[rtate]

I have a lot of flac files on my pc and would like to put some lossless music on my new iPhone 7plus.
Form what I understand I need to convert these files to wav for the best results ?
If that is the case I need to figure out how to convert. 
Any advice would be appreciated !!

[dB Cooper]

I'm not sure the iPhone recognizes .wav, but even if it does, you will waste a lot of space that way. I would convert to Apple Lossless (I think iTunes will recognize & convert wav) and use that.

[richidoo]

flac is lossless. No need to convert.
Upgrade your iphone7 to iOS11 and you will be able to play flac.

[skunark]

Flac support is supposedly coming to iTunes/Music app, but right now only QuickTime supports flac on a MacOS.   To play Flac on an iOS device you need another app or convert the file to apple-lossless

To avoid the conversion you can install Video Lan for Mobile (the free one) and within iTunes you can add through the file-sharing icon when you select your phone.  You might have to dig around for the option but it should be there.

When flac does arrive, we should expect the option to convert the file within iTunes and also what quality of a file you want on your iOS device.   I only prefer flac for the builtin file checksum,  WAV, AIFF, ALAC, FLAC are all bit to bit identical when converted to PCM (it will be debated here of course, but off topic to your thread).    I personally avoid WAV since as there is not standard way to tag management and will lose the artist/title tags, so keep it flac and use Video Lan Mobile, or convert it to ALAC for similar file size.
https://xiph.org/flac/download.html
If memory serves me correct foobar2000 can do batch conversion of flac to alac.

Jim

[kgturner]

dBpoweramp can also batch convert flac to wav. You may have a problem with tagging as other's have mentioned. I use a program called Tag&Rename which allows you to enter "metadata" information for wav file.

Kevin T

[undertow]

As stated above WAV has a ton of compatibility issues with some playback in general, and will definitely screw up, and in most cases support zero metadata (tagging, photos, etc...). FLAC is by far the superior format all around including sound quality in my direct comparison experience. A WAV can simply sound grainy or extra glassey as FLAC stays composed, and musical. Plus playing off an iPhone either format due to space, and playback capability with portable hardware is a complete waste.

Just convert down to MP3 or apples AAC for best results in this case. You can't really hear significant difference from FLAC , WAV or most higher Rez MP3 off portable devices plugged into headphones, or the car system. It only becomes more critical to have these totally uncompressed files for major resolution and power in a higher reference system.

You can convert I believe on media monkeys free version, or buy db power amp for the best batch conversations.

In the end save the space, and headache when using a phone just go to MP3 you will have excellent results blue toothing into a battery powered dock, or headphones, or mobile in the car you don't need lossless in this application trust me, and you will have far more storage space with metadata intact. By the way keep a second database if possible so you don't delete your original FLAC files, so batch convert into new MP3 files so you have both versions for any application you end up moving your library to.

You can downgrade to MP3 without loss, but even though you can convert MP3 to FLAC it still losses and will never sound as good as original FLAC because it won't recover perfectly upgrading back from MP3. Just keep your original FLAC files as well to avoid all this down the road or you will be re downloading and re-ripping CDs if you want unmolested FLAC files back.

Good luck

[undertow]

By the way if your using iTunes on your PC simply load your entire FLAC library to iTunes, then when you plug your phone in and "Sync" to iTunes you can automatically have iTunes convert down all your files going to that device from here forward into AAC, and it will only do it when transferring to the device i.e. Your iPhone you will still have entire FLAC library raw files on PC hard drive untouched.

The option screen for this will come up, and other options include if you only want a certain playlist transferred to the phone instead of whole library, or just music no video etc...

And this is all free in iTunes which unfortunately is the most compatible in this case to do what you want even though most people despise iTunes for everything else.

[rtate]

wow, thanks guys that's a ton of information !
The reason that I want to convert is actually to stream blue tooth in my car.
Right now the music is mp3 and it sounds a little muddy and I thought that it was because of the file format.
My car (Hyuundai Genesis) has a pretty good sound system and when playing DD Audio discs it sounds great. Even Saellite radio sounds pretty good but music streamed from my phone not so much...

[undertow]

Try a single playlist if you want with itunes off your flac files and let it convert down to AAC to give that a shot and see first how it sounds off the phone. If not good you can try a couple of the same tracks and go to WAV if you must just for sound test before attempting to convert everything.

I have a feeling you won't find an advantage, its hard to say with blue tooth if its the files, or the DAC in your car decoding. Or just settings in the car system. Generally you should have an EQ to help you adjust here, even on the iphone you might be able to run an EQ if using Itunes I believe. Or even Media Monkey for playback.

Also, if your MP3 sounds that muddy then you might be using a really low rez basic Mp3, you can use much higher quality MP3 files which do take more space, but sound very good and are very hard to distinguish on portable use setups like this even vs. FLAC. However, AAC does sound pretty good and better than the low forms of MP3 so I suggest just going with that and it is Apples own file system which works best in this case. It is a higher quality MP3 file system as well.

[undertow]

The other problem of CD directly vs. playing MP3 over blue tooth is "Gain" which could be a higher line level gain when your playing the CD player directly into the head unit. I would run your phone at FULL volume and control the volume then from the head unit in the car, having any volume attenuation with your phone will definitely compress the sound some especially with MP3, so you gotta run the phone wide open with no volume restriction.

[rtate]

I do run the volume on my phone at 100% but still have to turn the car volume fro say 5 with a disc or sat. radio to 15 when using the phone.

[rtate]

@ richidoo , I read up about ios11 and you have to store the music on the icloud and then play to your device.
I'm not real versed in cloud technology so I'm not sire if this will work for me...

[audioengr]

iPhones and iPads play .wav files just fine and they only take up twice the disk space as FLAC.  Disk is cheap. They sound better too.  Some album tags may not be available though, but you will get genre, artist, track name and album art.

For conversion:
If you have Mac, use a free app called XLD.

If you have a PC, use an app called dbpoweramp.

Steve N.