MP3 is the more popular format and when persons talk about “burning”, or making any kind of disc for transfers, or about copying music files to an audio player, MP3 is the format of choice.  Though MP3 is lossy the quality settings can be changed and the original encoding and quality can be increased at the cost of a greater file size; MP3 maximizes on the fact that the human ear cannot hear certain pitches in audio and when these parts of the original file are dropped the listener will not notice any difference between the lossy file and the original.

Audiophiles or persons who are keen on the fidelity of their music may be very picky about the quality of their audio even if they cannot hear a difference; such persons will choose a lossless format like FLAC for their backup purposes and these persons will also spend the extra money for players that will support the FLAC file format.

MP3 players are dominant as MP3’s method of dropping quality is not audibly noticeable by the human ear and MP3 file sizes are much smaller and more widely used internationally.  Players which will recognize the MP3 format include home or portable DVD players, portable media players with or without digital displays which can be compact or larger handheld units and even car players will support the MP3 file format.

FLAC on the other hand is not as well received even though the quality is higher than that of MP3, on average an MP3 file will be up to four times smaller than a FLAC file with similar audio quality to the human ear, even though in actuality the difference in quality between the two is noticeably different.

FLAC players are both difficult to come by and expensive in comparison to MP3 products;  portable players which support the FLAC file format usually have large internal memory storage or a hard drive as storage and as a result the portable players are usually larger than the competing MP3 players.

At this point in time FLAC files cannot compete with MP3 files but for the quality savvy persons FLAC is always the format of choice.  However quality and size go together and until a lossless format can compress an audio file to a size that is comparable to MP3, lossy formats will continue to dominate the market.

FLAC and other lossless formats have their niche but unless the Average Joe becomes meticulous about creating exact backups of their audio files, the world will continue to be dominated by MP3’s lossy format for size and portability.