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[rs55]

I have some MP3 256KB files I purchased . I wanted to apply my DSP plugin effects to the files before storing them on a hard drive for playback.
I assume the MC20 conversion process goes something like: MP3 > PCM > DSP> PCM > FLAC .
If my understanding is correct, i may get some slight improvement in saving as FLAC, because the DSP is adding some subtle harmonic distortion that will be fully captured when encoded to FLAC.
I did this and I have to say my music sounds just awesome ( maybe a placebo effect!).

[Hendrik]

Re-encoding to a lossy format will always degrade the quality. If you take an MP3, and then re-encode it into another MP3, it will have lost some quality in the process.
So if you need/want to do some processing, storing it as a lossless FLAC afterwards is certainly not a bad thing to do.

A plain conversion from MP3 to FLAC is pointless (for no other reason than to convert), however if you do need to do a conversion, because you want to apply DSP, your best choice is still to save it as a lossless file after.

[rs55]

Thanks - that is what I was thinking. I have seen a lot of blogs ridiculing converting lossy>lossless. I have not seen anyone talk about the benefits of encoding in lossless -  if applying DSP. I suspect a lot of folks could benefit by applying some sort of crossfeed DSP before saving files to their IPODs or other portable devices that they mostly listen to on headphones. If so, they might benefit by saving lossless , even if their original files were encoded in a lossy format.
Saving disk space has increasingly become irrelevant to me and possibly to many others.

[rs55]

Also I think this is relevant because Amazon digital music only provides MP3 256 as downloads ( unfortunately) - which is why about 25% of my music is in MP3.

[6233638]

This is fine if you are doing it for playback on a portable device, but I would recommend keeping lossy files in their original format and applying DSP in real-time on playback if you're keeping it all on the PC.
If only the DSP Preset system in MC were more flexible rather than taking a snapshot of your entire DSP state. Then you could really do per-album DSP switching and never have to think about baking it into a converted file.

[rs55]

Thanks. yes, I keep my files in original form ( mix of FLAC and MP3) on my laptop for playback through my desktop dac.
I converted the entire library to ALAC with some DSP effects applied - for playing on my Ipod.
I converted a portion of the library to MP3 320 CBR with DSP effects for playback in my car.
I converted the entire library to FLAC with DSP effects - for playback on my main stereo system through a usb hard drive.

I can also play music on my main stereo system via DLNA with DSP effects enabled. But I kind of like having a hard drive attached to my OPPO 93 - so I can play music on my main stereo system independent of my laptop.