Best affordable app for file converting

Looking to convert my library which is mostly MP3 to probably flac. Any suggestions or recommendations would help as I'm pretty noobish at this as well

 

There is no point in converting lossy MP3 files to FLAC as some of the original data is already lost. Are you asking about re-ripping your music collection to FLAC?

 

That being said, for lossless to lossy conversion I suggest:
-dbPowerAmp (great for big batch stuff, lots of DSP options and good GUI
-XLD (for Mac - less GUI but an excellent app)

 

yes

 

I've used Foobar, Musicbee, and jRiver to rip cd's to flac. They all can check your rip CRC against a db, and they all can do error checking with retries.

Edit: Foobar and Musicbee are free, JRiver is not.

 

I recommend for Windows to use EAC, which is also free.

 

I second the EAC recommendation. It's a little more complicated to set up than the others, but if you want the highest quality rips go for EAC.

 

EAC

 

EAC to rip to flac and then foobar for the conversion if you need MP3 for whatever reason.

 

JRiver Jukebox is free, which is essentially just an older version and missing a few features.

 

IMo for conversion between formats dbpoweramp is king in both functionality and interface. I use it all the time to go between 24/96 alac, vbr/cbr mp3, aac at various rates, wav, aiff, flac etc... All depending on what works best for the target device/person.

 

I've got some lossy, unfortunately most of my library is MP3.

 

Keep in mind to never convert lossy to lossless. You gain nothing except increased size of files.

 

Reminder that FLAC is an archival format and there is nothing wrong with properly encoded lossy formats for music listening.

 

Except no lossy encoder is perfect, all of them can produce audible artefacts on certain samples. MP3 is probably the worst commonly encountered (I have music samples which exhibit easily heard artefacts even at Lame's VBR 0 or 320 cbr). AAC is almost certainly the best lossy encoder, with Apple's encoder and Fraunhofer's FDK being very high quality.

These days, with truly huge amounts of storage being very cheap and even mobile bandwidth and coverage being really good for many people, I wonder if many people are using lossy compression for any reason other than habit.

I have over 1700 CDs ripped to flac, complete with 300 DPI scans of covers and booklets. That takes up a little under 700GB disk space. I don't have a portable player with 700GB of space but I do have a 4G/LTE plan with 16GB monthly cap. I can listen to any of my >1700 CD rips anywhere, anytime and never have to bother with lossy compression. That means I don't have to maintain two libraries + backup, just one + backup. Giving up on lossy compression *saved* me about 150GB disk space. At home I have a combination of wired gigabit ethernet, Wireless N and Gigiabit Powerline. Lossy compression offers no longer offers any benefit either on a LAN or when mobile.

Imo storage and bandwidth for us consumers is now cheap and plentiful enough that lossy compression can be consigned to its proper place: low bandwidth environments, voice transmission, older devices with storage limitations etc. These days I just use it for audio books as Vorbis at 64kbps and 22050 Hz is fine for speech and gets a twenty CD audio book down to a few hunderd MBs (mobile audio book apps really need local storage).

 

Sure there are killer samples out there, but there's no need to exaggerate the point to turn people off of good compression, especially for portable use.

I'd be interested to see you compile a list of a dozen or so tracks where you can clearly identify these artifacts and have 100% consistency in getting 15/15 scores with Foobar's ABX plugin. No, you can't excuse anything less than 15/15 as 'listening fatigue', that is far too convenient.

 

Why dozens?

15/15 is not required. 12/15 would demonstrate 95% probability, as would 15/20 (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ABX_test).

Your misguided, ill informed and, frankly, belligerent assertion that "No, you can't excuse anything less than 15/15 as 'listening fatigue', that is far too convenient." demonstrates two important things:

that you are not trying to engage in any kind of rational discourse or exchange;
that you are not well informed on the matter.

Thank you for your reply, but I will not be engaging with you further on this topic

 

If the artifacts are so obvious to the point where you'd prefer lossless files for sonic benefits, then surely meeting this criteria shouldn't be a problem.

For the record, Opus is currently the best lossy codec for audio, not AAC. There is no need for you to get this overly defensive over the subject, I just don't want people getting the wrong idea from your long-winded write ups to the point where they're afraid of seeing '.mp3' on their audio files because they think they're missing detail in the music.

 

I use EAC to rip discs to FLAC as well, and Media Monkey to add album art within the tags and batch convert MP3 etc.

I basically keep two smart libraries within MM, it transparently handles sync'ing the MP3 library while keeping both organized the same and keeping online purchases on the side etc.