Mp3, as it would take too much disc space if I had downloaded all the music I have as Flac.

My problem with online radio is that I typically don't get to pick the next track.

Everything I encoded myself, mostly non video game music, is either 256kbit AAC (pretty much a relict of not-enough-HD space times) or ALAC. If I download soundtracks from here I prefer FLAC (of course)... which I then convert to ALAC usually ;)

ALAC? That's a new one on me.

It's a lossless codec that is found on Apple devices. Apple did release the command line encoding/decoding tool as open source, I believe.

Since it's lossless, converting between ALAC and FLAC should result in no loss in quality (if it does, report a bug against the program you used to do the conversion).

There's another reason to prefer lossless codecs, at least for your primary archive:

Suppose this neat new audio codec comes out, and it is better than all the current lossy codecs, and you want to use it. Converting from a lossy format would result in worse quality than the new format is capable of, and would therefore not be a good idea. If you have the music in a lossless format, however, you can convert it to the new format, and will get the best quality the encoder is capable of (if the new format is lossless, there might not be a change in quality, but the new format might have other advantages, like better compression).

Of course you were in the third category, since it was the only one you didn't describe condescendingly, in a sardonic and paternalistic way. Figures. The "mature audiophile".

I'm probably part of the fourth group of people, the ones who "are missing out on such great music". Yeah, I can't really listen to video game music outside of the video games, unless it's something particularly different, like Grim Fandango's or Outlaws' soundtracks. I liked Tiny & Big's OST, too, since it was actually indie rock with some indietronica tracks, made by actual artists, instead of just some dude composing "orchestral EPIC music" that sounds like every other piece of "orchestral EPIC music" used in film or video games. I enjoy listening to it in the games, but I don't see the point of doing so while working, going for a walk, grabbing a smoke or reading a book at the corner café.

In the off chance I do listen to a soundtrack outside of the game (I particularly enjoy Jessica Curry's works, including her astounding Dear Esther OST), I'm also a "plebeian" about it, because I tend to listen to all my music in MP3 format. I'm not exactly young, even though I'm not particularly old, and I never managed to "move on" to the whole music streaming scene, I like to have my music files on my devices, and I mostly listen to music on my Creative ZEN Mozaic, which has great sound playback but, unfortunately, doesn't support FLAC or other lossless formats, including most, if not all, of the native formats you mentioned. I do buy most of my albums on bandcamp (yes, bandcamp also sells music that isn't video game OSTs -- shocking!!!), and they all come with FLAC versions, which I keep in my PC, but it's just that I don't listen to that much music on my computer.

Of these options, tracker-based music is the most efficient for file size, sound quality and ease of mixing. If a game uses tracker music, then I would prefer the soundtrack to be identical.

For anything else it's a combination of options 1 and 2. If a game uses PCM audio and the soundtrack is mastered from the sources and not lossy audio used in the game, then I would prefer FLAC. I use FLAC for archival and mixing purposes and use MP3 for general listening. Having FLAC sources makes it possible to encode to MP3 with my specific settings (without generational loss) and be able to encode new versions of MP3 files in the future if I discover any artefacts or the encoder gets an update which affects efficiency.

As an aside, why are you looking for a foobar2000 replacement?

Just mostly checking to see if one has been made for Linux. Audacious is close, but is missing something.

Have you tried DeadBeeF?

Personally, I just use fb2k with Wine.

While I'm sorely tempted to post "Tracker module or GTFO", I mainly use MP3 format for its balance between file size and quality... and most importantly for its compatibility with mobile devices so I can listen on my phone on the default built-in audio app.

Yeah, but why use the default audio app when you could use Droidsound-E, Modplayer, or ZXtune? (And more?)

I like to have FLAC files if they are available but I can't honestly say I can hear the difference.