Offline Music, and MP3s and/or FLACs

I love having an offline music collection, for reasons that I’ve flogged a dead horse over on this blog. Whipped a llama’s arse, so to speak. But I’ll state them again anyway for anyone new, or if you need a refresher:

• The discs, tapes, carts, and files are mine, to do with as I wish. That means, in the words of computer scientist Shakira, I can listen to them whenever, wherever, even without an Internet connection to validate with some horrid DRM that, yes, I paid for these.

• Physical media and files can’t be swapped, changed, clobbered, revoked, or otherwise messed with at the whims of a streaming platform and/or their fickle licencing arrangements. This means no sudden gaps in albums or playlists, live songs replaced with studio versions, or entire albums disappearing without warning.

• I can get the metadata on files just right, from embedding better quality cover art, to getting the spelling and punctuation correct. I can also customise them at my whim, with custom genres or additional ID3 metadata. I love embedding a “mood” tag, for example.

• I can see how my tastes have evolved and grown over time as I’ve discovered new acts and genres, because the files are all still there. You start from scratch when you switch to a different streaming service, because they’ve locked you in.

• Most importantly, buying music in physical formats or digital files goes so much further towards helping acts than any amount of streaming could. You end up with something better too, whether it be a gorgeous art on a folding LP cover, to a high-quality file that’s yours to keep forever.

I’ve also talked about why 320 Kb/s MP3 has also been my go-to choice for encoding offline files as well, for reasons that wouldn’t shock anyone:

• They’re supported everywhere, whether I be listening on my 486 or Palm LifeDrive in the Retro Corner, or on my modern desktop and Tangara music player. No other format, save for perhaps WAV, is as universal (rest in peace, AdLib).

• The format is no longer patent encumbered, meaning you can use encoders/decoders with that aforementioned universal support indefinitely, whether on BSD and Linux, or a commercial OS. I call this out because people tell me otherwise on a regular basis, based presumably on very outdated knowledge.

• While not as small as formats like AAC, MP3s are still smaller than the equivalent listening experience on lossless formats. I can’t tell the difference between a 320 Kb/s MP3 and a FLAC file whether I’m using my monitors, our Hi-Fi bookshelf speakers, our decent computer speakers in the study, or my Sony earbuds. If you can, great! But I am not you.

This has lead me to an interesting predicament. I do have a sizeable collection of FLAC files, despite not using them for daily listening. FLAC is a useful storage format, like those holographic coasters people used to sell. I strongly doubt MP3 will be going anywhere anytime soon, but if I ever feel the need to re-encode them into a modern format, I can always go back to the CDs and FLACs so I’m not doing lossy/lossy encodes.

But then I realised: why not use the FLACs for listening if I have them anyway? The filesize benefits of MP3s are moot if they’re being stored in addition to the FLACs. SD cards have also got to a sufficient capacity that my Tangara or Sony music players could easily house my entire FLAC collection without breaking a sweat, even if the quality difference is imperceptable.

Maybe I swap out MP3s for FLAC where I have them in my primary library, then keep some lower-bitrate MP3s for those older devices if I feel especially nostalgic. Could my PowerMac G4 Quicksilver even play FLAC files I wonder?