FLAC vs. MP3 for Sonos Network

I believe you can load software on your iPod called Rockbox that will decode FLAC. I have not changed my iPod over, so I can't speak from experience. You have to be pretty geeky to take this path, so I dare say, it's not for you.

When you put a CD in with iTunes running, and it wants to import it, you could import using the WAV Encoder (see Preferences -> Advanced -> Importing). You should have error correction turned on.

You could also import using the Apple Lossless Encoder. Importing as WAV files will use up as much as a CD (say 500MB on average) while using Apple Lossless would be about half that (250MB).

You can push either of these at your iPod and it will play them. Obviously, using WAV files is a hungry option - maybe you'll get 120 albums on a 60GB iPod; say 240 albums using Apple Lossless.

In my opinion, you should have enough hard drive storage on your network system to store uncompressed. You could use EAC to rip the files to your storage system as WAV files, and store these outside of iTunes. Then you can use iTunes to make up a temporary library of MP3s, if you really want to store a lot of music on your iPod.

There are a few options to consider. As long as you continue to keep your CDs, you'll be able to go back to the source again. A bit of work of course.

Regards,

Hi, I have been using Sonos for almost 2 years. I have over 40K songs. Based om my tests, I have found that mp3 encoded with EAC and LAME at 256 VBR offers the best compromise between size and quality. I find this to be absolutely near cd quality. For critical listening I still use my CARY 306 cdp. Note, that I use the digital out of the Sonos ZP80 into the DAC of the Cary.

Compatibility and overall library size were major considerations for me.

On a good system, you're going to notice a BIG difference between MP3 and FLAC. I have a RWA-upgraded Squeezebox running FLAC and it sounds MUCH better than the CDP I have. MP3 always sounds very compressed, screetchy and bandwidth limited.