Why Lossless Matters for Archiving
When archiving music, the goal is to preserve a perfect copy that can be converted to any format in the future. If you archive as MP3, you are permanently discarding audio data — re-converting that MP3 to FLAC 10 years later will not recover what was lost. Lossless formats (FLAC, WAV, ALAC, AIFF) preserve every sample.
Format Comparison
| Format | Compression | Metadata | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| FLAC | Lossless, 40-60% smaller than WAV | Excellent (Vorbis tags) | General archiving, Linux/Android |
| WAV | None (uncompressed) | Poor (limited ID3) | DAW/studio use |
| ALAC | Lossless, similar to FLAC | Good (iTunes tags) | Apple ecosystem |
| AIFF | None (uncompressed) | Good (ID3) | Mac/Pro Tools |
The Recommendation: FLAC
For most people archiving a personal music collection, FLAC is the best choice. It is open-source, widely supported, 40-60% smaller than WAV, has excellent metadata support, and is supported by every major music player.
Converting to Lossless
- WAV to FLAC — lossless compression, recommended for archiving
- MP3 to FLAC — note: the lossy data is already gone