[testsound]

I read that WAV is the best quality. But uncompressed FLAC should be same as WAV in quality, correct?

[Rusty Jefferson]

Correct, though people still debate it.  So many other things will have more impact on the sound of computer audio that will make it insignificant. Choice of computer server, digital cables, linear power supplies, nas, software, switches, galvanic isolation.....

Enjoy the uncompressed FLAC files.

[mhconley]

WAV and FLAC are essentially equivalent. You can take a WAV file, convert it to FLAC (compressed or uncompressed - it doesn't matter), then convert it back to WAV - the initial and resultant WAV files will be identical. Run an MD5 hash on both WAV files for confirmation that they are identical.

As long as your computer server, digital cables, linear power supplies, nas, software, switches, galvanic isolation are capable of supplying a bit perfect stream into your DAC then you are golden. (Something in that chain would need to be misconfigured or severely broken to not get a bit perfect signal to the DAC.)

Martin

[WGH]

In the early days of computer audio WAV files did sound marginally better than FLAC because FLAC had to be expanded and played on the fly, everything was happening at the same time. Slow processors and error correction could have subtly effected the sound.

Current players like JRiver have Memory Playback, the FLAC file is first expanded into a WAV and stored in RAM then played back from memory. The computer is always playing a WAV no matter what the storage format.

[mojave]

Yes, FLAC and WAV are identical except in size. We use lossless compression all the time for money. You could have ten $1 bills, a dime, two nickles, and five pennies for a total of $10.25. It can be compressed into one $10 bill and a quarter. Further compression would be to write a check for $10.25. No matter which one you deposit at your bank, it gets converted to the number $10.25 as a credit to your account.

WAV files store the left and right channels sequentially with separate date for each. One thing lossless audio codecs does is take data that is identical in the left and right channel and stores it in a way that removes redundancy.

Current players like JRiver have Memory Playback, the FLAC file is first expanded into a WAV and stored in RAM then played back from memory. The computer is always playing a WAV no matter what the storage format.

JRiver's "Load decoded file into memory" option decodes both FLAC and WAV to PCM prior to the start of playback. The computer is always outputting PCM no matter what the storage format and regardless of whether it decoded prior to the start of playback or on the fly during playback.

[Don_S]

WGH, mojave. Would the two of you make up my mind? 

[WGH]

My mind is shot, I'll let mojave have a crack at it.

[AKLegal]

My library is about 80% flac and 20% wav (this doesn't include random MP3s that I have left out of the percentages).  I tend to rip CDs to flac with lower compression but it doesn't matter, even highly compressed flac and wav sound indistinguishable to me.  I briefly made the switch to wav a couple of years ago but after seeing just how much more space wav files were costing me, I did a pretty extensive AB comparison and went back to flac.  I was running Jriver and had it set to load decoded files into memory before playing back then but 6 months ago I ditched my pc for a raspberry pi.  I have had memory player turned off while running Jriver from the PI and still heard no difference in sq between flac and wav (my recent comparisons are quite limited though since I only have a few albums in both formats).

The Pi with Pi2AES however sounds dramatically better than my pc ever did.  So like mhconley suggested don't forget about hardware.

If you are neurotic about it, just quadruple your hard drive storage budget and go wav.     

     

[WGH]

If you are neurotic about it, just quadruple your hard drive storage budget and go wav.     

Tagging really sucks with WAV files. JRiver plays WAV files fine but tagging and album covers are a PIA.

The internet's opinion seems to be: "FLAC is a PCM compressed file. Lossless. Like .zip, .rar, 7z or any other files compressors. The audio players which run the FLAC formats, decompress the FLAC on-the-fly and run the decompressed PCM."
https://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/is-pcm-the-same-as-flac.803948/

Both FLAC and WAV are PCM containers.

Thanks mojave for prodding me to do more research 
 

[Freo-1]

I find they are close,  but, IMHO, .wav is slightly better sounding than .flac with high resolution playback systems.


With memory so cheap nowadays,  may as well use the best sounding file format. 

[WGH]

but, IMHO, .wav is slightly better sounding than .flac with high resolution playback systems.

What is in the high resolution system you mention? How high does a person need to go, Devialet 400 ($17,495)?

Don't confuse the newbie, a common mistake is reversing memory and storage. Storage is cheap.

[testsound]

I find they are close,  but, IMHO, .wav is slightly better sounding than .flac with high resolution playback systems.


With memory so cheap nowadays,  may as well use the best sounding file format.

Is that true even with Uncompressed FLACs which have same megabytes as WAV?

[zoom25]

Is that true even with Uncompressed FLACs which have same megabytes as WAV?

Depends on the system and where/how the decoding is being done. With something like Roon and isolated networked endpoints, the final device only sees PCM, so you can start off with any lossless format (compressed or uncompressed) and they'll sound identical as the final device receives PCM and not any of the formats. That's why for my Roon and master/backup library, I use the highest compression FLAC to save the most space and have the correct metadata. I always download and rip in FLAC.

In audio critical devices where the decoding is happening, check it out for yourself. If you're on Mac, you can use something like XLD to batch convert FLAC compressed, FLAC uncompressed, ALAC, AIFF/AIFF-C (make sure to check which kind it is - little or big endian), and WAV.

I went with WAV after testing in my secondary library for playback with BDP-1 (where the decoding is happening aka non Roon) that I've batch transcoded via XLD. I'd have probably gone with FLAC uncompressed next, which was just like WAV almost (wouldn't put money on it in a blind test). Unexpectedly, AIFF on the other hand stood out in a weird way. Not sure if something was broken somewhere or had a bug. Although all uncompressed files were the same size.

Theoretically and mathematically, they are all the same and have identical data. If there are any SQ differences due to CPU/IO byproducts, you'll simply have to try that out for your own rig.

[firedog]

I read that WAV is the best quality. But uncompressed FLAC should be same as WAV in quality, correct?

Yes, the only difference is the "shell", not the data itself. The amount of "additional processing" going on is basically zero.
To all those people who claim they hear a difference - show me in a blind test.

[Freo-1]

Memory storage devices are very inexpensive these days, so the size of music files is not as much of an issue nowadays.


There are slight deltas regarding processing between  .flac and .wav files.  Over time, have noticed that while the .flac files can sound excellent,  there are some recordings where comparing the two formats,  the .wav files do sound a bit more open and slightly more natural.  This is noticeable with both speakers and headphones  playback.  I'll grant the fact it's subtle,  and depending on the recording,  may or may not be noticeable.  Having said that, it's enough of a delta that I've gone back and changed a fair amount of stored recordings from .flac to .wav.   


YMMV. 

[testsound]

If you rip to FLAC and then later convert it to WAV, is there any loss in quality compared to if you ripped it in WAV in the first place?

[mhconley]

If you rip to FLAC and then later convert it to WAV, is there any loss in quality compared to if you ripped it in WAV in the first place?

No. See my post above on how to irrefutably prove it.

Martin

[testsound]

If you rip to ALAC and then later convert it to WAV, is there any loss in quality compared to if you ripped it in WAV in the first place?
I read somewhere that ALAC ripped through iTunes doesn't sound good as FLAC.

[mhconley]

If you rip to ALAC and then later convert it to WAV, is there any loss in quality compared to if you ripped it in WAV in the first place?
I read somewhere that ALAC ripped through iTunes doesn't sound good as FLAC.

ALAC like FLAC is lossless. Both will produce the same WAV file. I ripped a CD track to ALAC and FLAC, converted both to WAV then ran an MD5 checksum on both. The checksum is identical therefore the resultant WAV files are identical.

Anyone hearing a difference between FLAC, ALAC and WAV files of the same track is either imagining things (google expectation bias) or has something in the playback chain that is severely broken. A blind test would confirm which of the two is the cause of the difference they hear.

Martin

[rollo]

  Yes Martin. Ripped same CD to FLAC and WAV. I'll be darned to my ears WAV took the cake.


charles