mp3 converter software, which one?

[obieone]

I just did a search and found a bunch of different freewares that will convert mp3's to 'lossless' formats, so which one, and can they get the sonic quality back?
Thanks

[Sami]

No point to do that, you won't get the quality back.

[obieone]

O.K. so just to confirm, a couple of followup questions: Almost all my music is stored as data, and some of the tracks won't send a signal to the preouts>sub. Are the mp3's the most likely suspect?
And there is NO software out there, free or otherwise, that will get the qality back?

[xj4094dg]

I think if you want to keep the best quality you must save the music (data) in the highest possible quality. The best I can do is 1.4 Mbps (bit rate). This preserves a good quality data source without the hassle of discs. You can then convert to any ****ty mp3 rate you want (some mp3 players automatically set the quality when sync-ing), but you can't go in reverse. Hope this helps.

[obieone]

Thanks for confirming my fears. Looks like I got some music to buy:o

[Keiko]

It you still want the free software, here:

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/download/

The LAME mp3 encoder can be downloaded here:

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/download/lame

I use this software for transferring vinyl to disc. Works great for this purpose. Lots of free plugins available if you want to play around with the sound editing functions.

[Sami]

Thanks for confirming my fears. Looks like I got some music to buy:o

That is the reason why I have two folders on my computer for music. On the other folder I rip all my CD's as FLAC (lossless compression) and then I sync that folder with another where a script creates an mp3 if it isn't there already.

[obieone]

With the technology today, I don't see a reason for mp3's anymore. I can fit 2,000+ songs on a 8GB microSD card for my cell phone.
Oh well. I'll have to go thru my library and make a list of all the music I have to replace.

[Sami]

That's 2000 in mp3 format, much much less in lossless. I have about 3000 songs on my FLAC folder, it's around 80GB. For low end devices like iPod, mp3's are fine.