[datman]

I would like to get some feedback as to the differences betwen FLAC and WAV formats.  I know that WAV is the native CD format, but is it automatically better than FLAC for burning CD's to a hard drive?  Does it sound better than FLAC?

Someone with knowledge of this please respond! 

Thanks,

Datman

[jermmd]

Play back of FLAC and WAV should sound identical since they both produce exact digital copies of the original recording. Since FLAC files are often 40% smaller than WAV files, it is preferred for hard disk storage. Now, with cheap Mega drives, conserving hard drive space is not as important to some people. And WAV format is better known to the public and has more support (such as some music players).

Joe

[zybar]

No difference in sound.

FLAC is the "winzip" of the audio world...it is a compressed version of the original that is exactly bit perfect.

Only negative with FLAC is that not every device supports it (such as an iPod).

George

[jqp]

Which leads to the questions...

Is WAV truly the "native format" for CDs or is there some conversion that takes place?

How long to convert an average WAV track to FLAC?

Which types of devices do support FLAC?

FLAC seems to be useful for portable devices where space could be an issue. Any other usefulness?

What is the overhead/effect of having to "unzip" FLAC files?

[nelamvr6]

To me one of the biggest drawbacks to wav (and a deal breaker for me) is that it doesn't support metadata (tags).

I can't be having files without tags, especially when they're bigger to boot.

[jakepunk]

Is WAV truly the "native format" for CDs or is there some conversion that takes place?

CDs use the Red Book format which is 2-channel, 16-bit pulse code modulated data at a sample rate of 44.1 kHz.  wav files also use the same PCM data, but there is other metadata in the wav file that a computer operating system understands but not a CD player.  In the strictest sense, a wav file is not the exact same thing as a CD track, but the PCM data contained in the wav file is the exact same data contained in the redbook CD track.  In the spirit of your question, the two formats are equivalent.

Which types of devices do support FLAC?

See this link.

FLAC seems to be useful for portable devices where space could be an issue. Any other usefulness?

FLAC is open source software.  It is an open specification that is designed to be easy to implement in hardware so that it can be used royalty-free in many devices.

How long to convert an average WAV track to FLAC?
What is the overhead/effect of having to "unzip" FLAC files?

See here and here from the FLAC faq.  The former question isn't a determining factor considering that ripping takes much longer than encoding.

[nathanm]

To me one of the biggest drawbacks to wav (and a deal breaker for me) is that it doesn't support metadata (tags).

I can't be having files without tags, especially when they're bigger to boot.

No kidding!  I really wish they worked as easily as MP3s in that regard.  Has anyone actually successfully generated a cue sheet\FLAC combo and had it work with a Squeezebox?  I feel as stumped as grandma trying to program a VCR with that thing.  At least on a Mac.  Looks like there's better software options with Windows. 

[Rashiki]

To me one of the biggest drawbacks to wav (and a deal breaker for me) is that it doesn't support metadata (tags).

I can't be having files without tags, especially when they're bigger to boot.

All of my WAV files have tag info embedded in them. I found a perl module from the slimserver distribution that would read/write tags in WAV files and wrote a PERL script so that EAC can create tagged WAV files. I have another script that walks through my directories of WAV files and creates VBR MP3 files using the tag info from the WAV to generate the ID3 tags for the MP3 files.

 -Rob

[csc]

All of my WAV files have tag info embedded in them. I found a perl module from the slimserver distribution that would read/write tags in WAV files and wrote a PERL script so that EAC can create tagged WAV files. I have another script that walks through my directories of WAV files and creates VBR MP3 files using the tag info from the WAV to generate the ID3 tags for the MP3 files.

 -Rob

Yeah, but that isn't a standard of the .wav format.

[Rashiki]

Yeah, but that isn't a standard of the .wav format.

It's part of the RIFF standard, on which WAV is based. A WAV file consists of a series of chunks, one of which can be the INFO chunk and that can hold information about artist, title, etc. It's not the same as ID3, but the common ID3 tags can be mapped to RIFF INFO chunk tags. Of course, this isn't commonly used, so it's quite likely that you'd have to write your own software for storing and retrieving the tags.

More info than you'd ever want to know: http://www.tactilemedia.com/info/MCI_Control_Info.html

[AphileEarlyAdopter]

To me one of the biggest drawbacks to wav (and a deal breaker for me) is that it doesn't support metadata (tags).

I can't be having files without tags, especially when they're bigger to boot.

No kidding!  I really wish they worked as easily as MP3s in that regard.  Has anyone actually successfully generated a cue sheet\FLAC combo and had it work with a Squeezebox?  I feel as stumped as grandma trying to program a VCR with that thing.  At least on a Mac.  Looks like there's better software options with Windows. 

I am using FLAC files (w/ EAC/FLAC Integration) and Squeezebox seems to read the tags embedded in FLAC (one of the reasons I went with FLAC, apart from tags was the 'native' support for FLAC in SB, not sure how much it matters though). I can now Browse/Search artist/album etc in my SB3.
I think the Audiophile crowd is split between Apple Lossless and FLAC. I chose to go with the FLAC group because I did not like Itunes that much.

[mfsoa]

Aphile,
Have you tried to do the FLAC-to-WAV in the PC before the SB?

I thought this was possible and was wondering if you've tried.

Don't have a SB myself, just trying to learn.

Thanks

[JoshK]

Ipod/Itunes is the Micro$oft of the mp3 world....I will look elsewhere...

I still have issues with my current flac compressions.  Ever since I had a system crash I haven't gotten flac to work right.  So I am still toying with flac but using mostly wav.  HD's are so cheap these days, who cares really?

[nelamvr6]

Yeah, but that isn't a standard of the .wav format.

It's part of the RIFF standard, on which WAV is based. A WAV file consists of a series of chunks, one of which can be the INFO chunk and that can hold information about artist, title, etc. It's not the same as ID3, but the common ID3 tags can be mapped to RIFF INFO chunk tags. Of course, this isn't commonly used, so it's quite likely that you'd have to write your own software for storing and retrieving the tags.

More info than you'd ever want to know: http://www.tactilemedia.com/info/MCI_Control_Info.html

This is probably well beyond the expertise of the average user.

I can't help but wonder why you would go to so much trouble when you could simply use flac, used standard tags and save space (a LOT of space) in the process?

[nelamvr6]

Aphile,
Have you tried to do the FLAC-to-WAV in the PC before the SB?

I thought this was possible and was wondering if you've tried.

Don't have a SB myself, just trying to learn.

Thanks

There is no reason to do this, the SB decodes flac natively. there is no transcoding necessary.

[DSK]

Aphile,
Have you tried to do the FLAC-to-WAV in the PC before the SB?

I thought this was possible and was wondering if you've tried.

Don't have a SB myself, just trying to learn.

Thanks

There is no reason to do this, the SB decodes flac natively. there is no transcoding necessary.

But the question arises as to whether there is any audible benefit when moving the decompression CPU load from the SB to the more powerful PC CPU. I recall someone a while back claimed there was an improvemment but I haven't got around to trying it myself.

[nelamvr6]

Aphile,
Have you tried to do the FLAC-to-WAV in the PC before the SB?

I thought this was possible and was wondering if you've tried.

Don't have a SB myself, just trying to learn.

Thanks

There is no reason to do this, the SB decodes flac natively. there is no transcoding necessary.

But the question arises as to whether there is any audible benefit when moving the decompression CPU load from the SB to the more powerful PC CPU. I recall someone a while back claimed there was an improvemment but I haven't got around to trying it myself.

The SB has a rather large buffer. The chances that there is an audible difference is vanishingly small.