[Steven Sullivan]

John Doe wrote:
I compress binary files that much without necessarily losing
anything.

The "L" in FLAC stands for "lossless"

And... What about the other three letters, Marley?

"free" "audio" "codec"


MP3 and AAF were *designed* to be lossy.

I have read that some conversions to MP3 lose no information.

Then you have misread. MP3, unlike lossless codecs, always permanently
discards *data*, which is why it's called a *lossy* codec..

Whether the absence of that data is audible to you, is best
deteremined by you, via a blind comparison, which in this case
is easy to do on with a PC setup via WinABX or the ABX tool that
comes with Foobar2000.


That
is why I asked. I am wondering if there is some conversion
percentage reduction cut off when it becomes obvious that
information is being lost.

128 kbps using a good MP3 codec (e.g. modern LAME versions)
is notionally the lower bound for 'transparency' to untrained
listeners with most music. Your mileage may vary.

"Diminished" is a subjective evaluation.

A subjective evaluation, Marley?

Objectively the data content of an MP3 is diminished compared to
the source. But subjectively that may or may not matter.


--
-S
We have it in our power to begin the world over again - Thomas Paine