Quote:
Originally Posted by Fooljam
I don't think it is.
If your sound system is average, you won't really be able to tell the difference because the processing is not here that's for sure.
Even with an average JL 600/6 I can tell a good FLAC file has more details to an equivalent tune in 320 MP3. I use lots of FLAC at over 1000kbps and they sound significantly better than my other 320kbps tunes. They feel more lively, instruments and voices are clearly clearer.
As for road noise in my bimmer, does not really affect the clarity of my tunes. I feel like my car is doing a pretty good job at isolating me from outside road noise. Now we can always do better for sure (Damping etc). My sound system and speakers does the rest pretty well.
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To each their own. It's entirely possible you have very gifted hearing, but I would definitely say that you're an outlier in the data compared to most listeners.
I've got pretty good ears and audio equipment at home (and Logic7 in the car) and even in a controlled listening environment with good audio equipment, it's damn hard to tell V0 apart from FLAC. The difference is almost always minor artifacting here and there, not sound stage, separation, clarity, etc. A large number of audio enthusiasts will agree (check out head-fi, they've done a few small studies), and I can pretty much guarantee that anyone who isn't already knowledgeable on audio compression and encoding won't know the difference.
If you're just sitting in the car and listening, you *may* be able to notice a difference on Logic7 between FLAC and V0. Maybe. But with road noise while driving and a good part of your brain focused on the road rather than wholly devoted to critical listening? I doubt it.
To address the OP more directly:
For your music, you mention it's iTunes - assuming it's all iTunes Plus with no DRM or other copy protection, just throw it on a flash drive and plug it into the car and either play it directly or copy it to the car's hard drive. If it's older purchases back when iTunes had DRM, you're going to need to look into methods for removing the DRM, otherwise the car won't play it. Any other music files you have (MP3s, whatever), copy them as well.
Any music that is already in a compressed format (MP3, iTunes/AAC, WMA) is already "damaged" in terms of quality. Compression loses a bit of detail, and burning it to a CD won't ever fix that. Once it's gone, it's gone. Similarly, burn speed and the like won't affect audio quality. It can help with temperamental blank discs or CD players very rarely (lower speeds can reduce errors), but the actual digital audio data will be the same.
Regarding your CD collection, if you're really concerned about audio quality, I would rip to V0 MP3 (you can Google for guides) and then transfer it to a flash drive and then to the car's hard drive. If you just want good sound and aren't concerned about it being perfect, just rip it with it iTunes set to iTunes Plus quality settings (256kbps VBR AAC). Copy it to the car and it'll play fine and sound nice.