Hello all. I couldn't find a direct answer to this question so I am wasting space with a topic; hope you all can help.
So I downloaded an album that is presented as 24 bit wav (44,100 sample rate). Normally I would drag these wavs into the EAC window and the command line flac compressor would do it's thing; however I have only ever done this with 16 wav files so I am wondering if this will still work with 24 bit wav files without any quality loss?
Also, I downloaded an album that is presented in 16 bit wav, but the sampling rate is 48,000. Will this also work without quality loss? I guess I am (irrationally) concerned that the flac encode will downgrade the file to 16 bit and/or sampling rate to 44,100... though that really wouldn't make sense since this is 'lossless' compression.
Thanks in advance. I am sure this question is pretty basic ultimately.
I don't know how EAC drag and dropping behaves, but the reference encoder (flac.exe) is perfectly able to handle 24bit and/or 48kHz input. Why don't you just test what EAC does, you won't lose your original WAVs in the progress (hopefully?).
If it doesn't work out with EAC you can alternatively use foobar2000 (http://www.foobar2000.org). Converter Settings for the 24-bit files would look something like this:
(http://img543.imageshack.us/img543/410/foobarn.th.jpg) (http://img543.imageshack.us/i/foobarn.jpg/)
For the 16-bit files of course it would be set to 16-bit output bit depth. There is an "Auto" setting for bit-depth that you can also try. (Not sure why I didn't use it; I may have had a problem with it at one point. I'll have to try it again sometime.)
@Sigmund Goid: Um...try it?
As long as you have the "Delete WAV after compression" option unchecked, EAC won't do anything to your source files, so drag 'n' drop 'n' see what happens.
I did so, and it appears that EAC won't accept anything other than a 44.1 kHz sample rate, which makes sense as it's a CD ripping program.
It had no problem with 24-bit word lengths, however.
As has been noted, FLAC itself is perfectly capable of encoding 24-bit and high sample rate files (*really* high sample rates - up to 655350 Hz!).
Just for shits 'n' giggles, I generated a 10 second pink noise file in Cool Edit 2000 at 24/384, saved to WAV, encoded to FLAC using foobar2000, and then ran a bit-compare on the WAV and FLAC - no errors...and FLAC -8 got the bitrate all the way down to 8879 kb/s!
So yes, as you mentioned EAC was able to encode 24bit/44,100 kHz wavs into flac with no problems. The 16bit/48,000 kHz wavs couldn't be encoded by the program though.
I have only ever used EAC to encode wavs so I really am not sure what to use to do this! I DO use Foobar2K for playback on my PC, but I didn't know it could encode flac files as well. Some of you are mentioning that I could use it to encode these higher sample rate wavs. Is there a website I could visit for explicit instruction on how to do this? Foobar seems complex and I have been able to get it looking pretty using 'Columns UI', but beyond that the program is a mystery to me!
Any help is appreciated!!!!!!!!
The 16bit/48,000 kHz wavs couldn't be encoded by the program though.
You're doing something wrong. FLAC works fine for that.
I have only ever used EAC to encode wavs so I really am not sure what to use to do this! I DO use Foobar2K for playback on my PC, but I didn't know it could encode flac files as well. Some of you are mentioning that I could use it to encode these higher sample rate wavs. Is there a website I could visit for explicit instruction on how to do this? Foobar seems complex and I have been able to get it looking pretty using 'Columns UI', but beyond that the program is a mystery to me!
We have an entire wiki and FAQ full of this stuff, take a look at it:
http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?title=EAC_and_FLAC (http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?title=EAC_and_FLAC)
http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?ti...with_Foobar2000 (http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?title=Foobar2000:Ripping_CDs_with_Foobar2000)
Ah yes! I figured it out in Foobar2K and it works great! Thanks so much everyone!
FYI - anything over 16 bits doesn't encode very efficiently in lossless. Why? Because the additional bits are essentially random noise, at least for real-world material.
[..] you won't lose your original WAVs in the progress (hopefully?).
Lol, always manipulate a copy and/or make the original read-only. :F