Quote Originally Posted by recoveryone
I guess I should have been clearer in my question of Bit Rate. What is the kbps rate of the lossless formats. Now if, in the article I posted suggest states that and CD ripped at 320kps is at near CD quality, we all know that you can store more Mp3 files on a disk than lossless formats. I have done my own side by side test using 320kps Mp3, WAV and the original CD and I could not tell which was which. I may not have the highest end equipment or even the most trained ear for the smallest sound quality, but I agree with the editor, let each person make the choice.
The answer is the FLAC and ALAC are similar and compress the full-size files to just a bit more the 50% of the original overall. The physical bit rates are variable depending on the complexity of the sound. The compressed size is relevant only for storage and transmission over the network. It's isn't relevant to the effective, musical bit rate which remains the original, in the case of CDs, 16 bits / 44.1 kHz.