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Topic: WAV or FLAC? (Read 6439 times) previous topic - next topic
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WAV or FLAC?

Hello:

I'm wanting to achive my audio collection and wanted to know if wav or flac is more desireable if quality is the main concern and space isn't really an issue. 

I want to achive in either flac or wave and from there have the choice in the future to convert them to mp3 or any of the other lossy formats. 

Which one of these formats is easier to convert to lossy and end up with the best quality?

Can anyone give me their opinion and reasoning behind their views?  Thanks much.

Comet 

WAV or FLAC?

Reply #2 –
Quote from: greynol on
FLAC is easier because its method of keeping metadata is widely supported.  There is no difference in quality though; lossless is lossless.



Thanks Greynol: 

When you have a FLAC file and for some reason are wanting in the future to convert it back to a WAV, would you have any loss of quality in that converted WAV file as compared to you originally ripping your store bought CD to a WAV to begin with?

Thanks,

Comet

WAV or FLAC?

Reply #4 –
Quote from: Comet on
When you have a FLAC file and for some reason are wanting in the future to convert it back to a WAV, would you have any loss of quality in that converted WAV file as compared to you originally ripping your store bought CD to a WAV to begin with?

FLAC is to WAV as ZIP is to non audio files.

When you decompress ZIPed file, you get the exact same file you originally compressed.

So, no, no loss of quality ever.

WAV or FLAC?

Reply #5 –
Maybe FLAC should be renamed to FNLWWCTWAC (Free No Loss Whatsoever When Compared To WAV Audio Codec).

WAV or FLAC?

Reply #6 –
Quote from: twostar on
Maybe FLAC should be renamed to FNLWWCTWAC (Free No Loss Whatsoever When Compared To WAV Audio Codec).



Thanks for responding: greynol, twostar, kwanbis, Tahnru, I appreciate it.  Two questions if I could.

1. Can anyone direct me to the best tool, out of the ones available, that I can use to convert WAV files to      FLAC and FLAC to WAV?

2. I set up the latest EAC to rip my music and downloaded the latest FLAC instead of using the old one that came with EAC.  The plug in I put over into Nero.  Now here is where my question starts:  FLAC has many parts.  I guess when I rip with EAC I'm using FLAC's encoder i.e. when I choose compressed.  But what about FLACS's "front end"  I've done some searching but cannot get a good handle on what it is and what I could use it for.  Can anyone help with both of my questions.

Thanks so much guys, your a good bunch, 

Comet

WAV or FLAC?

Reply #7 –
1.  There are many out there but foobar2000 comes to mind.  dBpowerAMP can also do this.

2.  Not quite sure what you are asking there.

WAV or FLAC?

Reply #8 –
Quote from: Comet on
But what about FLACS's "front end"  I've done some searching but cannot get a good handle on what it is and what I could use it for.

The FLAC front end is basically analogous to foobar2000, dBpowerAMP and EAC in the sense that it's a visual interface for the FLAC command line encoder. The front end essentially creates a script that performs FLAC encoding based on the files and settings you've chosen in the front end.

You can use the front end whenever you have a WAV that you'd like to convert to FLAC. When you rip a CD with EAC configured to use FLAC, you bypass the rip-to-WAV portion (sort of) and are left with resultant FLAC files, so the front end is unnecessary.

You can also use the front end to create FLAC fingerprints and so forth, so it's a useful tool alongside EAC and/or other converter front ends.

WAV or FLAC?

Reply #9 –
Thanks Ron, I think I'm getting it.

Comet

WAV or FLAC?

Reply #10 –
Quote from: Comet on
FLAC has many parts.  I guess when I rip with EAC I'm using FLAC's encoder i.e. when I choose compressed.  But what about FLACS's "front end"  I've done some searching but cannot get a good handle on what it is and what I could use it for.  Can anyone help with both of my questions.

Here you can try a FLAC GUI/Frontend: http://www.rarewares.org/lossless.php#flacdrop-l3m (i don't know if uses the latest FLAC version).

WAV or FLAC?

Reply #11 –
Go with FLAC. You cant tag wav

WAV or FLAC?

Reply #12 –
You most certainly can tag a wave file.  dBpa does this and I'm pretty sure iTunes and WMP do as well.  If you're into command-line utilities here's another.

Still, I would go with flac if for no other reason(*) than it has the ability to tell you if the file has become corrupt.

EDIT: (*) Not withstanding what was said in my earlier post.

WAV or FLAC?

Reply #13 –
I don't think iTunes tags WAV files.  I think that it stores the tags in a library file and just references the WAV files.  In other words, it appears that the WAV files are tagged but they really aren't.  The reason why I say this is because I can tag a WAV in iTunes, delete the file from my library (but not deleting it from my hard drive), add the WAV file again to iTunes, and all the tags that I had just added will be lost.

WAV or FLAC?

Reply #14 –
FLAC (or wavpack) FTW