I like it! It has a very intuitive user interface and it does what it says. Installed on Win 7 64bit with no problems. That being said, the price is probably a killer. Thank you GOTD.

Just to restate, as some seem to have missed this point, MP3s are often reduced quality with reduced file size, but at 320K MP3s are every bit the equivalent of flac.

Most older CD players will not play MP3s in any case and in any case you're unlikely to find a CD player (except perhaps some very expensive ones!)that will play flac unless played back through your PC directly from the CD.

When it comes to FLAC to MP3 conversion, the only reason I could see would be to allow the music to be played on MP3 players that don't handle FLAC. But it's not the most popular format for digital storage; if someone really is concerned about quality they will stick with the original media the music is on whether it be vinyl or CD. If one does want to digitize, then WAV seems to be the best format; it might take up a little space but storage space isn't as costly as it use to be.

I highly doubt that anyone has actually bought this software when there's so many free programs that can do more than this. My honest recommendation is for the developer to simply abandon this program; it will never sell for any price. Maybe if it was developed into a program that would handle most formats there could be an interest, but considering there's so many free programs that already do that, there's no point. This program is a unitasker and even for free it's not worth the drive space.

To add to my previous comment ... I am now almost exclusively mp3 and CD....

I'm not even sure if my cell phone plays FLAC ......

I use free program called "Format Factory" that converts pretty much any music, picture or video to any other format. Its only drawback is that it doesn't convert text documents...

I have been using this freeware for years and have never had any problems. I have never really used codec-based stuff (I didn't even know what FLAC was until today's giveaway)as I use mostly .avi files and DVDs.

I use VLC Media Player (also free) which seems capable of supporting pretty much ANY format I throw at it so I really don't see why today's giveaway is useful unless it has some esoteric, complicated computer nerd functions that I will never need to know about.

Ekkk me again half asleep, i have uninstalled but forgot to take notice which version the giveaway was, as i dont want to reinstall it just to see what version number it was, as i want to compare it to the one on the publishers site, which is version 4.0, so could somebody who has installed this giveaway, please mention the giveaway version number thanks, as i would like to know if this is an older version.
Yhanks in advance
Mark

Hmmmm FLAC good lossless format, WAV Better, Hell if i`m gonna Rip my
cd`s i will stick to WAV, and to play on a portable music device, of course i`m gonna use MP3. WHY! simple most people i know use the WAV format, cause sooner or later we all burn the ripped music cd`s back onto Cd`s anyway, and FLAC files are not much smaller than a WAV files, so with WAV you get perfect copy, and or your own mixed music cd.

And of course most people don`t really care about lossless music on their portable music devices, People just seem to want to cram as much music onto there portable music players as possible.
Now since MP3 sounds good and most people really cant notice the difference between the lossless format and MP3 for there every day use of portable music players, most will stick to Mp3 for the space they can save, and hence cram more music onto there players.

So any type of music converter, including this giveaway which can convert FLAC, WAV, OGG etc to MP3 is good, Of course many of the free converters out there do the job very well, even though i have downloaded and tested this giveaway and it works excellent, ITS THE PRICE which is the SHOCKER $29.95 is too Steep!!! Maybe $10.00 or Slighty more would be a Better Price for this software, Remember FlacMP3.net you ARE competing with a lot of Very good FREE Music converters out there.

You can use Trader's Little Helper to do this for free.

Given the interface, and the lack of options, and the ridiculous claim\s made on the developer's website, one assumes the target audience is people who aren't terribly comfortable with such things. If that's the case, the developer's first step should be to change the product's name. Not only because a lot of people in that crowd have no clue what FLAC is, but they need to make it clearer that this converts TO and FROM a number of other formats. At the moment, the two highest ranked suggestions involve... adding more conversion options (though I suppose that's based on the description here, which fails to mention this DOES handle other formats).

Back to ridiculous claims. The website says this is 180% faster than other converters. Doesn't seem to provide anything to back that up, and does not explain how they came to that conclusion. I expect people like my dad, or my husband (bless his heart), would take it at face value, but I decided to test. My control file was a FLAC, the first movement of Mozart's 40th symphony. The other converter that I used was dBpoweramp, and I set both to output a 320kbps MP3. FLAC to MP3 converter did it in 45.3 seconds, while dBpoweramp did it in 32 (timed both with iPod stopwatch, though dBpoweramp also displays total conversion time).

I think 29.95 is steep, but they're running a two day promo sale - this normally sells for $39.95! I don't have a problem paying for software (or licensing it, if you're a stickler for such things), or steering others toward doing so when I think it's appropriate, but I just can't imagine recommending this at that price.

My one REAL complaint about this program is that it doesn't warn people when they try to convert from a LOSSY format, or explain why that's a bad idea.

Real high fidelity enthusiasts will laugh their heads off if they come across GOTD comment threads like this one.

FLAC or even the CDs are definitely not high fidelity. They are just digitised forms of sound. They can never match the sound quality emanating from a good turntable e.g. Linn Sondek LP12 with SME tone arm and good phono cartridge playing a Sheffield Lab record.

High fidelity is ANALOG. Where the connecting cable alone costs thousands of dollars. And the phono cartridge (for example, Koetsu) can be handmade. Not to mention the expensive turntable. See below.

http://www.bornrich.com/entry/goldmunds-300000-turntable-is-worlds-most-expensive-turntable/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfIUh0S7yTQ

MP3 is just a sensible convenience for the masses. At least MP3 does not pretend to be high fidelity.

Also worth a mention: AUDACITY for all your audio works (edit and convert). Audacity is free and truly an excellent software.

Before I knew about FLAC, I used to save my audio CD's to MP3 @ 320k VBR, using EAC (the best CD audio ripper).

The difference between MP3 and FLAC is the license: the former is proprietary while the latter is free/open source. Remember when some stupid and dumb company tried to charge for GIF's? It could happen to MP3's too.

I cannot understand why some people think they can charge for audio conversion when there are a lot of free software available. And making it temporarily free through GOTD is just a joke. Find the hidden agenda.

Anyway, thanks to GOTD, but no thanks today.

#31: "My preferred solution is to take you all and have you install Fedora or even Ubuntu so you can learn to convert FLAC and other files for FREE..."

Sorry... While there's nothing wrong with *nix if that's your thing, there's plenty of audio freeware for Windows, & if you're doing anything serious with audio you're in Windows or running a Mac. AFAIK you can't even get *nix drivers for most of the really good audio hardware.

* * *

#34: "Who the heck uses FLAC anyway?... I guess those who say it records and recompiles as a lossless process, your hearing must be a freak of nature if you can notice anything above 128 or 192... :-)"

I think that maybe you misunderstand... FLAC or wav or lossless wma etc. are like having images in the tif or raw formats, with all available data preserved -- MP3, AAC etc. are like jpeg or GIF images in that regard, often being good enough, but with some loss of detail. Continuing the picture taking/storing analogy, many people keep & store the original images they take with their cameras, then as needed make smaller, lower quality versions they might post or send via e-mail -- that way, storing the originals, they can make different rez copies, make high quality prints etc. Another way to put it is that most people don't buy a physical CD, rip it to mp3, & then throw the CD away.

Storing FLAC or wav or whatever lossless format is just a way of keeping what you have to start with -- that lets you do whatever you want, whenever you want... In contrast, create a lower bit rate MP3 to stick on your MP3 player, & you are not going to create a higher bit rate, higher quality version out of it to play using your car's audio system.

Other than that, hearing ability varies from person to person, & there are indeed many who can hear what's missing when audio's put into a lossy format. I can't [I've got ~50% hearing loss due to illness], but I know people who can, & don't begrudge them their ability -- such is life. :-) Also purely FWIW, price paid Does Not necessarily = performance with any audio gear, e.g. real studio headphones don't color the audio, adding bass or whatever... you can pay top dollar for a pair with an artist's name/endorsement, & they may tailor the sound just like you want it -- there's nothing at all wrong with that, but do realize what you've got, what you've paid for.

MSCOMCTL.OCX is self-registering and it's in the evironment path, no need to use regsvr32.exe

you know what,, i dont really beleive i NEED Flack to MP3, simply because it can convert flack to mp3 files, i can use VLC to play this stuff and its free regularly, now unless this program can somehow convert:
flack to mp3's and
flack to mp3's or
flack to mp3's as well as
flack to mp3's

unless it some how manages to make something valuable to me i wont be trying this any time soon

FLAC To MP3 seems an easy to use VB [Visual Basic] front end for ffmpeg -- ffmpeg has one of the better [best?] FLAC decoders. Unfortunately installation breaks rules, registering [a slightly older] "MSCOMCTL.OCX" in the "FLAC To MP3" program folder [21 files, 1 folder, ~22 MB] -- remove that folder [i.e. uninstall] & any other apps that use MSCOMCTL.OCX won't be able to find it. That's of course not a problem if you don't have any other VB apps, but then you might run into a different gotcha -- FLAC To MP3 doesn't include the VB runtime, which if needed you'll have to get from microsoft.com. Otherwise today's GOTD is portable as long as the hosting Windows has VB support & MSCOMCTL.OCX installed, & FLAC TO MP3 should work about as well as most other ffmpeg front ends, though those with more recent builds/versions of ffmpeg may do better faster. That said, I think most ffmpeg front ends focus on video, so FLAC To MP3 [being audio only] might be less confusing. Personally & FWIW I use the free LameXP, which also does a nice job handling multi-channel audio [e.g. 5.1].

If needed this article has links to the VB6 runtime, service packs etc. -- make sure to visit Microsoft Update after adding the VB6 runtime &/or service packs -- http://support.microsoft.com/kb/290887 . There are also several ways to (re)register MSCOMCTL.OCX [it should be in Windows system folder]... I keep & use a copy of an old app called Regdrop.exe [I have it on my desktop], you can Google/Bing for instructions on using Windows' regsvr32.exe from the command line, you can find instructions &/or .reg files to add registering files to the right-click context menu etc.

Who the heck uses FLAC anyway? I've never heard of it till now so it's must not be very popular. I guess those who say it records and recompiles as a lossless process, your hearing must be a freak of nature if you can notice anything above 128 or 192. I have some very expensive head phones and some decent audio eqp but I be damn if I can hear (or want to) a singer fart while enjoying his/her music. This util isn't much use for those of us with NORMAL hearing. :-)

unregistered, the program only converts 50% of a given song

entering a wrong reg#, crashed the program?

the supplied registration key works
though the box to input the registration code does not show till after you've clicked the website link

UI is not realizable
not the window itself, nor elements within (like the splitter between Name | Format)

no way to set "profiles", such that you can store particular setups to reuse

Add, defaults to a file type of FLAC, though far more formats are available on the dropdown,
& you would expect the dropdown would be used far more often then the default (FLAC)

Add Folder, only has a tree-style picker
NO method to paste a path into the dialog (like from clipboard)

output directory automatically opens upon conversion
no options to disable

tags are hit or miss, i suppose depending upon the formats select.
so existing tags may or may not be copied over. no control on the matter.
existing MP3 with a v1.0 tag, left the v1.0 & added a v2.4
(which doesn't really make sense)
the same MP3 to OGG left no tag in the OGG

Add has no persistence after restart, & none at all for the file type dropdown
Add Folder has no persistence at all
so after program restart you have to manually navigate back to where you were before
(if that's where you were going)

no pause or stop feature once the conversion has started

the File List clears automatically as the conversion completes
(& you may not want it to, because you may want to change parameters & recode the same songs again)

duplicate files are overwritten without warning

if you add a Folder, all files, regardless of type, are added to the File List
so you may have say DOC or PDF files in the list where they have no place being there
(this doesn't affect anything - in a meaningful way, but still shouldn't happen. it
did take "cover.jpg" & output "cover.ogg")

no way to have the output files saved (by default) into the source directory

Output Folder: -> Browser, then don't select anything, but click Cancel, leaves you in lala land.

while it works, & while it may do more then it says (handling more formats then just FLAC to MP3) it is a very poor effort

there are too many programs that do more, better, easier, & many of those for free to consider this program

My favorite free all-in-one converter: FormatFactory: various picture, video, and audio options, batch conversion, split or join with conversion, ripping, mixing, etc. Optional shell integration too. I also like, and frequently use a previous giveaway: Total Audio Converter. This has all most will need for audio converting, and a more useful quick shell (right click) integration with menu. Total Audio Converter also allows combining files. Sorry not to comment specifically on or even try today's software. No compelling reason to switch from the previous giveaway, or free offering which do FLACs and much more.

Can someone please explain what this program does? :-). I think my 4 year old wrote the description.

I agree with a lot of posts in this forum that Linux has many opensource conversion tools such mencoder, ffmpeg, lame, flac, and such. Heck, if you felt a bit froggy, you could even convert an OOG file to WMA format in Linux with mplayer.
There are DOS version of some, if not all, of these utils, but you try and tell a Windows user why the command they typed is not working: for i in *flac ; do flac -dc "$i" | lame -b 256 -h - "${i%flacmp3"} ; done

The FLAC to MP3 program offered by GotD converts FLAC and about 20 other media file types to MP3 and about 8 other media types and it does it through point and click, which is simple enough even for Windows users to use.

Note to non-Linux users: the above command didn't work because this "${i%flacmp3"} should of been that "${i%flac}mp3".

My preferred solution is to take you all and have you install Fedora or even Ubuntu so you can learn to convert FLAC and other files for FREE. Though as part of this transition, while you are still lowly Windows fanboys or fangirls, download FLAC to MP3 for FREE.

Format Foactory handles FLAC (and just about every other audio/video format known to man,) and is free every day!www.formatoz.com

I agree with a lot of posts in this forum that Linux has many opensource conversion tools such mencoder, ffmpeg, lame, flac, and such. Heck, if you felt a bit froggy, you could even convert an OOG file to WMA format in Linux with mplayer.
There are DOS version of some, if not all, of these utils, but you try and tell a Windows user why the command they typed is not working: for i in *flac ; do flac -dc "$i" | lame -b 256 -h - "${i%flacmp3"} ; done

This FLAC to MP3 programs converts FLAC and about 20 other media file types to MP3 and about 8 other media types and it does it through point and click, which is simple enough even for Windows users to use.

Note to non-Linux users: the above command didn't work because this "${i%flacmp3"} (WRONG) should of been that"${i%flac}mp3" (RIGHT).

My preferred solution is to take you all and have you install Fedora or even Ubuntu so you can convert FLAC and other files for FREE. Though as part of the transition, while you are still a lowly Windows fanboy or fangirl, download FLAC to MP3 for FREE.

I agree with other posters that this download is a bit much as far as price is concerned but, to go as far as saying that this site or it's contents is malware well, I hope you guys have done your home work because I just had VirusTotal analyze this download and site. Nothing out of the ordinary here. 0 out of 42 AntiVirus including NOD32 had anything to report.

http://www.virustotal.com/file-scan/report.html?id=5bc0c81e73903bd5e03dfad0ad997a9d5d723bb17e834f04d3e0632912ae90a0-1320588112

Thanks to the Team for this download.

comment on software - I find offers such as this one amusing - it's from the vast (pronounced Vhast)collection of P. T. Barnam-type software; as he said, "There's a sucker born every minute" and he was sure to get their dollar sooner than later. I did not bother to download, because I already have 3 free programs that do the same; only I've never used them because everything already IS MP3. Kids today are not audiophiles - they don't have the time for it - so losing a tiny bit of studio quality sound to get it to fit into a few megabytes is a no-brainer; MP3, the no-brain-needed format.
Suggestion: combine all your one-of converters and then drop the price to as close to zero as possible for you - use it to expand your customer base, your email list and generate sales off of newer, more useful and robust software; this is from the 80's for gosh sakes! I searched my 12GBs of music files - not one FLAC, so don't come to my house to hear some tunes, my are all lossy!
Having said all that, I try never to miss a day coming here to read the great and helpful and informative comments (this one excluded) and I really appreciate all the opinions and help offered and found here; ow - just hurt my elbow trying to pat myself on the back!

Just about everybody has mp3 playing software already installed on their system and if yours does not have this conversion capability, you need to find one that does. Period.

In other words, this is kinda worthless and you have to wonder why anyone would bother writing it, let alone why anyone would actually install it on their system.

In case it helps, especially since there's likely a fair number of people who aren't familiar with FLAC...

Most audio is originally in the .wav format without any compression whatsoever. Because of that .wav files are the largest, but they're also the easiest to edit &/or work with -- most audio editing apps convert to .wav as necessary internally & work with those usually temporary files if/when you import MP3 for example. Because of their large file size however .wav files are often converted [transcoded] to other formats like MP3, .wma etc... with it's MUCH smaller file sizes it was MP3 that enabled or started the whole music download scene. However MP3 like many other audio formats is lossy, meaning data's thrown out to achieve a smaller file size. FLAC OTOH is lossless, so while your audio files are smaller [though not as small as MP3], all the original data's preserved -- that makes FLAC a good or great archive format when/where both space & fidelity are important. FLAC is not a replacement for MP3 -- even when file size isn't a problem, many players &/or cells won't play FLAC, & it's extra fidelity is meaningless if the speakers, headphones, earbuds etc. can't fully reproduce the original sound.

People that rip their CDs, record audio etc. often archive the results as FLAC for more efficient storage, then convert to whatever other formats as needed, & that's where today's GOTD, FLAC To MP3, might come in handy. More info at flac.sourceforge.net , Wikipedia http://goo.gl/ULcL , hydrogenaudio http://goo.gl/BKJKy , & a comparison at stereophile.com http://goo.gl/VpLqq .

There are many cases where MP3 is the preferred format, such as radio studio software, many MP3 players that won't play flac files, and where having a file about 3 or 4 times bigger is very space consuming. It is most unlikely most people with modest headphones could tell any difference between a flac file and a reasonably sized MP3 file. Obviously if playback is through a top-notch high-fi with large external very high quality speakers and space is not a consideration, - and you have extremely good hearing you might then notice the difference! Most CDs have wav format anyway for commercial distribution. Flac is useful when you need MP3s (I have to use MP3s for my live radio shows) as you can then determine the bit-rate to set for MP3 quality (eg 192K for good quality, 256K for studio quality, 320 for loss-less).

Today's GOTD has an obvious use, especially for batch conversion where MP3s are needed. As for comparison, either flac or 320K MP3s are identical in quality! (And sound reproduction!!) The only difference then is that flac files won't play on many players!

As said though, why restrict the software to one conversion format and direction (at a VERY high price!). Especially as Cds in wav format will need another way than today's GOTD to be converted anyway!

The software seems to be aimed at very well off people who haven't time to search for very good free alternatives - and have money burning holes in their pockets!

A big thank you to everyone who mentioned free alternatives so as to enable one to compare today's GAOTD with something else. As for me, I like the fast conversion speed and quality output of this program.

God!

Who would convert flac to mp3?

FLAC is loseless and MP3 is not. Now many portable devices support flac.

So I don't think I need it.

Even I must do it, I would use flac and lame.

Luckily todays giveaway can import more than just flac files although it defaults to that.

You can also choose MPEG4, AVI, MPG, WMV, FLV, MOV, VOB, RM, 3PG, MP3, WAV, WMA. When you choose All Media Formats it displays All Files, bad coding IMHO

You can delete the MSCOMCTL.OCX file after verifying it exists in the System32 and/or SysWow64 directory if using Windows 64-bit edition.

This is basically a clone of MP3Cutter, which was given away on 7/7/2011

You can combine the two by moving the flac2mp3.exe file to the C:\Program Files (x86)\MP3Cutter

You must also copy the cygwin1.dll, sox.exe, and soxi.exe to the data folder saving you 22.4 MB in space

The best audio/video converter in the market is SUPER and it is FREE! I don't see any reason to spend $29.95 for a this type of basic software.

Have to agree with #1 on this one. Flac is there for the purpose of making high-definition recordings. Flac on the other hand makes for large files. Exchanging flac for mp3 is pointless.

there are converters with hundreds of different audio types to convert in one program, and they're free

$29.95 ?!?!

Pazera Free Audio Extractor does it in both ways and for almost every audio format. What's more it can extract audio from movies to any format you like and it's for FREE!!

1) I agree with others about free alternatives, several of which I have used, including some that batch-convert files.

2) As for FLAC to MP3, the reasons for wanting this ability might be relatively simple--I have a CD collection and was moving overseas. So I ripped by entire collection to FLAC and put the CDs in storage. I keep the FLAC files on my desktop computer.

3) To play FLAC on my SANSA CLIP+ player, I can just copy the files to it. So, it is possible to have loss-less material playing. (Many SANSA products play FLAC.) Yes, FLAC files are enormous in size, but they are very high quality for playing through my home theater system.

4) But since I usually listen to music while running outside or while driving, I am happy to sacrifice quality for volume of songs I can put on the player. A converter like this would be useful to convert so I can plug my player into the USB port of my car stereo.

5) Do I notice the quality? Given my, ahem, age, and listening environments, I do not.

mp3 output settings are very basic. There should be more options to fine tune the output for various needs...

There are many free alternatives with more advanced features.
E.g. BonkEnc, WinLAME, LameDropXPd etc.

Thanks to FlacMP3.Net and GOTD.

Downloaded, installed and registered easily.
Tested it with a sample Flac file. "Deerhunter theme".

This software works beautifully.
Fast conversion. Converted MP3 sounds good.
Excellent user interface. Simple, easy to use and effective. No confusion.
Through its simplicity, it is a superior program.

Default output MP3 bitrate of 192Kbps and Rate 44100 Khz are alright.
You can change them if you wish.
You can select your chosen output sub-directory.
You can batch the conversion.
You can add an entire folder of Flac files to convert.

A bell rings at end of conversion.

Does one thing - Convert Flac to MP3, does what it says and does it extremely well.

The user interface is well thought out. No mucking about here.

This is what I like about good software. It does not try to be many different things. Some other software try to beat competitors by having numerous dubious "features". Some other softwares try to be a multiple featured do-everything-Swiss-army-knife by throwing in all kinds of badly written chunks of code that end in a Frankenstein program that is a horror to use.

There is a freeware alternative called Eufony Free FLAC MP3 Converter 1.72. Apparently good but I have yet to check it out.

FLAC - Free Lossless Audio Codec an audio format similar to MP3, but lossless, meaning that audio is compressed in FLAC without any loss in quality.
So i went here http://totallyfreemusic.blogspot.com/search/label/flac to download a single flac file which was 484 mb file what a waste of bandwidth.
Check that post, this is a big thumbs down for me, sorry GAOTD team, no go for me.

I would imagine this would be of limited use, as I guess that the majority of people would already have their music files in mp3 format, despite FLAC being allegedly lossless and better quality. Do many portable devices support FLAC?

Another program that is best as an add-on to another program (another one trick pony) I am sure most people know a few freeware that does this so i skip naming them. As for a paid programs you can get "Aiseesoft Total Media Converter" which was offered on GOTD a few weeks ago and has been working on my computer and it cost only 5 dollars more for all the extra features it has. So I pass on this offer because it is very limited and cost a lot for what is does.

this is a great convertor!

the only problem is the price and what you get.

£29.95 is a tad expensive considering there are free alternatives such as format factory (which handles most audio and video). Perhaps adding more conversion options would make it more affordable!

Very satisfied. Converts surprisingly fast!

The program installed without fuss on my XP (SP2) PC

1) The program's interface is simple and looks reasonably attractive
2) It not only converts to MP3 but various other common formats as well such as WMA and OGG
3)It converted my sample file with no problems, however it immediately opens the output folder which threw me off (since it happened so fast I thought it may have crashed. I would recommend having a button to open the folder instead.
4)The audio files you should be expecting to convert would be massive, since a 1MB flac file turned out to be 3 seconds long

There are free alternatives to this software such as:

1)Cool FLAC to MP3 Converter
http://www.asoftwareplus.com/flac-to-mp3-converter.html

and

2)Free FLAC to MP3 Converter
http://www.boxoft.com/flac-to-mp3/

My overall opinion is that this software is overpriced, but it performs well. I have no need for this so it's time to uninstall :)

Please remember, FLAC is a lossless format. That means, encoding a CD to FLAC and burning it back to CD-ROM will almost create the original disc with all songs in identical quality.

On the other hand, MP3 is a format that trades in sound quality for better file size.

The only use for this converter is listening to FLAC on your old, incompatible mobile device, or some even older device with only small flash memory chips.

So, basically they want to charge $29.95 for a tool that converts your music files to lower quality... I suggest to buy a 16 gig micro-sd instead and find a working FLAC-compatible app. (Wished all my music was FLAC...)

The publisher might want to remove the ESET blacklisting.

http://www.flacmp3.net/register.html
Comment: Access to the web page was blocked by ESET Smart Security. The web page is on the list of websites with potentially dangerous contents.

Very limited software. There are many free audio converters that can convert from any format to any format, so selling a program ($30!) that can convert only from FLAC to MP3 is a nonsense. I use the converter integrated in foobar2000 (free) to do all my conversions, as it works very well, it copies all tags on the fly, and it can compute the reply gain automatically after the operation. And foobar is so powerful!

BTW, if you really want to convert your lossless audio files to a lossy format, use a descent format such as OGG. MP3 is probably the worst lossy encoder currently available, especially if the converter is not based on the free LAME MP3 encoder.

I don't understand the use of a converter that can only convert FLAC to mp3. Almost every audio converter, both free & paid, can do this and many more. There are some people who has a music collection in FLAC format, but majority of us use MP3 or AAC. And if I have a song in FLAC format, which is loseless audio, why would I want to deteriorate its quality except space problem?

Hey, it's good to see it's free today. Otherwise, no way in hell I would pay $29.95.

Seriously? 29.95? For a front end to a GPLed format? Who's trying to rip off unknowing customers?

FLAC is a FREE excellent Open Source lossless digital format & utility package, and I rip all of my CDs to FLAC. Using Exact Audio Copy (also free) to accurately & easily rip albums. Or, very simply, FLAC.EXE is an easy to use command line program [ try for %f in (C:\AlbumName\*.WAV) do flac -8 "%f" ], or find one of the many free GUI front-ends out there.

WinAmp, Foobar, and pretty much all music player apps have a FLAC plug-in. WinAmp & Foobar will do the conversions if you need it to. Some portable MP3 players will play FLACs. Try it... you may never switch back to WAVs or crappy MP3s.