I definitely can’t tell the difference between FLAC and 192kbit MP3’s (probably not 128kbit either, but the first is what most of my collection uses). Ogg and MP3, nothing much there either … but one transcoded to the other sounds like total crap. So I like FLAC as a source format I can encode to something smaller.
12.6GB.
FLAC quality depends on what hardware you use.
FLAC quality is immutable; it’s the same as the source quality.
Cas 
I think he meant playback quality. FLAC doesn’t help if you’re using your iPhone headphones. :point:
Yes yes this :point:
[quote]FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec) is a codec which allows digital audio to be losslessly compressed such that file size is reduced without any information being lost. Digital audio compressed by FLAC’s algorithm can typically be reduced to 50–60% of its original size, and decompressed into an identical copy of the original audio data.
[/quote]
Since it’s lossless, you can convert from any codec to FLAC without changing the quality. In that way it’s the best quality you can get for a given bitrate and sample format. Everything else would be as good or worse.
The issue here is transcoding. You must store in a true lossless format first.
Agreed.
I don’t see why Vorbis should not be used for bitrates other than 128kbs … ?
And I bet Opus will be one more exotic format. Mp3 is still there, despite awesome alternatives (vorbis and aac) being available for years, why would Opus change that ?
It seems the quality / space ratio is now irrelevant with the compression of mp3/vorbis/aac, given the storage space of even the smallest device, so Opus can’t fight on this front.
Viable patent free options are all good.
Opus is made by the xiph foundation, also maker of ogg. Ogg is not a audio format, but a container actually. The format is ogg vorbis, but you can put vorbis into other containers. The opus file will be, in this case, ogg opus.
Opus has some HUGE improvements in quality, and a crazy low delay (same as celt). And has been adopted quickly, lots of comm apps use it. I’m using it for online audio streaming and mixing, and with great results, both in quality and resources usage.
As for a java implementation, I am looking for one too, with no success (i found some java apps that use opus, but natively, not java coded). If anyone could find one, info will be very appreciated