Which format will sound the best in my car?

I have a bunch of lossless music files which I assume is almost as good as having the actual retail cds, which I no longer have due to loss/theft.

Now, my new car has a nifty cd changer, first for me haha, and I would like to play those songs in the car. I tried burning the lossless files to cd but they did not play in the car.

So, what do I need to do for these lossless files to play in the car and will they sound just as good as the retail cd's? Thank you


p.s. can you recommend software to handle this task that will also allow me to label the song info? I think the car reads ID3 tags etc..

If you need more specific info I can go to the car and get the manual and read all the format info.

For the best quality - you'll need to convert the FLAC files to .wav


There's heaps of freeware apps out there or plugin for Winamp etc. I haven't used any so I can't recommend any, just do a search for FLAC to wav

thank you very much. I'm gonna start looking for some software.

Good luck mate.

ignatzatsonic said:

Consider riding in a car---you are constantly bombarded with tire noise, engine noise, wind noise, traffic noise, etc.

And car sound systems typically have inferior frequency response and greater distortion than home playback systems.

This is why I use those car USB MP3 players which you plug into the lighter slot. They're dirt cheap, and you can load up thousands of songs on a single USB thumbdrive.

I once considered purchasing a CD player for my car, but they were (and still are) very expensive. On the other hand a USB MP3 player is extremely cheap and can load way more songs, and your library of songs can be changed easily since it's basically a USB thumbdrive. No disc burning/swapping hassle at all.

Edit:
Just wanted to add, I love to change the songs on it all the time, it makes for more interesting car pool conversations.

I use an iPod in my car. Much easier than burning CDs.
The Kenwood that I bought for my sports car doesn't even play CDs, just digital media from an iPod or USB thumb drive, or from the internal memory.

Unfortunately all the cheap ones here (local $30, so about USD$7.50) are "unbranded" - they're simple listed as made in China on the packaging, while the device itself has no logos.

All of them come with a remote control - play/stop, prev song, next song, change frequency. They're flat and small (they use those round flat watch batteries), and i lost mine immediately after unpackaging the thing It has the same functions on the device face though so I just press those.

No order control at all that I can tell of, heh - it pretty much follows some internally consistent order, but new songs loaded into the same thumbdrive (the USB thumbdrive is a separate item) can appear pretty much anywhere in this list. Songs play consecutively in this order, no shuffle function that I can see. Ditto if you insert folders.

Well, that's what I get for being a cheapskate; I'm sure there are higher tier devices with some actual control over the song list - I've seen models that show the song's ID4 info on the LED display - but I didn't care about other features at the time.

Sorry couldn't help much. For what it's worth, I have a pretty short attention span and I change the songs on the thumbdrive every day. I'm fairly certain you could simply load your entire library of songs onto your thumbdrive, but you'd need a more featureful device that lets you change the play order. How many songs it can play is entirely dependent on what you cram on your thumbdrive. From testing though it seems these el-cheapo models only recognize drives up to 4GB in size.

Durability? These things are plastic and light. I simply chuck mine into the glove compartment when I leave the car (after removing the thumbdrive). It's lasted 4 years now, so for a seven buck fifty thing I'd say it's durable enough.

Edit:
Here's a look at one of these buggers. It even looks cheap


Basically you shove the cylindrical end into the cigarette lighter slot in your car for power; the face buttons control the device - the left/right "+" and "-" buttons double as previous/next song or decrease/increase frequency (the former by default, for the latter you press that fat middle button first).

First time you ever slot the thing in you will need to have both your radio and this thing on the same frequency: this thing to broadcast, and your car radio to tune into it. Just pick an unused frequency (I use FM 107.5); each press of the +/- buttons to adjust the frequency will increase or decrease it by 0.1.

I thought of using an already-allocated frequency for shits and giggles, until I realised the range of this thing is extremely short (i.e. just your car). So: no, you won't be able to make the guy in the car next to you go WTF when he tries to tune in to the local radio station and gets your battle hymn collection instead.

Forget the remote control; with your eyes on the road and one hand on the steering wheel, you can simply grope around until you have the thing in your hand, then press whichever button you need. And in practice this boils down to "next song" or "previous song". Really, you don't need a whole remote control for that. Or you can tell the annoying passenger to quit backseat driving and press the buttons for you.

Your USB thumbdrive goes into a slot located underneath the face buttons, so it sorta hangs/juts out from it. Note: it can get in the way of an enthusiastic gear-shifter or the knee of the guy in the shotgun passenger seat; this is fixed by simply rotating the entire thing, since the cigarette lighter slot you plug it into doesn't care about orientation. If "straight" is 6 o'clock, rotating it to 7 o'clock generally does the trick (the driver is on the right side in this country). Since you guys drive in the left seat, rotate it to 5 o'clock and it should be out of the way of your gear-shifting hand. If your passenger is an obstacle, put him in the back seat, or if full, the trunk.

There is no pause/rewind/forward mid-song; you can only fully go to previous or next song. It immediately starts playing the last song played before you yanked it out of the power slot, unless you messed with the mp3s loaded into the USB thumbdrive. To stop playing, you just yank the thing out of the slot.

Finally, you wipe with your left hand, and you eat with your right. Any questions?