What is best format to download bootlegs

Learn about FLAC to WAV. Your ears will thank you. 

Lost In Ohio said:

What Tim said.

If you want to pay extra (essentially full price), then here's a basic primer of how I understand things:

ALAC ... Apple format for iTunes.
ALAC-HD ... Same thing, but better quality. It seems foolish to download these if you don't have high-end stuff.

FLAC ... Don't download these if you don't know what they are or how to use them. They probably won't work on a basic setup.
FLAC HD ... Same thing, but higher quality.

It's my understanding that FLAC and especially FLAC HD can take up a LOT of space on the computer.

ALAC is the proprietary format of FLAC. Both are noticeably better than mp3.... Even at my ears age. Apple also has an mp3 proprietary equivalent.  [Just as a quick aside, you have to use "proprietary" a lot when speaking about Apple].

HD versions are the best PJ sells.There are higher quality files (eg MQA from what I understand but have not tested).

There are a surprising number of players that use FLAC... And phone apps. But it's unlikely that your phone has a decent enough digital to audio converter (DAC) so maybe not worth the bother.

Get a dedicated player if you want a huge improvement beyond mp3.  Neil Young's PONO Player was the beginning of my journey on this stuff.  There's nothing better in this world than Pono, a great set of headphones, and No Code (FLAC HD).

Yes, FLAC and ALAC are much bigger files than mp3's. HD versions are significantly larger. But worth it in my opinion.

JH59748 said:

Trying to use bootleg codes and not sure what format to use.

If you don't want to pay extra, just do mp3.  Most listeners would never tell the difference anyways especially in a live recording where there isn't any studio subtleties, layers and such.

If you care about archival top quality files both FLAC-HD and ALAC-HD are the best and the same quality it's just a matter what you use to listen to them or your comfort with transcoding.  ALAC plays in iTunes but not FLACs, FLAC are the more common lossless version for players that do lossless but often those players can do ALAC as well.  

I typically do FLAC or FLAC-HD as it's lossless and use dbpoweramp to convert it to WAV or ALAC later if necessary as it will still be lossless and you could still do mp3s later if space becomes an issue.  

There is virtually no difference in file size between ALAC and FLAC, but naturally the HD version are 2-8X larger than regular definition FLACs and ALACs depending on the actual Bit Depth and Frequency Range.  I think most of the bootlegs are 24/96 so about 4 times the size.

What quality would the cds have? better than flac and alac?

rafo said:

What quality would the cds have? better than flac and alac?

CD quality is equivalent to a FLAC that is 16/44.  Flac does support much higher resolution, but the beauty of FLAC is that it compresses the file size (~70% of wav) without any quality loss.  

demetrios said:

Anyone else still playing Flacs on their Winamp player? 

https://youtu.be/HaF-nRS_CWM

I retired it since their tags don't work.  I use JRiver media which is amazing media player.  I've tried Music Bee as well which is good, but not as good or intuitive.

To the Ops question, try FLAC and an mp3. You can find songs to download for free online. Listen to both, if you can't hear the difference then just stick with mp3. They are cheaper and smaller file. No point in spending more on a bigger file if you can't hear it. I don't hear the difference and am perfectly happy with an mp3.

What level do you guys recommend when I'm ripping a CD to Flac?  I've been doing level 5 with Foobar, but curious if I should be doing it differently.