mp3, flac, or wav??

[jatminx]

jeet,

I'm a beginning dj, started out with vinyl, but now i have traktor pro scratch, to combine vinyl with digital releases. Now my question is: should i go with 320 kb mp3, flacs or wav files? Or does it only depends on how big my ambitions are (big club sound vs crappy bar sound)? Or is wav primordial for a good bass sound????

I know this is an ongoing debate, but I found too much contradictory statements on the internet.. So i wanted to learn some personal experiences from dj's out the bass scene.. If their is allready a thread about this, didn't found it, sorry.

Greetings jatminx

[isiahfire]

Flac is supposed to be highest quality, but will sometimes need converting before using with some applications.

Choose WAV over MP3, but if you must use them, don't buy lower than 320kb!

[Shum]

Given the choice .WAV always. End of story.

edit: The assumption above being that you are aiming for maximum fidelity. 320's are a more practical solution as they are cheaper and the filesizes are much smaller.

[murky21]

nah WAV is the highest quality. It is an exact reproduction of how it was made in the studio...

check the bit rates, wavs are around 1400kbps , flac varies more at around 900 usually.

Flacs however take up less space on ur HDD and probably deliver pretty much the same audible quality (to my ear i can not hear the difference)

if you have the option get solely flac or wav though this can end up being that bit more expensive but its worth it.... check sites like digital-tunes.net (no handling fee) or trackitdown.net or boomkat.com who both offer wav/ flac at reasonable price

if you start mixing mp3's with flac on a rig/ decent system you will hear the difference, but if just at home its probably cool...

if you are buying mp3's as well as 320's, mp3 VBR are fine too even if they are around 250kps as they do away with unessacary high bitrates for certain parts of songs and AAC files are decent(ish) as it is a newer technology.

but yeah just get flac/wav doesnt really matter..

[dr h]

Why would anyone want the wav, if a FLAC is available? It's the exact same thing, just compressed. You can convert the FLAC back to WAV, even to the point where the CRC is the same...

I did notice a few 24bit WAVS on bleep lately though. I'm not sure if FLAC can convert those perfectly, but if it can't, that would be the only reason ever to download a WAV file.

[dj jahson]

People buy WAV over FLAC because most digital dj software won't play FLAC.
If you are going to buy digital files buy WAV, they sound 3x louder over a club sound. Other dj's always ask how i get my tracks so loud, so i know it's not just me who's hearing it.

[kpnutnut]

WAV is best. Wav is most renowned. WAV FTW. WAV WAV WAV WAV WAV!

Flac = PRFFTT cos you cant play them on alot of devices. stupid compression bullshizzle.
WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAVVVVVVVVVVV!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[manray]

FYI FLAC is lossless.

So a FLAC + WAV are 100% identical, bit for bit.

The only downside to flac is lack of player support.

As for playing out, I use MP3's. Anyone that thinks you can hear the difference between a 320kbps MP3 and a WAV on any club system is talking complete shite.

[laurent__duval]

nah, straight youtube rip is the way.

http://www.ripyoutube.com/ its all you need, baby!

[jatminx]

Thanks for the info. Think i'm gonna go with the highest quality that's possible on the site.

Ans youtuberips? hopefully just a joke

[laurent__duval]

Ans youtuberips? hopefully just a joke

no mate, sounds super clear through a big club rig!

[roshman111]

nah, straight youtube rip is the way.

http://www.ripyoutube.com/ its all you need, baby!

YDK!

[triggerfinger]

FYI FLAC is lossless.

So a FLAC + WAV are 100% identical, bit for bit.

The only downside to flac is lack of player support.

As for playing out, I use MP3's. Anyone that thinks you can hear the difference between a 320kbps MP3 and a WAV on any club system is talking complete shite.

totally agree mate, theres hardley any differnce between 320 mp3 and WAV butanything below its pretty peak

[fractal]

AAC

hi fi is for nerds

[wolf89]

nah WAV is the highest quality. It is an exact reproduction of how it was made in the studio...

check the bit rates, wavs are around 1400kbps , flac varies more at around 900 usually.

Flacs however take up less space on ur HDD and probably deliver pretty much the same audible quality (to my ear i can not hear the difference)

if you have the option get solely flac or wav though this can end up being that bit more expensive but its worth it.... check sites like digital-tunes.net (no handling fee) or trackitdown.net or boomkat.com who both offer wav/ flac at reasonable price

if you start mixing mp3's with flac on a rig/ decent system you will hear the difference, but if just at home its probably cool...

if you are buying mp3's as well as 320's, mp3 VBR are fine too even if they are around 250kps as they do away with unessacary high bitrates for certain parts of songs and AAC files are decent(ish) as it is a newer technology.

but yeah just get flac/wav doesnt really matter..

Flac's reduce file size without data loss. It's like zipping a folder of files. Nothing's lost but it uses less hard drive space. So Wav and Flac are identical in sound

[rob_booth]

FLAC is fine ... WAV is choice ... if encoding to mp3 .. choose V0 with lame 3.98.2

as for media players, use foobar2000, a very powerful multi-media platform

[masterchief]

if you have 320 mp3s or wav files but you play them through i tunes does it convert them to aac? or is that different? will that affect quality when you burn a c.d ?

[brent]

i have most of my vinyls backed up in FLAC, but then i found out there aren't any CDJs that support FLAC. OR ARE THERE?!?

[fractal]

i have most of my vinyls backed up in FLAC, but then i found out there aren't any CDJs that support FLAC. OR ARE THERE?!?

some do, the 2000 for example

[murky21]

FLAC is fine ... WAV is choice ... if encoding to mp3 .. choose V0 with lame 3.98.2

as for media players, use foobar2000, a very powerful multi-media platform

man I have be trying to rinse foobar but the user interface is AWFUL no?

on forums its very highly recommended as puts out a decent sound apparently but man, having all of these repository directories aint all the handy, I just want a media library which I can drag and drop shit into..