How to burn lossless music to a CD?

Question

I have a bunch of lossless files (.flac and .ape) that I would like to burn on a CD to listen to on any standard CD player (in my old car's for example), but I am unsure how to do it. Specifically I don't know if burning the files as an Audio CD Project in K3b will suffice, or if I have to do something different/extra. I have done my research and have found some post talking about a .cue file, however it is all a bit confusing and, in my case, unnecessary (I think) since I don't have a unified .flac CD but independent tracks already with their metadata.

Can someone give me some info on how to create this audio CD?

Answer 1

You can do this with the audio cd function of k3b. Just add the files to the project and start the burning process. K3b will transcode the files before actually burning them. If you need additional encoders in order to achieve transcoding, you will be notified about that.

Answer 2

To expand a bit more beyond wie5Ooma's answer : a .cue file is a file that describes how tracks are laid out on the disc.

• Some command-line software absolutely rely on it (if you're not just burning a single .iso image, but have a complex layout of several tracks, like any multi-track audio CD).
• It is also necessary if your project has a weird layout that you want to enforce (e.g.: no gaps between tracks with the music seamlessly segueing into a new song, or an extra "hidden" track before the first one that you need to rewind in oder to be able to listen, etc.)

.flac is specific in regard of .cue and CDs as a single FLAC file can contain and entire CD and it's corresponding layout (you can extract a .cue file out of such monolithic album files and use that to burn the CD)

In the specific case of K3b, K3b's Audio CD Project is sufficient as K3b will automatically generate the track layout for you, you just drop in your music files (and optionally use the right click menu if you want any weird unusual stuff). K3b can even go fetch the information for you from MusicBrainz if the music file are lacking corresponding metadata.