I don't know much about modern car audio systems but I though you need to connect a "device" to them, like a smartphone. I don't know if they have the ability to read directly from a flash drive.

Does the owners manual say anything?

What owners manual? The cars? I want to create the flash drive to take with me to the auto dealers to test out their audio system.

I use mp3s on a 32 gig thumb drive in my car (BMW), although I usually listen to satellite radio. My wife has a 16 gig thumb drive in her car (Mazda), although she usually listens to NPR. In both cars, the thumb drive is recognized immediately, and can begin playing immediately.

My last car (2012 GM), the thumb drive had to index all the files before being able to play, which took longer the more songs there were on the drive.

It depends on the car make. The owners manual will help.

Music is one of my hobbies and I get upgraded sound systems when I can. Right now I switch off between two cars, a BMW and a VW, and both will play FLAC files. FLAC is compressed but lossless files of CD quality. MP3 or 4 files, even at their top rate of 320, sound lousy to me. Inferior to CD quality, which itself is a compromised format.

WAV files aren't good because the standard WAV spec doesn't allow tags (ie, track info). Did your WAV files come from ripping CDs? Better to rerip them into a lossless format and have the tag info.

If you live in a world of Apple PCs and gizmos (ie, the MP4 format, also known as AAC for Apple Audio Codec), the Apple Lossless format is called ALAC. WAVs will convert to FLAC pretty quickly and ALAC will convert to FLAC even quicker. Use the free program Foobar for conversions of WAV or ALAC to FLAC.

For ripping CDs, iTunes will produce ALAC files (with tags, an intermediate step if you need FLACs for the car). Then, you may need to convert to FLAC.

I have 2-128 GB SD cards for my VW, and a 256 GB and a 64 GB thumb drives for the BMW. For FLAC files, which of course take more storage than MP3 or MP4s but sound SO much better. It does take a few moments for the sound systems to read through the file index (already contained on the storage medium) but only a few minutes. They 256 GB may take 5 minutes when I first put it in but not much more than that.

Thank you very much, Elmer, for your detailed response. I have now purchased the car, a Mitsubishi, and a quick perusal of their operating manual says nothing about this, but the electronics specialist at the dealer was out that day. All of my audio files are on iTunes on my PC. Some of them were ripped using iTunes, and some were ripped using Audition, from back before Adobe acquired it. And some were created by digitizing LPs, also using Audition. You say iTunes will produce ALAC files, but I was given a choice for either AAC or Apple Lossless (another name for ALAC?), and also MP3 (I had been playing around with some other programs, which wouldn't read Apple Lossless, so I also made some MP3s). I'm thinking about getting some small thumb drives and play around with them. I have two 32 GB and one 256 GB thumb drives which are not empty. If I put some audio files on them, would the other data confuse the system?

Elmer, more information. I created a few USB thumb drive music sources. These include a mix of MP3, M4A, and FLAC files. My 10-year old BMW would read only the MP3 files, my new Mitsubishi will read the MP3 and FLAC files, but not the M4A files. Incidently, in iTunes, if I select "show in Windows Explorer", I can see the file names. The AAC and Apple Lossless are both M4A. Other than re-ripping the CDs I have to MP3 (I don't think iTunes will rip into FLAC, although it will read them), is there a way to convert the M4A files to another format, either within iTunes or another program? Maybe you answered this question - Foobar. The WAV files were all digitized from vinyl discs, so they don't have any tags. Thanks.

ALAC is an acronym used for Apple Lossless - Apple Lossless Audio Codec- so yes, same thing. FLAC is Free Lossless Audio Codec. They do the same thing but files aren't mutually intelligible. All Apple file structure files are referred to as M4A, whether compressed or lossless. Apple for years kept its M4A file structures, including lossless, a secret and wouldn't license them so that's why older "players" that are not Apple produced hardware or software can't play them. They're in the public domain now but still not widely incorporated into various players. The public domain formats - MP3 and FLAC, are considered forever compatible and are preferred by hardware makers.

I wouldn't convert lossy, compressed AACs (another name for M4A) into MP3s because they're already compromised files. A second conversion to another compressed format will further degrade the quality. Unfortunately, the better answer (if you need MP3 files instead of lossless) is to re-rip the CDs. Use the best MP3 setting, 320. If you want lossless versions too (as for in-house use), rip to lossless, then convert those to a second and separate copy of MP3s (using Foobar) for the car or phone or other digital player.

My only experience with audio file ops and manipulation is with Windows PCs. If you have a Mac, the following may not be helpful.

- If you like ripping CDs with iTunes, use it to rip to ALAC. Do that, then convert to FLAC if that's what you need. A benefit of using iTunes is that it will usually painlessly add tag info.

- Conversion ALAC to FLAC: use Foobar (free). This particular path is very fast, a few seconds per song file. Tags will be preserved.

- An alternative way to rip a CD to FLAC is EAC (free). It has a tagging feature that works sometimes and not others.

-For WAV files, first convert to FLAC, then need to add tags. Two approaches that work with most non-Apple file formats are Music Brainz Picard (free) or the tagging feature of MP3Tag (free). Don't let the name fool you, it tags FLAC files just fine. Both work best if each album is in its own folder. Both also need at least song titles for each file, though I think they'll work okay if the title is the file name.

One last bit of personal experience from someone who has been producing, listening, and refining his approach to digital music for personal use for almost 20 years.......file tags to a music collector are like weeds to a vegetable gardener. They take attention from time to time, and your preferences as to what you prefer and what you dislike can and will change. What gets into the tag from the rip step, or even from a tagging stage from the methods above, may not be everything you want or may include things you don't want. I have a home music system similar to but different from Sonos, an earlier competitor that dropped out that I frankly like better. I've evolved regarding what I do and don't want on tags and because my car sound copies are a duplicate subset of my home collection, what is on one is also on the other. The primary source is the home collection folders, which then get reproduced to copies for the cars.

I luckily happened upon this most recent post of yours but don't always look in to this forum. I'll pay attention for any responses to this thread but feel free to message me if you have other questions about audio files. Good luck.

Elmer, I tried to follow your suggestion about Foobar. I searched for it and found several links and found one on foobar2000.org. I downloaded and installed it, but never found any low-level (for me) instructions. I tried the first thing - to rip a cd. But when I had to select a format, only WAV seemed to work - all the others required other components. When I went to their components list, none of them made any sense to me. Help! I suspect that I haven't downloaded the right components, but I can't find them on my computer. In the "install component" dialog, they are looking for files with the filename *.fb2k-component and I can't find any.

I'll try this tomorrow. Thank you, Elmer.

So far, I can read in a CD using FOOBAR and can write WAV files, but nothing else. When I use the convert menu, most of the selections are blank, WAV, FLAC, and a few others are not blank, but only WAV actually works. Foobar asked me to locate FLAC.EXE, but it didn't show up.

Click on my name by this paragraph, click on it again when the window comes up to go to my Houzz home page. Send me a message with your email address. I will send you flac.exe attached to an email. You'll detach it into a folder you remember, then when Foobar asks, you can tell it where to find it. After that, in Convert, you'll be able to add Flac as a direct choice.

I'll also send you lame.exe, which is used to encode MP3 files. Same thing, it will ask for it. To get inside the odd minds of software types, Lame stands for "LAME Ain't an MP3 Encoder". Which, of course, it is.

The email you receive from me with have a return address containing the name snidely whiplash with a number.

These copies will be directly off of my never infected personal PC and you'll have no concern about their safety. Anyone else who wants the files can do the same.

You can also find flac.exe and lame.exe (for mp3s) on the rarewares.org site. Just be careful to download the right choice, Do it either way.

As I said, I've been using these tools since forever and had forgotten the two free and open source codec downloads needed.

Let me know how it goes.

I shall do this right after I finish this note. Another, related issue, is that many of my optical disks are SACDs, either hybrid or not. The hybrid ones I can rip as normal CDs, but the non-hybrids, I can't. I know the facility to rip hi-res disks (either SACD or DVD-Audio), but, in principle, I could play them and capture the analog 5.1- or 6-channel output. Do you know of any way do do this? I believe the FLAC format does support these data.

Files sent.

I'll mention again that for ease of getting accurate tag data when ripping a CD, iTunes may be easiest for a beginner. Rip to ALAC, not WAV, because wav files have no tags. When you rip to ALAC and then convert those to FLAC using Foobar, all the tag data transfers to the FLAC file.

I've used Audacity (an excellent recorder that will record to flac) for DVDs. It captures sound off the sound card so if you can hear it through the PC's speakers, it will record it. It takes a bit of playing with to get used to - like many programs, it's one with a plethora of capabilities that a basic user can make due with 10% of. Play with it a little, it does get familiar. For recording a DVD, it takes time, because it's easiest to do it one track at a time. It allows the addition of all tag data for each file, though you need to do it manually.

Good luck

Thanks for your help, Elmer. I've successfully used Foobar to rip to both MP3 and to FLAC. On a related issue, I'm looking for an inexpensive turntable which will directly save audio files. Best Buy has 2, one (for $129) is a Sony which includes Sound Forge and the other (for $299) is an Audio Technica, which includes Audacity. The Sony box specifically says that it saves to MP3, whilc the Audio Technica doesn't say (on the box). The staff was of no help. Going to Audio Technica's web site refers to Audacity 1.3.14. The audacity site refers to version 2.1.1, which apparently doesn't work with Windows 10 (yet). Their website also implies that Audacity and Sound Forge are related.

I'm glad you're up and running. Remember that a FLAC (or ALAC) file is only as good as the source, so if you rip a CD to lossless, you get CD quality sound in a more compact package than the CD (PCM/WAV format files). If you convert an MP3 (or Apple world MP4/AAC) to lossless, what you get is an exact copy (in a larger size) of a crappy file.

I digitized maybe 50 of my vinyl albums and then ran out of gas. I thought, why am I killing myself with this when CD versions can be had for a moderate cost? Even used CDs (easy to find and cheap from any of many sources) can produce excellent digital rips, so long as they're free from scratches and fully readable. In deference to maintaining the quality of the sound off the vinyl, I used my regular turntable and preamp and then connected the preamp output to an external Creative soundcard I bought for this purpose, using the analog RCA plugs that run to my power amp. Then a simple connection of the sound card to a laptop with Audacity running. Save each track manually to a FLAC file, fill in the tag manually. It took a lot of time. Buying the CDs of my favorite albums was much easier and time efficient. Since I went digital over a dozen years ago and stopped with the album thing, I haven't played a single vinyl record though I still have them all. My digitized good quality sound files are easily played through my stereo system and it's much easier than the routine needed to play a record. While I know that sound off a record is superior, I can ease my standards for the sake of convenience.

If your existing turntable is connected to a receiver, you can use a line-level Audio Out connection to run the sound to an external sound card. There are also little plug adaptor gizmos you can buy that will run RCA plug sound into a USB socket. Those weren't available when I did my digitizing. Sound cards in PCs are usually of low quality, a better external one would probably do a better job.

Audacity? I have version 2.1.0 on a Win 10 machine. It works fine. Remember my comment above about it being the kind of program that has a multitude of capabilities but that most users can be very happy ignoring 90% of them and stick to the easy 10%.

I wonder if the information you were looking at confused Sound Forge and Source Forge? Source Forge is a site that hosts free public domain software for download. Audacity is on Source Forge but Audacity has its own site and I'd recommend download there. There are also older versions available for download in case a newer version is incompatible with your PC.

One problem- some PCs have a default Windows sound setting that prevents recording off the sound-card. I've encountered this a few times. What you need to do to check it or fix it is go to Control Panel. Sound, Recording Tab, and ENABLE Stereo Mix and make it the default. Sometimes you need to first unhide disconnected or disabled devices to see "Stereo Mix". They make it unnecessarily difficult. You can practice by playing any sound from a website - go to a news site like CNN, then start Audacity and see if it records the sound playing. If it does, you can ignore the Control Panel Sound change instructions.

Making progress - What seems to work well is to rip a CD into flac and download the tags. Do the same for MP3 format. Then see which USB-drive readers can read the flac and which only the MP3. I looked up the Sony turntable, and it comes with Sound Forge Audio Studio. I'm not sure which software is better, I downloaded Audacity 2.3.0 and it seems to work fine with Win10. I'm not sure what the different capabilities of Audacity and Foobar are.

I found my old computer which had Adobe Audition 1.5, which is what I originally used. However, I can't find my installation disks to install it on my new computer.

If you're getting tag data without too much trouble, then you're doing well. I left out Foobar, which has a lookup for FreeDB tagger. And you can also use Window Media Player to Rip to Flac or Alac. WMP has an okay tag lookup function too.

I found that the inconsistencies of the tag databases and the variety of ways I initially used to rip and tag resulted in an inconsistency - some albums had too much info (with fields I don't like such as beats per minute, composer, etc). That's what I use MP3Tag for, to clean up the tags.

Audacity is to record a sound stream off of a sound card and process the sound with different effects - louder, softer, etc. Foobar plays audio files and converts them into different formats, will do batch conversions, clean up tags, rip CDs, etc.

I tried ripping one CD using Foobar, and it couldn't find the track information. iTunes could, but how to I get that information onto my flac file?

Two ways:

#1

Download MP3Tag

Change Directory to the folder where the album is located

Edit, Select All , to highlight all the sound files in the folder

Left Click on Tag Sources, then Music Brainz.

(there's also a FreeDB choice. Sometimes it's useful, sometimes not)

#2

Download Music Brainz Picard

It's a clever, open source front end for the public Music Brainz database. Easy to use, pretty much self explanatory.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

As explained before, even with these tag info sources, I find it often useful to edit what gets downloaded, both with additions and subtractions of info. MP3Tag is the easiest one to use.

Elmer J Fudd

One month later, I'm still working on my project. I found that taking files created by iTunes problematic in many cases and it's easier to just use the original CD with Foobar. Thanks for your help.

I've moved on to another project - digitizing vinyl LPs. I decided to get a better turntable, one recommenced by a local audiophile store: the Pro-Ject Debut Carbon with an Ortofon 2M Red cartridge. It doesn't have any built-in preamp, so I got a Berlinger UFO202, which is a device with line-level and cartridge-level inputs; and line-level and USB outputs. I can use either my receiver's preamp, connecting the line output to the line input of the Berlinger, or the phono output to the preamp input of the Berlinger. I then use Audacity 2.3 to digitize the signal. I typically digitize an entire LP to one file, save it as a project, then split it into individual tracks. When I export the tracks, I can choose Flac, as well as many others. A pop-up appears where I can enter all the tags (which, of course, I have to manually enter by reading the LP's label or sleeve).

I haven't figured a protocol to streamline this project, without saving the project several times (between exporting the individual tracks). Any ideas?

Sure. Foobar is fine to rip CDs. Something I didn't mention that sometimes also works is Windows Media Player. It can rip to a Windows-centric lossless file type, called WMA lossless, which you can use Foobar to change to FLAC. The advantage of ripping CDs with WMP is that it's pretty good with tag info. Not perfect, but not bad. As I think I said before, I find tags usually need to be manually edited anyway. At least, mine do. I'm pretty picky about what I want and don't want included.

Are you finding that you can get reasonably usable tag data with Foobar, or are you using MP3 Tag or one of the other approaches?

If you don't mind having one file for an album, there's an animal called a CUE file that can contain all the tag data for the constituent tracks in the one munged-together file. For playback hardware that can handle a cue file, you wouldn't know the difference in play back options and performance as to whether the tracks are standalone files or mixed together with a CUE file doing the separating and info-providing. But not all types of playback hardware/software can deal with CUE files.

Whether ripping CDs, recording albums, cleaning up tags, etc., I've never done better than to do most of it manually (other than some software that can combine a few steps). I think of myself as like a assembly line worker but first doing this, then that, then that, in a recurring and monotonous sequence. I typically do it when I'm also doing something else or watching something, And I typically screw up a few things over the course of a session by doing them wrong, leaving out a step, or doing something out of order to require it to be redone. No help, unfortunately.

Are you finding that you can get reasonably usable tag data with Foobar, or are you using MP3 Tag or one of the other approaches?

I haven't tried anything but Foobar for tags. Sometimes, no tags are available, so I have to create my own. Of course, if my source is vinyl, no tags exist. Audacity, however, makes it easy to add tags manually.

One problem I have, whether the source of the tags is a CD or otherwise, is that when I play my flash drive (car, or USB reader for my Blu-Ray player, AV receiver, or TV), is that there are only three lines of data: Artist, Album, and Track (or Song), and often these lines are too short. When using Audacity, I can add additional tags, but they don't display.

Did you try Music Brainz Picard (mentioned in an earlier post above)? It can analyze sound files to identify them, it might be able to identify your files digitized from vinyl as well as CDs that Foobar doesn't find. I think it uses a different data source, Music Brainz instead of FreeDB.

MP3 Tag may also help on individual track data if you identify the album and artist, to save you time.

Any player's hardware and software do what they do, that isn't something to change. What players SHOULD allow is the ability to choose songs from additional fields. For two of my cars, only Artist, Album, and Title display, but you can select a playlist using genre too. On my network (Sonos-like) system, I can do a search for meta data of almost any type in any field, including bit rate or date modified or file type, etc., but that's just because it's flexible. If the player doesn't have the capability, the extra fields really don't serve a purpose.

Album covers are cool to have. Most players will pick them up if there's one copy named Cover or Folder in the sub-directory (folder) for the album. Otherwise you need to put the image into each file, but that's an option MP3 Tag will do for you.

You can get them the hard way from a Google search, or from Amazon, or from albumartexchange.com. Limit files you get to 600x600 to conserve space and because some players won't display larger files. For some, I've had to prune them down (using an image program like Fast Stone) to make the cover file small enough for the needs of the player. It does vary by player - my BMW will show 1200x1200 and up to about 200K while a VW only seems to be happy with files 600x600 and less than 60K in size. We have three cars and I use the lowest common denominator so that one image will show on all. Two use thumb drives while one uses SD cards.

I started my digitizing project many years ago, using iTunes. For album covers, which i Tunes couldn't find, I would scan the cover and clean it up using Photoshop. For more general uses, you suggest I put these images in the folder which has all the flac or other audio files for that album. What image format should I use? I mostly used tiff, but maybe the upper limit should be 60k.

The format I've found that is the most compatible from player to player is jpg. The added advantage is that it's a compressed, lossy format that saves space if you have a big collection. Second choice gif.

Another easy way is to do a search with the album name, then switch to Image view. For most you'll find many choices and with Google, the size of the image is usually stated on the overview summary.

Some players can use one cover image in the same folder as the album, some need it embedded in each sound file. The free program MP3Tag can embed cover images into each file's metadata (tag) if needed. It's also the one I find easiest to use to clean up or supplement existing tag data, using it one album at a time. You can make individual changes or global ones, as in, changing the genre for all files in one album in one step.

A shortcut I've found to save time when converting FLAC or other files to MP3 versions, if needed because of player requirements or space limitations:

Make a new directory of files - call it "For MP3 Copies" or whatever - and then copy in one step from your central music collection folder, every sub-folder containing separate albums. Do it by selecting them individually or all at once. Whether they're FLACs, or ALACs, or whatever (but not compressed files). Then start Foobar, add folder "For MP3 Copies" (all at once). Select All individual files, then right click and select Convert. Set up the conversion to whatever compressed format you want, then for Destination, choose "Output to source track folder". When it's done, you'll have your folder with subfolders having two copies of each file, one in FLAC and one in MP3 that you just made. Start Internet Exporer, point it at "MP3 Copies", then Search for *.FLAC. What will appear will be all the FLAC files in the subdirectories. Select each file found in the search by highlighting, then hit Delete. You've now produced new subdirectories, with only MP3-type sound files, that you can use in your player.

It sounds more detailed than it is. What can take time is the Foobar processing, the rest is just a few clicks here and there.

I've been away from this project for awhile, and now want to fine-tune a few things. I decided that 320 kBps MPG is my best format because I can't hear any difference between it and flac, especially in the car because of road noise. I still have the CDs if I want to get another format. For my LPs, I use Audacity and save them as a project file and then export as 320 MP3 files.

The issue I now have is how to use the tags. These are displayed on my car stereo, but the format is inconvenient. The inventor of MP3 tags seems to assume that I have an "album" with an "artist" and a "song" for each track. When I am starting with a CD and get the tags automatically, often they are too long to show. For example, on one CD, the Artist/Album field is "Bernard Haitink: London Philharmonic Orchestra - Shostakovich Symphony #1 & 9". Each movement is on a separate track, but the track's title again is too long. Is there a standard as to what information should be in these tags? It becomes even more complicated when there are more than one artist. So far, I either accept what I am given or spend a lot of time editing the tags.

I'd encourage you to rip and save to FLAC in the first instance (whether ripping CDs or digitizing albums), and then make MP3 copies for players (whether cars, smartphones, or whatever) where you can't hear the difference. It takes little extra time. The difference is easily discerned (even by my wife with stone ears) on even modest home music equipment. I myself can hear the difference in two of my three cars with "better" sound systems, it's quite apparent.

Storage is cheap. Digitizing a vinyl album to an MP3 is almost an travesty - you have a sound source that's better than a CD, and you're digitizing it to a file that's worse than a CD. Really? Rip/record once and have at least one copy of the best available quality. Doing it otherwise may require you to go back and do it again.

As for tags, what you should do it how you see fit. Classical music is notoriously difficult to handle because the album-artist-title-genre info that's available is often long and doesn't follow the neat patterns of modern, popular music. If you have multiple and different copies of certain classical works, then you want to identify which is which at the beginning. So maybe album is "Shostakovich 1+9" and the artist is "Haitink-London Phil" and tracks in a combined album would be "1-1 Allegro", "1-2 Adagio", ..........."9-1 Prestro", "9-2 Moderato". Or something in this direction to be useful and make sure the tracks play in order, and succinct. I would number the track field too, sometimes players go off of that.

Yes it takes a lot of manual work. There's no shortcuts. Even if using something like iTunes, which is pretty good for tags, there are inconsistencies and misinformation in the databases they reference that require manual corrections.

Some people with a large classical collection use the Genre field for the Composer, it makes it easier to sort and pull up individual works that way. No rules, do what works for you, it's for your own use.

I haven't been following this forum much, you can always message me or email me to get my attention more quickly.

Thanks again, Elmer, for your insightful thoughts. When digitizing my LPs, I use Audacity, and save them in their project format and, when I'm satisfied, I export the music in whatever format I find most convenient. As I said before, high resolution MP3s work best now, but I do have the the original AUP project format files. Your suggestion of using the Genre field for composer is a good one.

Another issue is how to organize the files on the flash drive. If, for example, I separate the related files into different folders, the player may not go to the next folder when the first one is finished, so I'm thinking about putting them all in the rood, but that has its own complications, because the folder name is sometimes displayed on the player.

Keeping the sound files in Audacity format isn't a great idea. Firstly, they're large (I just did a trial, an Audacity version of a song was 3 times bigger than the source file in FLAC form). Secondly, you can't do anything with them because players won't play them and conversion programs won't read Audacity format files. Simply save those files as FLACs and move on.

When I transcribe music to portable media (thumb or SD cards), I use the same folder layout I have in my master collection folders. Why? For ease of checking what I do and don't have in the secondary copies when I want to update them. As I mentioned before, two of my cars will play FLAC files, one won't. When I want to make a (mostly) effortless version of albums in MP3 format, for example, I do what I outlined above. I'll repeat it

"Make a new directory of files - call it "For MP3 Copies" or whatever - and then copy in one step from your central music collection folder, every sub-folder containing separate albums. (added to say THAT YOU WANT AN MP3 OF) Do it by selecting them individually or all at once. Whether they're FLACs, or ALACs, or whatever (but not compressed files). Then start Foobar, add folder "For MP3 Copies" (all at once). Select All individual files, then right click and select Convert. Set up the conversion to whatever compressed format you want, then for Destination, choose "Output to source track folder". When it's done, you'll have your folder with subfolders having two copies of each file, one in FLAC and one in MP3 that you just made. Start Internet Exporer, point it at "MP3 Copies", then Search for *.FLAC. What will appear will be all the FLAC files in the subdirectories. Select each file found in the search by highlighting, then hit Delete. You've now produced new subdirectories, with only MP3-type sound files, that you can use in your player."

It depends on the car, but I have a 2016 Chevy Impala and I have used MP3 format and even WMA Loassless works on most GM vehicles. My buddy has a Honda Civic (2018) and his will not play WMA Loassless files. So it is a bit of trial and error. I wish they would use .FLAC files, but most do not allow it for some reason.

My thoughts on this have evolved. MP3 seems to be the most universally compatible and, although not as good as Flac or Wav, other problems with car listening (especially background noise). Be that as it may, my newest car (a 2018 Mitsubishi), the one without a CD player, will play Flac files, as well as MP3 and WAV, I should check what other formats. Tagging is important to me (because the defaults are almost useless for classical music).

Sorry, I haven't been checking in here regularly.

I'm not sure what "universally compatible" means or means to you. It's a common format because it takes up less room and is acceptable to most people because many don't pay attention to sound quality. Any MP3 sounds inferior to any lossless or WAV file, it's a fact with a well known cause. There are many things that are widely used that are inferior to alternatives - most fast and processed food items fit this description. No more need be said.

Audio files are put on CDs in a form of WAV. When you rip a CD to a lossless format (whether FLAC or Apple's ALAC) you get a file that's identical data wise to the CD but about half as large and with the ability to hold tags (metadata). WAV is impractical because they're so big. FLAC and ALAC are like Zip files for data - if you take a WAV file and process it to produce a lossless file and then reverse the process by processing the lossless file back to WAV, the second WAV file and the first will be bit for bit identical.

When ripping files, it's inevitable that tags need a bit of sprucing up. Many of the free rippers (EAC, iTunes, Windows Media) offer rudimentary tag info and cover files but in an incomplete way. There are programs to help tagging (free MP3 Tag is my favorite, can be used on any kind of sound file) and most refer to any of the several free online databases like MusicBrainz or Discogs for the info. What you should do is tag your "good" lossless rips and then if MP3 versions are needed, rip the FLAC or ALACs to MP3s as a separate step because the tag data will go along with it. I use Foobar to do the conversions and you can set it up to put the MP3s in folders just the same as your "good" versions are in. It can be done in one, however large batch process that can be set up to do thousands of files at once. It doesn't happen instantaneously, it can take hours.

Remember that you can convert an MP3 to a FLAC or ALAC file but once
it's been processed from WAV to MP3, data is lost and changing the
format to lossless doesn't restore it.

My wife's car won't play FLAC files, and she also has a portable player for music as for plane flights, so this is an example where it's quick and easy to process MP3s from CD quality rips when needed. Otherwise, it's the CD quality rips that are used.

Interestingly, my Mitsubishi will play MP3, Wav and Flac, but not ALAC. A decade or so ago I ripped many CDs using iTunes and some are AAC but most are Apple Lossless (ALAC). They had all been tagged, often manually by me. So (for other reasons), I started using a music management program (that's what I call it) called MusicBee. It is extremely versatile and has an extensive forum and wiki. I can convert all my ALAC files to FLAC, and it maintains the tags. It can also use Picard MusicBrainz; there is an elaborate scripting language so you can do almost anything with it. My biggest problem is that many of my CDs were privately produced so even MusicBrainz doesn't have them in their database.

MusicBee allows me to sort my library by any tag, and also by a hierarchy of tags. Now, when I rip or digitize a professionally produced disc or CD, I have all the tracks from one CD or LP put in one album, then use the conventional artist, composer, movement, etc. as the tags displayed on my car interface. It is a learning process. I do recommend this program. It only works for Windows, however, so Mac users are out of luck.

FLAC is a free, open source format while Apple's ALAC started out being proprietary. Most hardware manufacturers said the equivalent of "Fine, be proprietary, we won't pay you to license it, there are alternatives so we'll take a pass and do something else". So for hardware to play FLAC but not ALAC is quite common but I think ALAC was later put into the public domain. But the bridge was burned.

Any program that does such conversions will convert ALAC to FLAC lickety split. Maybe 25 seconds per CD. They're cousins and it takes very little processing time to go from one to another, in either direction. Same is true going from WAV to ALAC or FLAC, it's very fast. Many programs will do this. As I said before, I happen to like Foobar for its flexibility but there are many to choose from.

Music Bee sounds like MediaMonkey, also a free music organizing and playing program There's plenty of useful software to choose from.

There are a several ways to run Windows programs on a Mac. Wine is free software that allows just that, it's a Windows emulator.