read somewhere online that said Be aware that FLAC files are high quality files and that converting them to MP3 or AAC will permanently delete much of the data from the original music files. To maintain the integrity of FLAC files it is important that they are converted to a lossless or uncompressed file format such as Apple Lossless, AIFF or WAV. This is not only recommended but essential! is this true or mislead?

True! FLAC, ALAC, AIFF and WAV, are lossless formats, the others are lossy, How lossy, depends on the bitrate.

[Jailhouse]

Re: Flac to Lossy

The sentence, "Be aware that FLAC files are high quality files and that converting them to MP3 or AAC will permanently delete much of the data from the original music files" can be read to imply that the FLAC files are somehow altered during the conversion to MP3 or AAC. This is absolutely not true. The resulting lossy files will contain less data than the source files--that's why MP3s can be so small--and, therefore, cannot be converted back to the original FLAC format without loss of quality. But the source file data will only be read, not changed.

So, go ahead and convert FLAC to MP3 or AAC if you wish. Just don't delete the FLAC files afterward.