[Vincent Kars]

The TAS article goes one step further.
Not only do they claim an audible difference between WAV and FLAC, they also claim that if a WAV is converted to FLAC and back to WAV, the second WAV sounds worse than the first one.
So converting to FLAC degrades the sound quality permanently!
I’m afraid the credibility of this claim is extremely low if not simply ridicules.

[firedog]

Guys, just use dBpoweramp's FLAC Lossless Uncompressed and be done with it. No sense banging your head againts the floor just sit back and enjoy the music. That's what I do. 

Flac Uncompressed would seem to be the ticket. Full tagging, and no compressing/uncompressing on the fly. That said, I've tried many times and can't hear a difference between Flac and WAV in a blind test.

[mhconley]

Saying yes is easy, proving is much more difficult. Not saying I want you to prove it, that would be an exercise in insanity! I think the process is good enough to produce bit perfect transfers MOST (as in 99.999%) of the time. I know what a checksum is, but I am steadfast in my belief that nothing is perfect and there would likely be degradation at some point inspite checksum verification.

Here is an MS-DOS batch file to do a WAV->FLAC->WAV conversion 1000 times.  It calculates a check sum of the initial test1.wav file and the final test1001.wav file.

ECHO OFF
setlocal ENABLEDELAYEDEXPANSION
fciv test1.wav
FOR /L %%i IN (1,1,1000) DO (
   flac -5 -s test%%i.wav
   del /F test%%i.wav
   SET /A x = %%i + 1
   flac -d -s test%%i.flac --output-name=test!x!.wav
   del /F test%%i.flac
)
fciv test!x!.wav

Here is the output on my PC:

E:\Flactest>ECHO OFF
//
// File Checksum Integrity Verifier version 2.05.
//
b90b7b34f6d8b2a07ef3cfbb72ad5f57 test1.wav
//
// File Checksum Integrity Verifier version 2.05.
//
b90b7b34f6d8b2a07ef3cfbb72ad5f57 test1001.wav

Q.E.D.

If yours is anything different you have problems.

Martin

[rbbert]

In theory I would agree with Pez that the conversion might fail once in "x" (a large number) number of times, but of course in that case the codec program will tell you it failed, because checksum verification is part of the FLAC codec.

I am actually unaware of ANY instance of a phenomenon noted first or only by audiophile ears resulting in a basic change in engineering principles (practices, perhaps, but not principles).  If someone has evidence to the contrary I'd love to know about it.

[Netdewt]

Here is an MS-DOS batch file to do a WAV->FLAC->WAV conversion 1000 times.  It calculates a check sum of the initial test1.wav file and the final test1001.wav file.

So, awesome.

Doubters: the purpose of FLAC, if you go read the project goals on their website, is to create a compressed lossless audio file that is the same as uncompressed without taking up so much space. If you think they have failed, maybe you should send them some nasty letters?

[trackball02]

I'm curious about "FLAC Uncompressed"  I thought all FLAC has some compression.
On JRiver, FLAC has a user adjustable quality setting. I'm running at 5.  Does uncompressed mean a Quality = 0  ?

[srb]

I'm curious about "FLAC Uncompressed"  I thought all FLAC has some compression.
On JRiver, FLAC has a user adjustable quality setting. I'm running at 5.  Does uncompressed mean a Quality = 0  ?

No, the standard FLAC levels of 0 - 8 are all compression levels.
 
8 = highest compression (smallest file size) / longer encoding/decoding time
0 = lowest compression (largest file size) / shorter encoding/decoding time
5 = default setting with a balance between file size and encoding time
 
They should all result in the same quality.  One might choose a higher setting if disk space usage is a priority or a lower setting if reduced processing time is a priority.
 
dBpoweramp (and others to follow?) has introduced the Uncompressed FLAC option with v14.1 for those that don't need file compression to save space, but want the superior and widely supported file tagging/metadata of FLAC.
 
Steve

[firedog]

I'm curious about "FLAC Uncompressed"  I thought all FLAC has some compression.
On JRiver, FLAC has a user adjustable quality setting. I'm running at 5.  Does uncompressed mean a Quality = 0  ?

It's uncompressed PCM data in a Flac "envelope", so you get the metatagging of flac w/out the file actually being compressed.

[audioseduction]

It's uncompressed PCM data in a Flac "envelope", so you get the metatagging of flac w/out the file actually being compressed.

and that floats my boat!