FLAC vs M4a

[DadRS99]

I know this is highly subjective and I will test myself, but do folks agree on the detectable difference of FLAC vs 256k or 192k m4a files?

note that these will be taken from Apple Music or Spotify, not from original CDs. Just crazy to me that one FLAC song will take up 5x the hard drive space.

also, what do you need to do to get artwork to show off a USB?

thanks!

 

[SomeJoe7777]

FLAC is a lossless compression. When a FLAC file is decompressed and decoded during playback, the digital result that is fed to the D/A converter and audio amplifier is identical to the source.

M4A (AAC) is lossy compression. The decompressed and decoded digital data is not the same as the original source file. However, the compression algorithm is very sophisticated, and the idea is that the difference should not be perceived.

Whether you can hear the difference between the original source (or lossless-compressed version) vs. a lossy-compressed version like M4A depends on several factors: 1) The quality of the original source, 2) How good your ears are, and 3) The listening environment.

In any case, there are only two possibilities: 1) You cannot tell the difference between the FLAC and the M4A, or 2) The FLAC will sound better. In no case can the M4A file sound better than the FLAC, given the same source file.

In your specific situation, given that your source is already lossy-compressed (from Apple Music or Spotify), consider: You do not have a high enough quality file to make FLAC worth the extra disk space. Remember that FLAC is lossless, so if you store the file as FLAC, then when decompressed and decoded, what you have is a file identical to what was originally downloaded from Apple Music or Spotify, which itself is lossy-compressed. Storing the original downloaded file on your USB drive and playing it directly will play it back identically to the FLAC at 1/5th the disk space.

FLAC is really only useful when you have an original, uncompressed source, e.g. directly ripped from CD (PCM), Super Audio CD (PCM), DVD (if the audio is PCM, which is rare), or Blu-Ray (if the file on the Blu-Ray is also lossless: PCM, DTS-MA, Dolby TrueHD). In those cases, FLAC can preserve the original uncompressed audio at about half the disk space.

For any other source, which is likely already lossy-compressed, then using the original file is best rather than reencoding to anything else.

 

[holmgang]

In a car environment... virtually not. Terrible acoustic environment. And, presumably you're listening while you're driving with all the background AND mental distraction of actual driving... it's a literal waste of space.

Artwork embedded in mp3s (part of id3 tag) shows up. Im not sure what the metadata structure is for FLAC and m4a

 

[Knightshade]

There's a bunch of online "tests" where it'll play the same samples in a few different qualities and you try and guess which they are to see if you can tell the difference.

(obviously the quality of what you're listening with will matter) but I can tell an extremely high % of the time (90+) between typical MP3 128-192k type files vs uncompressed...and probably 75% of times between 256k and uncompressed. YMMV.

But SomeJoe777s point is pretty relevant- if your source is already compressed FLAC isn't buying you much.

If you've got legit quality FLAC stuff though, yeah it takes up more space, but storage is cheap.

 

[sduck]

If you have a mac you can use yate to embed album art in m4a's.

 

[DadRS99]

If you have a mac you can use yate to embed album art in m4a's.

Thanks all. Super helpful info!
I think I’m going to go with 256 m4a!

that said I’ve ripped a few in m4a and I see the artwork in Mac finder but doesn’t appear in Music in the car?

is that a limitation of the Tesla interface?

whats yate? Using a Mac

 

[sduck]

Thanks all. Super helpful info!
I think I’m going to go with 256 m4a!

that said I’ve ripped a few in m4a and I see the artwork in Mac finder but doesn’t appear in Music in the car?

is that a limitation of the Tesla interface?

whats yate? Using a Mac

It's not hard to google, but here - Mac OS X Audio Tagger | Yate | 2ManyRobots

 

[DadRS99]

It's not hard to google, but here - Mac OS X Audio Tagger | Yate | 2ManyRobots

Thanks. Looks like an interesting program. When I load up my usb it shows the artwork on each song. It lists the artwork as “other” and I’ve tried to change it to “cover” but still doesn’t show.

know what it should be listed as in the metadata?

 

[DadRS99]

So here are the options. Tried most of them and artwork still doesn’t show!

 

[holmgang]

why not rip in MP3 then, if you're having to building the library from scratch anyway

 

[arcus]

So here are the options. Tried most of them and artwork still doesn’t show!

I use MP3tag software to fix the metadata and add appropriate covers to all my music I rip fro CDs to FLAC. Hope this helps.

 

[sduck]

He's on a mac, mp3tag is for windows. Yate works well for flac and m4a and a few other formats - for mp3s on a mac I use ID3 Editor.

@DadRS99, it looks like you have several artworks embedded in those files, which can confuse the simple player in the car. Try deleting both of them, and then dropping back in one of them. There's a setting in preferences for album art size - I have mine set to downscale anything dropped in via yate to 300x300, although I'm not sure if that makes much difference. If you drop in your own album art, you don't have to worry about that type dropbox - I didn't know about it until looking at your post, and I've been using yate for years. And don't forget to hit the Save button after making changes.

 

[Kevy Baby]

Another excellent tool for the Mac is xACT. Has a lot of tools, including embedding tags.

I rip everything into iTunes using Apple Lossless (my preferred storage managing tool), and add album art and correct any tag errors. I then copy to a temporary folder on my desktop and convert to Flac before dragging to my flash drive.

 

[DadRS99]

Ok. So I’m getting closer I think.
I have all the m4a files playing and ~70% of artwork came across in the transfer.
Still can’t figure out why some are still not appearing even though yate shows the art as existing.
Can’t see any consistency to what’s not appearing (different sizes, different image types) so still looking for solve.
Anyone know a reliable way of making sure images appear when using Yate? Great app btw!

 

[sduck]

I never had much luck with m4a's. The few albums I can only get on itunes or apple music or whatever it is now I've found work better if I convert them to flacs. I usually use XLD for that - yet another useful mac music utility app.

I think they've fixed it now, but a few software versions ago whenever you played m4a's from itunes the car player would chop off a few seconds off the end of every track. Man that was annoying. Convert them to flacs, they play fine. (Useless trivia tidbit for the evening)