FLAC (which stands for Free Lossless Audio Codec) is a way to code audio files. It makes those audio files smaller, without affecting the sound quality.
FLAC files use lossless compression, which means all the original data is preserved (which is why people like FLAC), which makes FLAC files smaller than an uncompressed .WAV audio file, but still larger than an MP3 file, which uses lossy compression. Lossy compression does involve the loss of some data. This is what allows MP3 files to be smaller than FLAC. With the existence of other more modern lossy audio file formats/codecs like .AAC, and .opus, MP3s should no longer be used unless it is required for compatibility reasons. The modern lossy formats offer higher quality audio files at lower file sizes than MP3.
MP3s are quite compressed, meaning a lot of data is thrown away in an effort to have smaller files. The quality of audio is sacrificed quite a bit though.
Lossless formats retain as much data as possible as to not impact the sound quality, but at the expense of larger files. The OP says “smaller” because that’s in comparison to the raw uncompressed sound data stream. But they are larger than MP3s because MP3 is a lossy format.
File size used to matter a lot in the past when digital music players first came out. My first player had 128 MB storage, for example. At 3-5 MB per song that would fill up quickly. Nowadays larger storage of portable devices is more ubiquitous, with even the cheapest phones sportiing 32-64 GB, and more. So people prefer audio quality and don’t care as much if each song takes up more space.
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https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/FLAC
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Best way I’ve seen it explained.
FLAC = PNG
MP3 = JPEG
Well I learned something today - I always thought PNG was lossey.
Png is compressed, but lossless. Jpg is both compressed and lossy.
No, and when used for simple images like text, it can often take up less storage space than JPEG despite being lossless.
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Continuing the analogy WAV = BMP
FLAC files use lossless compression, which means all the original data is preserved (which is why people like FLAC), which makes FLAC files smaller than an uncompressed .WAV audio file, but still larger than an MP3 file, which uses lossy compression. Lossy compression does involve the loss of some data. This is what allows MP3 files to be smaller than FLAC. With the existence of other more modern lossy audio file formats/codecs like .AAC, and .opus, MP3s should no longer be used unless it is required for compatibility reasons. The modern lossy formats offer higher quality audio files at lower file sizes than MP3.
MP3s are quite compressed, meaning a lot of data is thrown away in an effort to have smaller files. The quality of audio is sacrificed quite a bit though.
Lossless formats retain as much data as possible as to not impact the sound quality, but at the expense of larger files. The OP says “smaller” because that’s in comparison to the raw uncompressed sound data stream. But they are larger than MP3s because MP3 is a lossy format.
File size used to matter a lot in the past when digital music players first came out. My first player had 128 MB storage, for example. At 3-5 MB per song that would fill up quickly. Nowadays larger storage of portable devices is more ubiquitous, with even the cheapest phones sportiing 32-64 GB, and more. So people prefer audio quality and don’t care as much if each song takes up more space.
it’s not physically possible to downvote someone on hexbear