I ve heard recently of this open source FLAC format with each song being about 50mb (Normally 5mb @128kbps) . WIll this be playable in anyway on the n800?


Thanks

Yes. It requires mplayer and (AFAIK) there is no GUI for that. You have to run it from command line.

MediaBox provides a GUI for mplayer and plays FLAC nicely.

Wouldn't it be better to convert it to ogg or mp3 (192kbs or higher)? it is not that you can tell the difference (quality) from the n800 speakers that it comes with or with high end earphones

Well, for normal people like you and me, Ogg would be perfectly OK. I'm happy with Ogg + N810 + earphones. Heck, I even use my N810 with a FM transmitter in the car. But some people actually can hear a difference between a hi-quality Ogg and a FLAC.

Audio people claim that if there is any compression loss whatever, one can hear the difference. Note: FLAC is compressed, but lossless, unlike OGG or mp3.

I personally don't care if there is a difference. What i care about is artifacts. Vinyl probably taught me that. 128kb mp3's are fine for me. YMMV.

MPD can play FLAC.

Some study says that exposure to lossy compressed music can cause hearing loss. No idea if this is true. But the sound is missing pieces and this may really strain the ear, even if you don't hear any difference.
But I still don't use much FLAC because the files are too big for me.

Since the memory card becomes cheaper and cheaper, FLAC and APE are better choice than 320kbps MP3 files, aren't they?

The N800's audio chip is pretty good as far as mobile devices go, but without a dedicated quality sound card I assure you you won't be able to hear a difference between 320 kbps MP3 and FLAC, no matter what kind of headphones you use.

The only real reason I see for trying to play FLACs is to avoid the hassle of transcoding into a lossy format if your main collection is in FLAC.