I want to get some CD's but what's the best audio formats?

I've heard FLAC is the best for CD's, what's your opinion on that?

And does "regular" FLAC differs much from FLAC / 100% / Cue (What's the difference between these two?)

Thanks!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Lossless_Audio_Codec

Flac is the best quality format your will get to the original source, I think Flac 100% is that the upload has no errors and has a log file of 100%.

On what-cd you can view the log file to make sure it's 100% clean rip

i think most flac trackers u can,its a perfect rip from original

With FLAC you do not specify a bitrate like with some lossy codecs. It's more like specifying a quality with Vorbis or MPC, except with FLAC the quality is always "lossless" and the resulting bitrate is roughly proportional to the amount of information in the original signal. You cannot control the bitrate much and the result can be from around 100% of the input rate (if you are encoding noise), down to almost 0 (encoding silence). Its just an exact copy of the source.

100% FLAC is when its ripped with the proper settings. Default settings of EAC are not counted as 100%. All audio trackers have tutorials that guide you on how to create 100% rips. If you miss a particular setting then the log would show less that 100%. This depends on the setting you missed out on. Sometimes it cuts 1 point and sometimes 10 points.

Overall 100% is always better

flac flac flac...in almost all trackers they support flac bec of that reason only...u will get the exact quality from the ripped one.that's why flac is supported in all trackers including db9,what.cd,waffles,.....if you want quality flac is the only choice FLAC stands for Free Lossless Audio Codec, an audio format similar to MP3, but lossless, meaning that audio is compressed in FLAC without any loss in quality.

Ah thanks for all the replays!

So in other words, FLAC is the best. But if I find FLAC / 100% / Cue , it's even better? That's the best you can in FLAC since it's 100%?

Originally Posted by seaturtle

Ah thanks for all the replays!

So in other words, FLAC is the best. But if I find FLAC / 100% / Cue , it's even better? That's the best you can in FLAC since it's 100%?

FLAC is a copy of the original. here the original is from original media (CD and Vinyls). So its the best possible quality youll find on the net.

Originally Posted by mummyreturns

FLAC stands for Free Lossless Audio Codec, an audio format similar to MP3, but lossless, meaning that audio is compressed in FLAC without any loss in quality.

Sorry, but that is just totally wrong. First of all, there is 'zero' compression in lossless encoders like flac. There's no way a flac rip, even without 100% .log & .cue equates to that of any .mp3 encode.

Originally Posted by seaturtle

So in other words, FLAC is the best. But if I find FLAC / 100% / Cue , it's even better? That's the best you can in FLAC since it's 100%?

Pretty much. If you download a flac with a 100% .log from what.cd and burn it to cd you pretty much will get an exact bit for bit copy of the original CD. Same goes for waffle irons from waffles.fm. So, is flac the best? Yes, it is. But do you really need it? IMO, no you don't. It's like, do you really need a full 50 GB bluray, or do you get by with a high quality, yet compressed, x264 encode at 10 GB? So, for audio cd's, if you want true archiving, flac (or bluray) is definitely the way to go. But transparent encoding can be easily achieved with a 320 kb/s CBR & you'll achieve the lowest risk of artifacts & noise. Even V0 is quite nice with a target bit range of 220 kb/s ~ 260 kb/s and honestly most people can't even tell the difference. Only the trained ear with a very high end sound system or set of cans will ever be able to distinguish the difference between a flac rip and a 320 mp3 encode. There will always be a trade off between flac and mp3 regarding file size so I'd advise you to download them both and see if your ears can tell the difference.

I agree, 320 mp3 is what I usually grab as you can't tell the difference.

If you see Flac 100% cue, the cue is just a file with additional information about the upload, this is also where you will find the log file.
It doesn't really matter which formats you go for on sites like what-cd, they have strict uploading rules for all formats and everything must be ripped to the highest quality possible or they will remove it.