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Topic: FLAC or WAVE? (Read 41897 times) previous topic - next topic
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FLAC or WAVE?

Does WAVE sound better than FLAC? I noticed with a few albums I had downloaded that 44khz uncompressed WAVE sounds slightly better than FLAC-8. Is there a reason for this, or is it the placebo effect?

Theoretically, would it be worth the extra cost in disk space to rip everything in WAVE, or would it make more sense to stick with FLAC?

FLAC or WAVE?

Reply #1 –
If the FLAC is encoded from the same WAVE then it will sound the same.

FLAC is Lossless Compression, e.g. if you encode a WAVE to FLAC and Decode FLAC back to a WAVE. Both WAVE files at the start and end of this process will be identical.
Who are you and how did you get in here ?
I'm a locksmith, I'm a locksmith.

FLAC or WAVE?

Reply #2 –
You were suffering from the placebo affect.  FLAC is lossless, this means that audio data is not lost.  A FLAC file will have the exact same sound quality as a WAV file if the encoding process goes smoothly (just like the WAV file should have the exact same sound quality as the FLAC file and source CD if the ripping/encoding process went smoothly).

I would not use WAV at all as the files are too big and they don't normally contain track tag information.  The WAV format itself can hold track tag information but hardware support is slim to none and software support is also rather slim.  The FLAC format produces smaller files and it was designed from the ground up to hold track tag information.  There is absolutely no reason not to use a lossless format such as FLAC, WavPack, Monkey's Audio, Apple Lossless, WMA Lossless, etc. these days over WAV.  You will find some posts and "reports" on the internet saying that FLAC (and all other lossless formats) produce files that are of less quality than raw WAV files.

Don't believe those posts or "reports" as they are often written by dumb audiophiles who just don't like the idea of their music being losslessly compressed.  They are also the type of people who will use a green marker to make a ring around their CDs, store them in freezers, and spend $15,000 on a tube amp after reading a statement of "its teh bestststst!"

FLAC or WAVE?

Reply #3 –
green markers do make a difference. So do black blank cds 

FLAC or WAVE?

Reply #5 –
apart from placebo effect, your player could be equalizing FLAC and WAV slightly different...(I have noticed in the past that Winamp used to equalize OGG and MP3 differently... the OGG sound was "better"...)

In this case the files will seem to be different, but they are still the same thing in terms of quality and integrity.

FLAC or WAVE?

Reply #6 –
I've never heard a difference on the systems through which I've listened, but the claim has been made by _many_ audiophiles that wav sounds better to them than flac.  And like me, many other have said they also hear no difference.

Call it what you will - placebo effect, lack of objective testing, whatever - but I've known some of these guys that could blindly tell you the brand of output tube being used in a amp.  I know that's difficult to believe for many, particularly the under 30 crowd iPod generation here at HA.

The most common theory of why there might be a difference is that the processing required for decoding has an audible effect due to increased RFI or EMI from the CPU in the playback system, with some environments, such as general purpose computers with internal soundcards, being more susceptible to the negative effects.

Take it for what you will.  Like I say, I haven't yet heard a difference.

FLAC or WAVE?

Reply #7 –
Quote from: JJZolx on
Call it what you will - placebo effect, lack of objective testing, whatever - but I've known some of these guys that could blindly tell you the brand of output tube being used in a amp.  I know that's difficult to believe for many, particularly the under 30 crowd iPod generation here at HA.


As you know, hydrogenaudio is not about beliefs. It is about facts and repeatable experiments.
Tube amps do colour the sound. It can happen that different brands do it in different ways and a person used to play with them may be trained enough to discern the difference. That, if it happens, should be a verifiable test, or be made up altogether. Just the former case is interesting here.

Also, i don't know what you try to say with "under 30 crowd iPod generation". First of all, the auditory system does not improve with the age, precisely the opposite is true.
And... iPod generation? And what are you then? the MS-DOS generation?
That sounds absurd. People here *care* about audio. That's the reason why we don't trust blindly, but instead get out the facts.


And you can be sure that there is more interference for the HDD reading than for the CPU working.


About the OP's question. I have nothing to add aside of what others have already contributed.

FLAC or WAVE?

Reply #8 –
Quote from: [JAZ] on
And you can be sure that there is more interference for the HDD reading than for the CPU working.

It goes without saying that the HDD does more reading when playing back a wave file than a flac file; let alone an mp3 file.  You don't hear people saying that their mp3s sound better than the original waves because of EMI.

FLAC or WAVE?

Reply #9 –
Lossless formats such as FLAC compress wav files to about 65% of the original size.  When you can buy a 1.5 TB hard drive for under $200 USD, the file size issue is not so important.

FLAC or WAVE?

Reply #10 –
It is if you don't have $200 to spare. We don't all live in the land of milk and honey.

Cheers, Slipstreem. 

FLAC or WAVE?

Reply #11 –
Even if one can get any amount of storage with no limit, FLAC is still more flexible option compared to WAV due to tagging, error robustness, etc.

FLAC or WAVE?

Reply #12 –
WAV sounds better, it makes your toes wiggle. FLAC is DEFINITELY less dancable than WAV. Ever had to feeling to just stand up and dance? No? Well, you must be using FLAC. That's also what _many_ audiophiles claim.

FLAC or WAVE?

Reply #13 –
Quote from: tefleming on
Lossless formats such as FLAC compress wav files to about 65% of the original size.  When you can buy a 1.5 TB hard drive for under $200 USD, the file size issue is not so important.


...and I can still fit more FLAC files on that drive than WAV files, your argument is a bit silly.

FLAC or WAVE?

Reply #15 –
Is tefleming's post here related to this?
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....st&p=617125

It seems that if someone is involved in an irrational love affair with WAV files, then all one can really do is wish them all the best.

tefleming, by the way if you are using Jaikoz Audio Tagger you should know that it's based on a data-mining service (Music IP). See here for details.

C.



PC = TAK + LossyWAV  ::  Portable = Opus (130)

FLAC or WAVE?

Reply #16 –
Of course you save space by using FLAC instead of wav files.  My point was: so what?  Drive space is SO cheap that the smaller file size is a non-issue (at least to me).  And it will only get cheaper.  Larger drives for less money has been a continuous trend.

With wav files, you have a more universal format, supported by more software, than FLAC.  FLAC is not (yet) a standard.  Maybe it will be and maybe it will not.  As of now, it is not universally supported.  I can say the same thing for all of the lossless formats.  So I prefer wav files.  I have solved the metadata problem simply by using WMP and backing up my metadata periodically.  It also eliminates the need to use Jaikoz.

I get that compressing to FLAC and using Foobar has more of a geek appeal.  I'm going to have to miss out on the fun this time.

FLAC or WAVE?

Reply #17 –
Quote
FLAC is not (yet) a standard. Maybe it will be and maybe it will not. As of now, it is not universally supported. I can say the same thing for all of the lossless formats.


Please define standard.  Also, if, in ten years from now you dont have a FLAC player, simply decompress the files to WAV.  Nothing lost except storage space.

FLAC or WAVE?

Reply #18 –
Quote from: JJZolx on
but I've known some of these guys that could blindly tell you the brand of output tube being used in a amp.

Thankfully most of the world progressed to solid state devices.

The same guys who can tell me the brand of output tube are:
1) environmentally unfriendly, akin to those who stubbornly stick to lightbulbs for day-to-day use when there are fluorescent tubes.
2a) the kind that prefers distortion, or more specifically, even-order harmonics (most people do prefer the warmth)
2b) to the extent that they're willing to pay for such distortion (why not create a clean audio path and then apply warm EQ)
3) probably have too much spare cash and are surrounded by glib audio salesmen who are able to take said cash off them.

FLAC or WAVE?

Reply #19 –
Quote from: tefleming on
Of course you save space by using FLAC instead of wav files.  My point was: so what?  Drive space is SO cheap that the smaller file size is a non-issue (at least to me).  And it will only get cheaper.  Larger drives for less money has been a continuous trend.


That is true but file size is still important.  Not everyone can afford a $150 USB2.0 1TB hard drive.  I know some people who can barely afford a $50 250GB USB2.0 hard drive.  Not everyone has $200 to drop on a new hard drive simply because their 1TB model is filled with needless uncompressed music.  So my point is: why have the extra space when it isn't needed.  That is like spending $75,000 on an off-road vehicle only to use it to drive the kids back and forth from a suburban school.

Quote from: tefleming on
With wav files, you have a more universal format, supported by more software, than FLAC.  FLAC is not (yet) a standard.  Maybe it will be and maybe it will not.  As of now, it is not universally supported.  I can say the same thing for all of the lossless formats.  So I prefer wav files.  I have solved the metadata problem simply by using WMP and backing up my metadata periodically.  It also eliminates the need to use Jaikoz.


FLAC is just as supported throughout the audio community as WAV.  iTunes continues to support WAV, AIFF, and ALAC but you can go to many applications such as foobar2000, dBpowerAMP, WinAMP, etc. and the will all play FLAC files.  In fact, I have yet to see PCM WAV take off other than the computer realm.  That is still no excuse to use an uncompressed format whenever many lossless formats provide the exact same quality with a fraction of the file size and natively support track tags (WAV track tag support is still all over the place).

Quote from: tefleming on
I get that compressing to FLAC and using Foobar has more of a geek appeal.  I'm going to have to miss out on the fun this time.


This statement right here shows that you have something against FLAC (and probably other lossless formats).  I don't know why there are a certain number of people who get it in their head that WAV is the end-all of formats when there are plenty of other alternatives that are pretty much just as equally supported.  The above statement also shows how you feel about people using FLAC: they are geeks.  Well, I think it would be dumb for anyone to not use a lossless format over uncompressed WAV.  Take from that what you will but you have yet to show us anything concrete as to why PCM WAV is better than FLAC (or any other lossless format).  In fact, I can come up with more arguments making Apple lossless come out superior to WAV and they are all backed up by facts, not just opinions about the cost of storage ($200 is a lot of money!).

FLAC or WAVE?

Reply #20 –
I wish FLAC were supported universally.  I have some FLAC files on my PC.  They don't play on my ipod.  I have Apple Lossless files on my ipod.  Foobar doesn't play them.  WMP doesn't play them.  My wav files seem to play with every player and every device.  Yes, I can easily convert when I need to.  But then I have multiple versions to manage, and I have to go through the trouble of converting them.

If FLAC were a standard, we would not have so many other lossless formats.

FLAC or WAVE?

Reply #21 –
I will admit that the tagging issue can be an advanage for FLAC over wav.  If a person decides to go with FLAC for that reason, then I think it's a good reason.

FLAC or WAVE?

Reply #23 –
Quote from: tefleming on
I wish FLAC were supported universally.  I have some FLAC files on my PC.  They don't play on my ipod.  I have Apple Lossless files on my ipod.  Foobar doesn't play them.  WMP doesn't play them.


It is true that FLAC doesn't work well with iPods/iTunes but foobar2000 can playback (and even convert) Apple lossless files.  Windows Media Player can even playback ALAC files with the proper 3rd party plug-in.  I can also name a few other applications that can playback ALAC.  FLAC playback is even possible in Windows Media Player.

Quote from: tefleming on
If FLAC were a standard, we would not have so many other lossless formats.


What is a standard though?  AAC is a standard yet I know of many devices that can't play that format back.  AIFF is another standard yet it can't be played back on many other devices (or software for that matter).  WMA is another standard that is not supported by the most popular portable devices: iPods.  So you can pretty much say the same thing about ANY format out there aside from mp3.  I even know of many devices that won't playback WAV files.  Well, I guess that means that PCM WAV isn't a standard since the Zune can't playback the files along with many other home audio/video devices.  That type of thinking would lead to only one audio standard: mp3.

That is just not true.  WAV is a standard and so are mp3, AAC (LC and HE), WMA, WavPack, FLAC, and a countless number of other formats.  I still see no reason why someone should use uncompressed PCM WAV unless that is the only thing their device/software support (the chances of that are slim to none).  Even then one would be better off going with a lossless format that they could decode, copy to an appropriate medium, and then never have to fuss with again.

FLAC or WAVE?

Reply #24 –
In a couple years when you can't find the same version of WMP to reload your WAV tags onto you're probably going to regret using WAV. 

FLAC will outlast WMP11 by a very, very long time.  Hell, almost every format imaginable will.