Hi Paul, So far my primary music listening is using a DAP, and an IEM, a FiiO M11 DAP, with FiiO FH7, with pure silver cable, do you know FiiO's players? Also what's your opinion, I switched the original cable to pure silver balanced cable, the original cable was single ended, silver plated cooper, and for me, the new cable sounds much better, more wide soundstage, better highs, more clarity, is this because the silver cable, or it's more about the balanced output? Best regards Dénes Hungary
Flac files sound exactly the same as wav files. There is an utility in foobar called ABX Comparator. It plays both files simultaneously and you can switch from one to the other immediately. This utility also includes a test challenging you to guess which file is playing. If your guesses are around 50% then there is no audible difference between the files. Anyone can try it to realize that there is no difference between flac and wav files. The computing power is not an issue because even an ancient 2nd gen i3 needs less than 2% to play a flac file, so no extra noise from the power supply is generated.
Here's a statement: "The default compression level is 5, which balances file size and playback performance", could it be that some of us are converting at Level 1 -4 and then seeing poor result? Does it make a difference? If you are ripping at levels 1 - 4 is there information being removed?
I have used EAC to rip 20-bit CDs. They appear to be 16-bit when played on Neutron. Does anyone know what's going on? I'm not very concerned, just curious.
FLAC does not ever "sound" different to WAV! Anyone who claims to hear a difference is talking absolute rot - it's (to use Paul's terminology) not only theoretically impossible for there to be a difference, it's factually, evidentially and quantifiably not possible for there to be any difference between a file encoded with FLAC and a WAV file. I rather suspect Henrik asked this question - which has been covered so so often - just to start an argument... but there's no argument to be had. Those who claim to "hear" a difference are just deluding themselves. It's called confirmation bias - you expect to hear a difference, you convince yourself you can, and it suddenly becomes factual. There aren't two sides to every argument, facts aren't pliable - the Earth isn't flat, there is no difference in sound between a FLAC file and a WAV file.
exactly, FLAC is bit perfect and there are many ways to prove it: take a DTS encoded wav (ripped from a DTS-CD for example) convert it to FLAC, play the FLAC file through the optical output to a DTS Receiver... boom, you will get 5.1 DTS audio. That's bit perfect. If not, you'll hear digital noise.
Jon Anderhub 1 second ago Shhhh, you're upsetting the Audiophiles. Simply tell them that FLAC files cost twice as much as any other file and they will tell you how much better FLAC sounds than any other type of file. It works for DSD!😆
Can you pleasee tell me i have some flace files can i convert flac to wav to make audio cd after converting them will audio remain same without any audio loss ??
There is a notable difference when performing an A-B comparison on a neutral but detailed HiFi system. My personal HiFi Sound Wall (Mc XRT18 spkrs + MC7300 + C38) critically reveals much detail not usually demonstrated on other HiFi systems.
Can you pleasee tell me i have some flace files can i convert flac to wav to make audio cd after converting them will audio remain same without any audio loss ??
Hello! I am new to audio and music files. I have ripped CDs wayback since my childhood days into WAV files. Then I discovered FLAC format. What is the best program to convert WAV files into FLAC files?
Being another of those folks who often hears differences that many engineers claim "shouldn't" or "can't" exist, I really appreciate this perspective, on all counts!
One thing I noticed is that many FLAC files range between 400kbps to 1400kbps while WAV is a fixed 1400kbps. Then 320kbps and under is mp3 and other lossy formats.
@Bassotronics What you're seeing is the difference in compression ratios used when encoding the FLAC file. There is a option for compression "level" when encoding to FLAC which correlates with how much "processing" is needed to uncompress/decode the FLAC file back to PCM. The bitrate you see for a given FLAC file refers to how big of a "chunk" of compressed data to read at a time. The higher the bitrate, the lower the compression.
Since storage is not much of an issue any more, but FLAC has some advantages with metadata, one can rip to uncompressed FLAC files. I can't hear any differences between WAV and uncompressed FLAC.
@@happydogg312 I use dBpoweramp for ripping my CDs and it's very easy. It has a pulldown menu to set the level of encoding, which includes uncompressed. dBpoweramp can also be used to change the level of compression in existing FLAC files.
AIFF, or audio interchange file format is a lossless format that can be played on Apple and Windows platforms and contains all the metadata. As far as I know it is a WAV file with metadata. That is what I have been ripping to.
@Douglas Blake I provide a clarification for er'body. Douglas mentions MP3 encoding. My understanding is MP3 encoding will always incur a degradation in the resulting output's quality. It is a lossy format. And so, in the described situation of encoding an existing 128k MP3 into a new 320k MP3, I believe the resulting file should in fact be inferior to where you began with the 128k encode. Is this correct? :) Try it. Go repeatedly encode an MP3 file with the same data. I believe it degrades repeatedly. Becoming "gargly." Don't hit it with the 128K VBR. You may cry!
I am surprised how many tackling this issue don't examine the most important variable...what server or device is rendering the file. A PC or Mac may struggle procession a flac or aiff in some way vs a wav on a resolving system, but what about a dedicated music server such as an Aurender that is decoding and caching to a SSD? Probably not so much and I struggle to hear a difference in this application.
flac formatted files have the potential to sound better than mp3 formatted files. But the sound quality really comes down to this: Play your flac file or any other music file, and hear how it sounds. If it sounds great, then when you convert it to an mp3 file, it should retain nearly all of its sound quality. That is assuming that you use a high bit rate for the mp3 file. There is no conclusive answer to whether a flac file converted to an mp3 file will sound better than a normal mp3 formatted file, because the sound quality is nearly entirely dictated by the studio. I have multiple copies of CD rips, flac files, and mp3 files, for the same song. Nearly without exception, they all differ in sound quality. And it gets maddening when one file sound better in one aspect, and another file sounds better in some other aspect. But if I convert one format to another, they will retains virtually the exact same sound quality. The format plays a minimal role in how a song will sound, but flac will have the edge over mp3, if the song is mixed and mastered properly. mp3 files are designed to save space, by deleting samples (mp3 is a lossy format). You can get very aggressive with that option. That will wreck the sound quality. So use a high quality setting for creating mp3 files. I am curious why you would want to convert lossless flac files to lossy mp3 files? Is your music player not compatible with flac files? Even if you do the conversion from flac to mp3, do not delete your flac files. One day you might want to use a flac compatible player.
I'd be curious if there has been any legitimate study on the actual differences (scientifically speaking) between FLAC and WAV. When I say 'differences', I'm mean any REAL differences between the actual final waveform output in a controlled setting. Does anyone have any sources? I've not found any. Paul? Maybe this is something you could do with all that nice equipment you use to build this cool stuff. :)
I'd definitely like to see that, as it seems some players must be 'dropping the ball' when it comes to flac. If you can hear a difference, something is wrong, fix it or toss out the 'not quite right' player.
@@Douglas_Blake I know what you mean. Similar to seeing the output on an oscilloscope. I guess I should have been more clear. I meant in a controlled room using quality speakers, microphones, and computers to actually analyze the actual audio output itself. With all things being equal, I'd bet there would be virtually no discernible difference, but that's a study I'd love to see.
Yesterday I sat my daughter (18 years old) listening to two songs, each one in WAV and FLAC, from an original CD, and without knowing which one she chose WAV, and she told me something that she could never read or know, dad, this one sounds more natural and fluid… nothing to do, I still feel better WAV, which is a sad story because in my previous gear I didn't feel the difference and thinking that Flac sounded the same, I transferred my entire CD collection to Flac…. Now I feel it was a mistake...
Filed under "Things That Didn't Happen". Don't suppose your wife also called out from the other room that she could hear a huge difference, did she? Or accused you of buying new speakers? Lolz.
Just decode the flac to wave, and compare the original wav to the decoded wav and see if there is a binary diffrence.. from my understanding is that flac was an archival compression some what like a .zip or .rar file except its optimized for audio...but that is justswhat I undrstood from when I read about flac about 10years ago give or take
Say man, I'm listening to the same track in wave and flac format on my pc, using headphones (200 bucks, not hi end stuff), and I'm somehow convinced I can tell the difference. Is it possible or am I just dreaming? Cool channel!!!
I’m gonna be in Boulder on Tuesday. I might try to stop in at PS audio I don’t know if I need to make an appointment or not I’ll call first before I come. I’m a huge fan of this channel and I am hoping that I get to meet Paul.
I decided to simply copy all my CD's into my external drive I use for music in the codec they were recorded on the disk in.......AIFF......duh. Yea, it may take up more room, but I had the room, and for some reason they just sound better to me than the ALAC files I originally burned them down to. And no, I don't remember hearing much if any difference between ALACs and FLACs, my preference leaning towards the ALACs, but that might be simply because I am a Mac man who has always been allergic to PCs.
What about Aurender players? As far as I know Aurender copies all files for playback first to its internal SSD (thus unfolding any compressed format), and then play them from the SSD. For Aurender owners compressed formats like FLAC or ALAC should be OK.
In the digital domain, there is no difference in the output. The processing of a FLAC is negligible. And I've listened and analyzed the output, no difference to my ears nor the waveforms.
I use EX CD Audio Converter, by far the easiest one to use. I also found EAC cumbersome. EAC has more error correction tools but to me, a bad CD is a bad CD and not worth the time trying to rip it. EZ CD is more feature rich, intuitive, and pretty quick. It costs around $40 and well worth it if you have thousands of CDs to rip.
In my opinion the key differences could be in the algorithm responsible for the decoding of the FLAC file. As this process needs to be performend live during the playing of the track, maybe some sort of approximation is used to decrease the computational load and hence to reduce the risk of interruption during paying time, as the chip cannot decode all information in time...
There are no differences, key or otherwise. The chip is perfectly capable of performing the task on the fly - the idea that it's somehow an onerous task is just nonsense.
@@luisrodrigonunezolguin7038 No actually I don't. I've also tried many time to mix a WAV file and a flac obtained from the same source, after inverting the waveforms with Audacity...as a result I always get a flat line. No difference. And this won't surprise me, as it's exactly what I'd expect from a file which should be binary identical after the decompression. So for me the only reasonable element which could introduce differences is the algorithm used for the decompression. But honestly I think that it's a psychological effect, as (see the comments below) the modern hardware is more than capable to manage the live decompression of an audio file...
Hear hear! I also subscribe to the notion that less processing at playback is the way to go. As a result, I rip everything to WAV. But I have to admit, that in most cases, I struggle to hear a difference. Still, in the spirit of everything matters, I take small improvements anywhere I can and the aggregate sound seems to work out ok. One disadvantage to using WAV is it does not have all the metadata that comes with FLAC. So you need to be aware of that when organizing your library. I use a hierarchy of file folders to keep track of it since the normal metadata that keeps track of album names and tracks is lost with WAV.
I always use a pile of folders to keep it all sorted, so I can see what's what etc, when using Windows & Linux OS 'file explorers' where a lot of that meta-data is not necessarily immediately in view. Meta-data is great in a music player, but when I'm out of it, managing gigabytes & terrabytes, moving stuff about, etc. all that metadata might as well not be there. yes I can examine an individual file, but when you have thousands, and not a months free time, the file name and what folder (album, band, etc) it's in is what I primarily use.
@@Wizardofgosz As I said, I think it is negligible. Will I stop? No. I am fully aware of the background processing in Windows and it's impact on sound. It can be substantial. A group of us worked to take Win98 and strip it down to it's bare essentials. Basically stopped all non essential tasks and background processes until it was a tiny kernal of only a few 100k only capable of booting and delivering digital music. Each cut delivered an improvement in sound quality that was quite noticible. Building on this principle, I now run a headless Rpi to deliver I2S to a FIFO reclocking device which drives a DAC.
I ripped all my CDs to FLAC several years ago for convenience only really. I can't hear nay difference. Mind you I am sixty three so maybe my ears are a bit past their best. Still love not having three hundred CD cases to store though. (so does my wife).
flac and wav are basically interchangeable. You can convert a song from one to the other, and it will have zero affect on the sound quality. Although the flac format compresses the data, it is not like analog compression that ruins music. It is akin to zipping a file. When you later unzip that file, that file will be exactly as it was, originally. And so it is with flac files. Your music player unzips (in a manner of speaking) the contents of the flac file. As to some folks hearing sound degradation with with flac formatted files, that is due to them using ancient hardware. Or they might be using a computer that is heavily being used, and so the decompressing process is competing with everything else they have their computer doing. Our host is correct about flac formatted files using more processing power. But the amount of processing power to decompress a flac file is very low. Perhaps if you are using a 33 mHz, i386 equipped computer, you would have an issue. But even a crummy core-duo CPU will not have any problems with flac files. If you have any i3 (or higher) CPU (or AMD equivalent), from any generation, it will basically effortlessly decompress flac formatted files. And if you want to test whether or not the compression is an issue, you can create flac files with zero compression (or convert existing flac files to other compression levels -- including converting them to zero compression). I recommend using the flac format over the wav format for all of your music files. Why? The wav format can hold very little meta-data. Whereas, the flac format can hold seemingly endless meta-data. So you can tag flac files to the moon, to help you organize your music library.
What I still do not understand is: how can FLAC be bitperfect if the information is reduced by about 50%? I know a little about maths, so I guess some kind of stochastic algorithms are used to kind of predict/reconstruct the missing bits. Surely this won't always be flawless, right...?
As Paul says, think of it like a ZIP file on your computer. A bitstream ( a stream of zeros and ones ) can be broken into chunks. For this ...crude example, let's choose 8. So for every 8 bits, we can covert those 8 bits to hexadecimal ( 0 through h ) and store *that* value (and the following hex codes) into a new file. For a bitstream of (for the ease of the math) 64 bits, we've "compressed" that into 8 hexadecimal "bytes". FLAC (and file) compression uses similar schemes to take different ...chunks of data and representing each chunk as efficiently as possible (some use "chunks" of data and lookup tables, some use sections repeating values, and some combine multiple algorithms). Decoders know the scheme to convert the compressed data into the original chunks. There are some parity bits added in for error detection (and correction, in some compression algorithms) in case of an error in the compressed file.
The flac format is akin to the zip format, but is audio specific. When you zip a file, that process reduces that file's size. When you unzip that file, it is returned to its exact size. Every bit is exactly as it was. flac does the same thing, for music files. Your music player will decompress (unzip, so to speak) your flac files, on the fly, when as you play your flac files. For people that have an issue with compressed music files, you can (if your software has this feature) create 0 compression flac files. That will give you the metadata advantages that flac has over wav files, while not compressing your flac files.
This makes me wonder if some audio players, when processing FLAC files are encountering different processing times for the various samples, this adding jitter to the resultant audio. Now after all the decoding one would hope the raw audio samples - after decoding, would go through some form of FIFO buffer and get re-clocked, however maybe they are not doing that, or not doing it right, buffer too short, processor too slow etc etc. It sounds like the output from this player should be captured in both FLAC and WAV to compare the results and see where it is going wrong. Either way, it's either software bugs, or an outright inferior product.
@Douglas Blake Yes, that's how it should be done, However listeners, including Paul McGowan are hearing differences, so someone somewhere is doing something wrong. maybe relying on code library's that are not entirely fit for this use. Or the OS it's all running on is not real time enough, pinching processor cycles at the wrong time.
If a decoding processor is inducing so much noise and interference when it is decompressing FLAC content that it is audible, then you also need to take into account that reading roughly 2x the data stream from storage is itself going to put on a load on the processor that will similarly induce interference. If the system is so poorly designed that maybe you really could hear the differences between FLAC vs WAV, then your WAV/uncompressed noise performance is also atrocious! I hate seeing people being duped and their delusions taken advantage of just to sell product.
When you go higher up the chain in audio noise or timing can and do make a difference. And I'm there now. If I listen to a Freya Ridings CD cd on my D-10X the minute nuances of the recording can be heard, down to the actual keys being pressed on the piano. I still get tambor, soundstage, air between each instrument and and background singer and Freya's Vocals are more clear and natural sounding. Where jitter or taxing of the already great processor on my Aurender A30 comes into play the piano tones sound a bit smeared which takes away the natural tone of the piano. Vocals are less clear. Is it awful, no, not at all, but when you hear something at the top of it's performance, taking a small step back makes a notable difference. When I go into critical listening mode and shut off the A30''S background processes, it does improve the sound 1/2 a step, but nothing like my D10-X'S experience going form the A30 to the D-10X'S DAC via USB. Even though the USB is isolated from the CPU board and is less noisy by far than most USB outputs and etc, to my ears it's sharper. That's why I'm trading it on for an N20 which sounds more natural and has an OXCO clock through it's Spidif output. It also allows for an external clock like their Rhobidium based MC20. At the end I'm still enjoying my music, but when it's superb and natural, not analytical, or ear piercing, it just brings me or my listeners more in, and it's amazing.
@@LuxAudio389 if your player and DAC are half decent they have enough buffering and isolation to never have this be an issue. It’s really only for crappy hardware or poor setups where the source of the data or the lossless codec would matter.
@@EraYaN it becomes an issue when the speakers amp and etc can resolve it. The D-10X is really good at what it does, the A30 does have an 8 gb buffer as do most aurenders. But between what the D10x can do and the A30 does is noticable. The D10x is phenomenal and I'm amazed by it. A30 is a multi purpose device: DAC, ripper, streamer, and headphone amp. N20 is a high-end transport, so more is paid attention to the audio section. Will it be as good as a cd playing on the D-10X, that's yet to be answered.
DAC’s do not rely on the specific timing of digital source signals to drive their outputs, they rely on nominal rates (and the signals themselves have embedded timings) and have their own clocks for the actual D/A process which is separate from input timing. If a digital input connection like AES3 or SPDIF or ADAT or TOSLINK is causing any noticeable effects on the output, either it is because they are so badly degraded so as to not be digitally perfect bit for bit transmissions, or because there is noise/interference being coupled into the receiving system circuitry. In practice there is no playback/decoding processor running at 100% CPU utilization at their highest possible frequency clock, so the digital bitstream is perfect, no matter if it’s uncompressed or losslessly compressed.
@@RufusKSala yes, the signal for USB is asynchronous. But having a good clock on the transport end for Spidif matters as well as the overall design. Just one part of it doesn't mean all will be well. As much as digital is ones and zeros it does have a sound that can be influenced by many factors not limited to noise and jitter, but when it's right it's phenomenal.
If WAV just did all the metadata too, this would be a moot point. I am ripping my CDs to FLAC with 0% compression. Best of both worlds. Audiophiles do their best to eliminate any… yes, any unneeded “stuff”. So we/they put little stands under their wires etc. So of course it makes sense to not add on another step like uncompressing before playing. If we forget the metadata part, and you have plants of storage space, then it’s a no brainer to do wav. For example, if you are getting in your car, do you walk around the car first? Or do you just get in the car? Why add the extra step of compressing?
FLAC is an asymmetric codec: it takes quite a lot of processing to encode a file, but it takes very little processing to decode one. Many common lossy codecs require much more processing for the decoding than FLAC.
Hello Paul, As I already wrote here and there, the fact is since we don't have any issues with almost endless space to stock music files, what is the use of compressing these files coming from CDs? Your channel is always useful and so fun📯 Geetings from🗼😃
@@Wizardofgosz Nothing more than the other music lovers actually 🙂 Many terabytes on a single HDD isn't enough? Let's talk about cloud storage, etc... That's what I meant 🖖
@Douglas Blake Hey YOU It took me several years to get my 2TB fulled, meaning more than 1 year non-stop music listening!... You are also talking about movies (not me), this is definitely not the same. 20 years ago, for 1 go storage, you had to pay 8 or 10 times today's price, not a hint, pure fact. But you're right, nothing is never given 🖖
My music just exceeded 300 gigabytes. I keep a copy on a 512 GB microSD on my phone. I'd have to buy a terabyte microSD if I used .wav. I'd also have to consider larger disks for my NAS. It takes long enough to move data around as it is. I certainly wouldn't want to double it.
One day, I am going to re-rip my CDs to either FLAC or WAV, (probably the latter) but the music I bought, online, back in the day, will have to remain as MP3s or AAC.
I never thought such a self proclaimed pro audiophile wouldn't notice the difference in audio performance between FLAC and WAV. Unless you meant converting an WAV file to FLAC (ripping a CD as a FLAC) and listening to that, then I 100% agree with you. I hope it's the latter 🙄
I'm guessing that in order to unfold a flac file and play it in real time, the processing of this flac file would have to be buffered through some form of ram, just to keep up the real time of the file being played, thus the ram itself introducing noise into the system..
Sorry, decompressing FLAC should take less power, generating less interference, than accessing more uncompressed data from bulk storage, for efficient decompression code and processor. That fails when: * Power filtering for processer and RAM is poorer than for music's nonvolatile bulk storage. * FLAC decompression kernel thrashes the processor's cache. To that end, evaluating a newer AMD CPU with massive level 3 cache would be interesting.
Can you pleasee tell me i have some flace files can i convert flac to wav to make audio cd after converting them will audio remain same without any audio loss ??
Hello, I use a program called EZ-CD Audio converter, you load the metadata of the CD and then you rip it to WAV all in Auto. The result is all the tracks in the original WAV with metadata included. I reproduce it through server to a LUMIN U1. The result sounds better than FLAC on my audio equipment. Do the test!
"If you convert your FLAC files to WAV, you will lose all the metadata. WAV is not capable of storing metadata." wav supports minimal metadata. It is not bereft of metadata.
It takes no processing. I guarantee there's a thousand and one things going on in your average processor that takes more effort. Processors decades ago could easily cope with decoding FLAC, modern chips it's like nothing to them.
absolutely, In fact, Windows machines use NTFS as filesystem and NTFS compress the data... NTFS data decompression is heavier than FLAC decoding and I bet many audiophiles don't know that.
haha, great video. 😁 I might be completely insane, but flac sounds brittle on the top end to compared to wav. This could be down to the fact that my wav files are usually first hand, whereas the flac files I listen to has been created by others and sent through numerous digital devices, mmm🤔
Where are the measurements to back any of this up? I realize we audiophiles just "love" to cite our subjective tastes and opinions, but I also need something measurably scientifically to say WAV is better or FLAC is better or they are the same. As another stated in replies, is there any studies that back any of these opinions up? In the end, people are welcome to listen however they want. Less processing is less processing. Not saying you can audibly hear or not hear it. But my system is mainly FLAC and with my crappy aging ears, doing blind A/B tests, I don't hear any differences in my system between WAV/FLAC. And in fact, my ears struggle to hear issues in 192 MP3s but I still do FLAC/WAV because my logic KNOWS there is SOMETHING different, even if I can't hear it. And if you use something like JRMC to play decoded from memory, what's played is WAV equivalent, or so they claim.
"Where are the measurements to back any of this up? I realize we audiophiles just "love" to cite our subjective tastes and opinions, but I also need something measurably scientifically to say WAV is better or FLAC is better or they are the same." Not everything can be measured (well, at least not of this date). If you have a revealing stereo (which Paul has), and you have critical listening skills (which Paul has), and you cannot hear any difference between wav and flac, it is because there is no difference between wav and flac (sound wise). Both wav and flac use pulse code modulation. It is that code that gets played by your DAC. Your DAC has no clue whether the bits of PCM sent to it were stored as wav of flac. Your DAC sees the PCM bit stream, and plays it. Your DAC never sees the file from where the bits came from. Both the flac file and the wav file contain the exact same PCM bits, and it is those bits that get sent to the DAC.
Looking at the comments I'm surprised that so many start a discussion on the technical side while it's our ears in the end that makes the judgement. I also hear the difference and I'm happy that Paul is making this statement. I first heard it when using a squeezebox. Here the logic about processing capacity makes sense. However...I'm now using Roon for streaming and still hear the difference ( other DAC to) . For test comparison I start with a FLAC file that I decompress to WAV. Both the Flac and WAV file are stored on my NAS.I let Roon stream both files to my DAC. As far as I know Roon is doing the decompression. in other words the FLAC file is converted to WAV file is just passed true. Myself ( and others) still hear a difference.
_Are there differences between the two formats that can be heard?_ Of course! To sensitive and picky ears listening on a highly resolving system like mine you can definitely spot a difference. And if you can't, you should just pony up and buy a more expensive system.
false, FLAC is bit perfect and there are many ways to prove it: take a DTS encoded wav (ripped from a DTS-CD for example) convert it to FLAC, play the FLAC file through the optical output to a DTS Receiver... boom, you will get 5.1 DTS audio. That's bit perfect. If not, you'll hear digital noise.
@@Douglas_Blake nope at a high level you can discern small changes good or bad. No different than driving a Ferrari or Porsche on the track with different tire pressures or driving modes. If you're pushing for that lower lap time you'll notice whether any changes helped or not.
What I am pissed off is that Paul and all the other bloody audiophiles keep on blaming FLAC rather than their equipment. Oh, your $10,000 equipment can not decode FLAC before playing, oh deary me, so it must be FLAC at fault.
"What I am pissed off is that Paul and all the other bloody audiophiles keep on blaming FLAC rather than their equipment." Please provide the time stamp of when Paul and all the other bloody audiophiles blamed flac rather than their equipment. "Oh, your $10,000 equipment can not decode FLAC before playing, oh deary me, so it must be FLAC at fault." To what $10,000 component are you referring?
Don't be pissed off - this is stereotypical audiophile behavior. The whole "if I'm not familiar with it, or if my system doesn't handle it, it's crap" mentality. It's quite funny, nothing to be pissed off at.
When I tell people that I can hear a difference between flac and wav, they're very quick to disagree that I am able to hear it. Or they'll ignore that I say flac sounds compressed, and keep telling me that its lossless. I have no problem if people still choose to use compression of that is what suits them, or if they're portable listeners and it doesnt matter as much, thats absolutely fair enough. But I do think its a shame that there may be people out there who could appreciate a difference, and are missing out slightly
@@michielderomijn I've had the same album on my computer in mp3, flac and wav ripped from a cd. On random play, with the screen off, I can tell which is which most of the time. I sometimes get confused between the mp3 and flac, but its hard to mistake the wav's
@@shreddherring Oh that's just nonsense. Compare flac to zip: an image that has been zipped doesn't look any different from the original. They're bit perfect copies. How in the world could a bit perfect copy sound any different when played on the same system? (Hint: it can't)
It is true that flac must be unpacked before playback, this is done by the player. What makes the sound between flac and wav sound different? when you play music, you have a codec that tells the playing software how it should play the music file. the codec file is already in the player or you have installed a codec package in widows that is used. It depends on how the software plays the FLAC file and what the player is set to in the settings? The player has to work harder when playing flac. Therefore, very few car players and portable mp3 players supported FLAC. wav or PCM. is the same format that an audio CD disc uses. the less converting the better. you do not save 50% if the flac program is on default settings. if you set the program to best sound quality or most accurate ripping, it compresses less. The program I use creates folders to write artist, song name and year so you don't have to
Is this written by chatAPT it almost makes sense but fails to make any conclusions. No actually. You cannot adjust compression of a flac file. Otherwise it would not be 100% in 100% out. It would be 80% in 80% out. That is not Free "Lossless" Audio Codec
DSD is not superior and is, in fact, inferior because DSD has to include large quantities of noise in the file to maintain dithering. Thus DSD files are significantly larger and require significant filtering (reaching into the audible range of DSD 64) for playback.
@@JonAnderhub DSD 128/256 noise not in audible ranges pushed above audible and easily filtered out. My experience is that pcm no good. DSD retains the “air” and depth. Done lots of comparisons. DSD sounds like vinyl
@@Douglas_Blake disk space is cheap. If you want better sound you go DSD. PCM flattens the sound…if you want the “air” you need the DSD to capture the transients of instruments…which are truncated in PCM
@@Douglas_Blake enjoy… I used to few the same way as you but then saw there IS a difference. The PCM tries squish the info into 24bits creating “more approximations” at a paltry 192k sampling. The DSD is much closer to the actual waveform and in the case of 128 is 5.6Mhz sampling. PCM is missing micro dynamics which ARE audible. PCM is a “fine” format for most people. But those who want more air, space and “closer” to analog sound. Of course if the source was not DSD or pure analog…you will not see the benefits. You need the DSD. The noise is not in the output signal. It is gone by the simple low pass filter. Most people gripe about the noise. But is not in the audible band for 128 and above.
@@Douglas_Blake gain nor dynamic range is the point. Capturing the wave form is. 0/1 is the only quantization in DSD and sampled many times over 192k. You are missing transients or smashing them into your 24 levels. There is decent PCM out there…but it needs a lot of work to emulate the smoothness of analog. I am not an analogphile…but prefer DSD and most people who really done the work recognize it too. The “air” is gone…flattened with PCM. Have you actually done listening comparisons or just talking? DSD is the way to get closest to analog. Plangent processes seems to have figured out how to do it right. But most of this PCM downloads are crap.
Big endian PCM in AIFF or MKA format is the way to go. It's better than WAV. I'll take UA-cam's OPUS lossy compression any day over the erratic sound of FLAC. ALAC is ok though.
WAV is better than FLAC. WAV is 100 percent more compatible and takes no processing power to play. Storage is a non-issue today therefore using FLAC to save disk space is pointless. I don't care about the metadata. All I care about is the file name. The only reason to use FLAC in my experience is to archive long audio recordings. I remember in 2008 downloading FLAC files from the internet, only to find a way of converting it to WAV file so that I can play the damn thing!
Hello, I use a program called EZ-CD Audio converter, you load the metadata of the CD and then you rip it to WAV all in Auto. The result is all the tracks in the original WAV with metadata included.
@@luisrodrigonunezolguin7038 oh for cd ripping I just use EAC or wave lab and rip it to wav (or flac) do not use windows media player to rip CDs I made that mistake in 2002 never again!
@@judenihal "WAV is 100 percent more compatible (than flac)" You just made that up. "and takes no processing power to play" Read that, again. "I remember in 2008 downloading FLAC files from the internet, only to find a way of converting it to WAV file so that I can play the damn thing!" My grandparents told me that when their parents were growing up, hotdogs costed 5¢. If you are running Windows 3.1, then you might have trouble playing the damn thing. If you are running any operating system from the last 15 years, there is a plethora of compatible software, for every operating system, that can play the damn thing. Much of the software is free.
@@NoEgg4u Why download a third-party software when you can natively play it on your system as WAV? Fortunately, my favourite Windows 95 audio player from 2002 is able to take the xiph ogg codec and then import FLAC files in it, and Windows Media Player in Windows XP can play FLAC files after this codec is installed, but why do this when you could just play it natively as WAV? Storage isn't an issue anymore, so I don't see the point of saving disk space with audio files. Oh and, WAV (and AIFF) is STILL used by audio professionals instead of FLAC ALAC and APE, do you know why? It is EASIER to edit, FLAC requires extra decompression from the processor. Imagine doing this with 24 audio tracks!!! 40???? Yeah I know, even a slow core i3 computer from 2015 is able play 24 FLAC files all at the same time, but imagine the sluggishness of working with this! WAV? Works perfectly with mixing with even old computers! I don't mind FLAC as an archive mechanism and storing large quantities of FLAC files on a disk, but it's so much better to convert them to WAV before playing and editing the audio.
Hi Paul,
So far my primary music listening is using a DAP, and an IEM, a FiiO M11 DAP, with FiiO FH7, with pure silver cable, do you know FiiO's players? Also what's your opinion, I switched the original cable to pure silver balanced cable, the original cable was single ended, silver plated cooper, and for me, the new cable sounds much better, more wide soundstage, better highs, more clarity, is this because the silver cable, or it's more about the balanced output?
Best regards
Dénes
Hungary
I love your way of humor so much, Paul!
It kept me from calling him Dumb through the screen 😅
Flac files sound exactly the same as wav files. There is an utility in foobar called ABX Comparator. It plays both files simultaneously and you can switch from one to the other immediately. This utility also includes a test challenging you to guess which file is playing. If your guesses are around 50% then there is no audible difference between the files. Anyone can try it to realize that there is no difference between flac and wav files.
The computing power is not an issue because even an ancient 2nd gen i3 needs less than 2% to play a flac file, so no extra noise from the power supply is generated.
Exactly.
Abx test is not a null test. Do a null test and there is a difference. I've already demonstrated this before and will not do it again.
@@380stroker If you do the null test correctly you will realise that there is no difference.
@@komhst That's what they all say.
Here's a statement: "The default compression level is 5, which balances file size and playback performance", could it be that some of us are converting at Level 1 -4 and then seeing poor result? Does it make a difference? If you are ripping at levels 1 - 4 is there information being removed?
There are just some people who call themselves audiophiles who in reality will go out of their way to sacrifice sound quality for meta data.
if anyone can hear the difference between flac and wav, I salute their system (and perhaps susceptibility to placebo effect)
Audiophiles can hear a Bubble Bee sucking nectar out of a flower in the neighbors yard while listening to AC/DC at 120db on their stereo systems.
Null tests are not placebo effects. Try harder.
I have used EAC to rip 20-bit CDs. They appear to be 16-bit when played on Neutron. Does anyone know what's going on? I'm not very concerned, just curious.
FLAC does not ever "sound" different to WAV! Anyone who claims to hear a difference is talking absolute rot - it's (to use Paul's terminology) not only theoretically impossible for there to be a difference, it's factually, evidentially and quantifiably not possible for there to be any difference between a file encoded with FLAC and a WAV file. I rather suspect Henrik asked this question - which has been covered so so often - just to start an argument... but there's no argument to be had. Those who claim to "hear" a difference are just deluding themselves. It's called confirmation bias - you expect to hear a difference, you convince yourself you can, and it suddenly becomes factual.
There aren't two sides to every argument, facts aren't pliable - the Earth isn't flat, there is no difference in sound between a FLAC file and a WAV file.
exactly, FLAC is bit perfect and there are many ways to prove it: take a DTS encoded wav (ripped from a DTS-CD for example) convert it to FLAC, play the FLAC file through the optical output to a DTS Receiver... boom, you will get 5.1 DTS audio. That's bit perfect. If not, you'll hear digital noise.
Jon Anderhub
1 second ago
Shhhh, you're upsetting the Audiophiles.
Simply tell them that FLAC files cost twice as much as any other file and they will tell you how much better FLAC sounds than any other type of file.
It works for DSD!😆
@@JonAnderhub well DSD is objectively different. Does it sound better than PCM? I don't know.
Can you pleasee tell me i have some flace files can i convert flac to wav to make audio cd after converting them will audio remain same without any audio loss ??
There is a notable difference when performing an A-B comparison on a neutral but detailed HiFi system.
My personal HiFi Sound Wall (Mc XRT18 spkrs + MC7300 + C38) critically reveals much detail not usually demonstrated on other HiFi systems.
Can you pleasee tell me i have some flace files can i convert flac to wav to make audio cd after converting them will audio remain same without any audio loss ??
I put things on a flashdrive for my truck system. I choose which ones must be wav or just mp3. If you hear a difference, do whatever you want.
Hello! I am new to audio and music files. I have ripped CDs wayback since my childhood days into WAV files. Then I discovered FLAC format. What is the best program to convert WAV files into FLAC files?
Being another of those folks who often hears differences that many engineers claim "shouldn't" or "can't" exist, I really appreciate this perspective, on all counts!
You're PS Audio's target audience.
@@richardt3371 Yes, thank you.
One thing I noticed is that many FLAC files range between 400kbps to 1400kbps while WAV is a fixed 1400kbps.
Then 320kbps and under is mp3 and other lossy formats.
@Douglas Blake
I know. I was just adding information I thought was curious about the bitrate.
@Bassotronics What you're seeing is the difference in compression ratios used when encoding the FLAC file. There is a option for compression "level" when encoding to FLAC which correlates with how much "processing" is needed to uncompress/decode the FLAC file back to PCM. The bitrate you see for a given FLAC file refers to how big of a "chunk" of compressed data to read at a time. The higher the bitrate, the lower the compression.
@@infinite1der
Thank You!
That is correct.
Wonder if WavePack or Monkeys Audio aound the same. A./B comparison would be awesome
This is the funniest video I've watched all day! you're the best Paul!
Since storage is not much of an issue any more, but FLAC has some advantages with metadata, one can rip to uncompressed FLAC files. I can't hear any differences between WAV and uncompressed FLAC.
@@happydogg312 I use dBpoweramp for ripping my CDs and it's very easy. It has a pulldown menu to set the level of encoding, which includes uncompressed. dBpoweramp can also be used to change the level of compression in existing FLAC files.
AIFF, or audio interchange file format is a lossless format that can be played on Apple and Windows platforms and contains all the metadata. As far as I know it is a WAV file with metadata. That is what I have been ripping to.
@Douglas Blake I provide a clarification for er'body. Douglas mentions MP3 encoding.
My understanding is MP3 encoding will always incur a degradation in the resulting output's quality. It is a lossy format.
And so, in the described situation of encoding an existing 128k MP3 into a new 320k MP3, I believe the resulting file should in fact be inferior to where you began with the 128k encode.
Is this correct? :)
Try it. Go repeatedly encode an MP3 file with the same data. I believe it degrades repeatedly. Becoming "gargly." Don't hit it with the 128K VBR. You may cry!
I am surprised how many tackling this issue don't examine the most important variable...what server or device is rendering the file. A PC or Mac may struggle procession a flac or aiff in some way vs a wav on a resolving system, but what about a dedicated music server such as an Aurender that is decoding and caching to a SSD? Probably not so much and I struggle to hear a difference in this application.
Is there different to converting flac files to MP3 will they sound better than normal MP3 format
flac formatted files have the potential to sound better than mp3 formatted files. But the sound quality really comes down to this:
Play your flac file or any other music file, and hear how it sounds. If it sounds great, then when you convert it to an mp3 file, it should retain nearly all of its sound quality. That is assuming that you use a high bit rate for the mp3 file.
There is no conclusive answer to whether a flac file converted to an mp3 file will sound better than a normal mp3 formatted file, because the sound quality is nearly entirely dictated by the studio. I have multiple copies of CD rips, flac files, and mp3 files, for the same song. Nearly without exception, they all differ in sound quality. And it gets maddening when one file sound better in one aspect, and another file sounds better in some other aspect. But if I convert one format to another, they will retains virtually the exact same sound quality.
The format plays a minimal role in how a song will sound, but flac will have the edge over mp3, if the song is mixed and mastered properly.
mp3 files are designed to save space, by deleting samples (mp3 is a lossy format). You can get very aggressive with that option. That will wreck the sound quality. So use a high quality setting for creating mp3 files.
I am curious why you would want to convert lossless flac files to lossy mp3 files?
Is your music player not compatible with flac files?
Even if you do the conversion from flac to mp3, do not delete your flac files. One day you might want to use a flac compatible player.
I'd be curious if there has been any legitimate study on the actual differences (scientifically speaking) between FLAC and WAV. When I say 'differences', I'm mean any REAL differences between the actual final waveform output in a controlled setting. Does anyone have any sources? I've not found any.
Paul? Maybe this is something you could do with all that nice equipment you use to build this cool stuff. :)
I'd definitely like to see that, as it seems some players must be 'dropping the ball' when it comes to flac.
If you can hear a difference, something is wrong, fix it or toss out the 'not quite right' player.
@@Douglas_Blake I know what you mean. Similar to seeing the output on an oscilloscope. I guess I should have been more clear. I meant in a controlled room using quality speakers, microphones, and computers to actually analyze the actual audio output itself. With all things being equal, I'd bet there would be virtually no discernible difference, but that's a study I'd love to see.
How can I rip CDs in wave if I only have a flac???
Yesterday I sat my daughter (18 years old) listening to two songs, each one in WAV and FLAC, from an original CD, and without knowing which one she chose WAV, and she told me something that she could never read or know, dad, this one sounds more natural and fluid… nothing to do, I still feel better WAV, which is a sad story because in my previous gear I didn't feel the difference and thinking that Flac sounded the same, I transferred my entire CD collection to Flac…. Now I feel it was a mistake...
Filed under "Things That Didn't Happen". Don't suppose your wife also called out from the other room that she could hear a huge difference, did she? Or accused you of buying new speakers? Lolz.
Just decode the flac to wave, and compare the original wav to the decoded wav and see if there is a binary diffrence.. from my understanding is that flac was an archival compression some what like a .zip or .rar file except its optimized for audio...but that is justswhat I undrstood from when I read about flac about 10years ago give or take
Foobar or Freeac (Sndfile) can change the FLAC files into AIFF or WAV. I recommend AIFF, its data structure is simpler.
She has good ears. I hear the same thing and did the same as you....ripped to FLAC. Arrrghh. And these things can't be measured.
Say man, I'm listening to the same track in wave and flac format on my pc, using headphones (200 bucks, not hi end stuff), and I'm somehow convinced I can tell the difference. Is it possible or am I just dreaming? Cool channel!!!
No, you are NOT crazy. WAV files sound more detailed, sharper treble and better reverberation
I’m gonna be in Boulder on Tuesday. I might try to stop in at PS audio I don’t know if I need to make an appointment or not I’ll call first before I come. I’m a huge fan of this channel and I am hoping that I get to meet Paul.
Come on by! No appointment needed.
@@Paulmcgowanpsaudio You're awesome! Show 'em around! Enjoy your time, C Croson! Stay warm!
I decided to simply copy all my CD's into my external drive I use for music in the codec they were recorded on the disk in.......AIFF......duh. Yea, it may take up more room, but I had the room, and for some reason they just sound better to me than the ALAC files I originally burned them down to. And no, I don't remember hearing much if any difference between ALACs and FLACs, my preference leaning towards the ALACs, but that might be simply because I am a Mac man who has always been allergic to PCs.
AIFF is my preferred format as well. Its data structure is more straightforward than WAV's + it uses big endian PCM.
What about Aurender players? As far as I know Aurender copies all files for playback first to its internal SSD (thus unfolding any compressed format), and then play them from the SSD. For Aurender owners compressed formats like FLAC or ALAC should be OK.
In the digital domain, there is no difference in the output. The processing of a FLAC is negligible. And I've listened and analyzed the output, no difference to my ears nor the waveforms.
What would one use to convert flac to wav? For what it is worth I find EAC OVERLYYYYYY COMPLEX.
I use EX CD Audio Converter, by far the easiest one to use. I also found EAC cumbersome. EAC has more error correction tools but to me, a bad CD is a bad CD and not worth the time trying to rip it. EZ CD is more feature rich, intuitive, and pretty quick. It costs around $40 and well worth it if you have thousands of CDs to rip.
@Douglas Blake thanks
@@mr.b4444 Thanks
What is better wav or aiff?
Aiff has better metadata support and it works with Apple products I use it for my ipod classic.
In my opinion the key differences could be in the algorithm responsible for the decoding of the FLAC file. As this process needs to be performend live during the playing of the track, maybe some sort of approximation is used to decrease the computational load and hence to reduce the risk of interruption during paying time, as the chip cannot decode all information in time...
It seems that you also feel the difference in favor of WAV, me too.
There are no differences, key or otherwise. The chip is perfectly capable of performing the task on the fly - the idea that it's somehow an onerous task is just nonsense.
The processing required to decode a FLAC file is much smaller than the one required to decode a lossy file.
@@luisrodrigonunezolguin7038 No actually I don't. I've also tried many time to mix a WAV file and a flac obtained from the same source, after inverting the waveforms with Audacity...as a result I always get a flat line. No difference. And this won't surprise me, as it's exactly what I'd expect from a file which should be binary identical after the decompression. So for me the only reasonable element which could introduce differences is the algorithm used for the decompression. But honestly I think that it's a psychological effect, as (see the comments below) the modern hardware is more than capable to manage the live decompression of an audio file...
Hear hear! I also subscribe to the notion that less processing at playback is the way to go. As a result, I rip everything to WAV. But I have to admit, that in most cases, I struggle to hear a difference. Still, in the spirit of everything matters, I take small improvements anywhere I can and the aggregate sound seems to work out ok.
One disadvantage to using WAV is it does not have all the metadata that comes with FLAC. So you need to be aware of that when organizing your library. I use a hierarchy of file folders to keep track of it since the normal metadata that keeps track of album names and tracks is lost with WAV.
I always use a pile of folders to keep it all sorted, so I can see what's what etc, when using Windows & Linux OS 'file explorers' where a lot of that meta-data is not necessarily immediately in view.
Meta-data is great in a music player, but when I'm out of it, managing gigabytes & terrabytes, moving stuff about, etc. all that metadata might as well not be there. yes I can examine an individual file, but when you have thousands, and not a months free time, the file name and what folder (album, band, etc) it's in is what I primarily use.
@@Wizardofgosz As I said, I think it is negligible. Will I stop? No.
I am fully aware of the background processing in Windows and it's impact on sound. It can be substantial. A group of us worked to take Win98 and strip it down to it's bare essentials. Basically stopped all non essential tasks and background processes until it was a tiny kernal of only a few 100k only capable of booting and delivering digital music. Each cut delivered an improvement in sound quality that was quite noticible. Building on this principle, I now run a headless Rpi to deliver I2S to a FIFO reclocking device which drives a DAC.
@@user-od9iz9cv1w Show the evidence.
I ripped all my CDs to FLAC several years ago for convenience only really. I can't hear nay difference. Mind you I am sixty three so maybe my ears are a bit past their best. Still love not having three hundred CD cases to store though. (so does my wife).
flac and wav are basically interchangeable. You can convert a song from one to the other, and it will have zero affect on the sound quality.
Although the flac format compresses the data, it is not like analog compression that ruins music. It is akin to zipping a file. When you later unzip that file, that file will be exactly as it was, originally. And so it is with flac files. Your music player unzips (in a manner of speaking) the contents of the flac file.
As to some folks hearing sound degradation with with flac formatted files, that is due to them using ancient hardware. Or they might be using a computer that is heavily being used, and so the decompressing process is competing with everything else they have their computer doing.
Our host is correct about flac formatted files using more processing power. But the amount of processing power to decompress a flac file is very low.
Perhaps if you are using a 33 mHz, i386 equipped computer, you would have an issue. But even a crummy core-duo CPU will not have any problems with flac files. If you have any i3 (or higher) CPU (or AMD equivalent), from any generation, it will basically effortlessly decompress flac formatted files.
And if you want to test whether or not the compression is an issue, you can create flac files with zero compression (or convert existing flac files to other compression levels -- including converting them to zero compression).
I recommend using the flac format over the wav format for all of your music files. Why?
The wav format can hold very little meta-data. Whereas, the flac format can hold seemingly endless meta-data. So you can tag flac files to the moon, to help you organize your music library.
What I still do not understand is: how can FLAC be bitperfect if the information is reduced by about 50%? I know a little about maths, so I guess some kind of stochastic algorithms are used to kind of predict/reconstruct the missing bits. Surely this won't always be flawless, right...?
The file size is reduced by half, not the information.
As Paul says, think of it like a ZIP file on your computer. A bitstream ( a stream of zeros and ones ) can be broken into chunks. For this ...crude example, let's choose 8. So for every 8 bits, we can covert those 8 bits to hexadecimal ( 0 through h ) and store *that* value (and the following hex codes) into a new file. For a bitstream of (for the ease of the math) 64 bits, we've "compressed" that into 8 hexadecimal "bytes". FLAC (and file) compression uses similar schemes to take different ...chunks of data and representing each chunk as efficiently as possible (some use "chunks" of data and lookup tables, some use sections repeating values, and some combine multiple algorithms). Decoders know the scheme to convert the compressed data into the original chunks. There are some parity bits added in for error detection (and correction, in some compression algorithms) in case of an error in the compressed file.
@Douglas Blake " For this *...crude* example... "
The flac format is akin to the zip format, but is audio specific.
When you zip a file, that process reduces that file's size.
When you unzip that file, it is returned to its exact size. Every bit is exactly as it was.
flac does the same thing, for music files.
Your music player will decompress (unzip, so to speak) your flac files, on the fly, when as you play your flac files.
For people that have an issue with compressed music files, you can (if your software has this feature) create 0 compression flac files.
That will give you the metadata advantages that flac has over wav files, while not compressing your flac files.
This makes me wonder if some audio players, when processing FLAC files are encountering different processing times for the various samples, this adding jitter to the resultant audio. Now after all the decoding one would hope the raw audio samples - after decoding, would go through some form of FIFO buffer and get re-clocked, however maybe they are not doing that, or not doing it right, buffer too short, processor too slow etc etc.
It sounds like the output from this player should be captured in both FLAC and WAV to compare the results and see where it is going wrong. Either way, it's either software bugs, or an outright inferior product.
@Douglas Blake Yes, that's how it should be done, However listeners, including Paul McGowan are hearing differences, so someone somewhere is doing something wrong. maybe relying on code library's that are not entirely fit for this use. Or the OS it's all running on is not real time enough, pinching processor cycles at the wrong time.
If a decoding processor is inducing so much noise and interference when it is decompressing FLAC content that it is audible, then you also need to take into account that reading roughly 2x the data stream from storage is itself going to put on a load on the processor that will similarly induce interference. If the system is so poorly designed that maybe you really could hear the differences between FLAC vs WAV, then your WAV/uncompressed noise performance is also atrocious! I hate seeing people being duped and their delusions taken advantage of just to sell product.
When you go higher up the chain in audio noise or timing can and do make a difference. And I'm there now. If I listen to a Freya Ridings CD cd on my D-10X the minute nuances of the recording can be heard, down to the actual keys being pressed on the piano. I still get tambor, soundstage, air between each instrument and and background singer and Freya's Vocals are more clear and natural sounding. Where jitter or taxing of the already great processor on my Aurender A30 comes into play the piano tones sound a bit smeared which takes away the natural tone of the piano. Vocals are less clear. Is it awful, no, not at all, but when you hear something at the top of it's performance, taking a small step back makes a notable difference. When I go into critical listening mode and shut off the A30''S background processes, it does improve the sound 1/2 a step, but nothing like my D10-X'S experience going form the A30 to the D-10X'S DAC via USB. Even though the USB is isolated from the CPU board and is less noisy by far than most USB outputs and etc, to my ears it's sharper. That's why I'm trading it on for an N20 which sounds more natural and has an OXCO clock through it's Spidif output. It also allows for an external clock like their Rhobidium based MC20. At the end I'm still enjoying my music, but when it's superb and natural, not analytical, or ear piercing, it just brings me or my listeners more in, and it's amazing.
@@LuxAudio389 if your player and DAC are half decent they have enough buffering and isolation to never have this be an issue. It’s really only for crappy hardware or poor setups where the source of the data or the lossless codec would matter.
@@EraYaN it becomes an issue when the speakers amp and etc can resolve it. The D-10X is really good at what it does, the
A30 does have an 8 gb buffer as do most aurenders. But between what the D10x can do and the A30 does is noticable. The D10x is phenomenal and I'm amazed by it. A30 is a multi purpose device: DAC, ripper, streamer, and headphone amp. N20 is a high-end transport, so more is paid attention to the audio section. Will it be as good as a cd playing on the D-10X, that's yet to be answered.
DAC’s do not rely on the specific timing of digital source signals to drive their outputs, they rely on nominal rates (and the signals themselves have embedded timings) and have their own clocks for the actual D/A process which is separate from input timing. If a digital input connection like AES3 or SPDIF or ADAT or TOSLINK is causing any noticeable effects on the output, either it is because they are so badly degraded so as to not be digitally perfect bit for bit transmissions, or because there is noise/interference being coupled into the receiving system circuitry. In practice there is no playback/decoding processor running at 100% CPU utilization at their highest possible frequency clock, so the digital bitstream is perfect, no matter if it’s uncompressed or losslessly compressed.
@@RufusKSala yes, the signal for USB is asynchronous. But having a good clock on the transport end for Spidif matters as well as the overall design. Just one part of it doesn't mean all will be well. As much as digital is ones and zeros it does have a sound that can be influenced by many factors not limited to noise and jitter, but when it's right it's phenomenal.
There are players (as APlayer) that decode and load to RAM whole album or playlist and then play from RAM.
If WAV just did all the metadata too, this would be a moot point. I am ripping my CDs to FLAC with 0% compression. Best of both worlds.
Audiophiles do their best to eliminate any… yes, any unneeded “stuff”. So we/they put little stands under their wires etc. So of course it makes sense to not add on another step like uncompressing before playing.
If we forget the metadata part, and you have plants of storage space, then it’s a no brainer to do wav. For example, if you are getting in your car, do you walk around the car first? Or do you just get in the car? Why add the extra step of compressing?
FLAC is an asymmetric codec: it takes quite a lot of processing to encode a file, but it takes very little processing to decode one. Many common lossy codecs require much more processing for the decoding than FLAC.
Hello Paul,
As I already wrote here and there, the fact is since we don't have any issues with almost endless space to stock music files, what is the use of compressing these files coming from CDs?
Your channel is always useful and so fun📯
Geetings from🗼😃
@@Wizardofgosz Nothing more than the other music lovers actually 🙂
Many terabytes on a single HDD isn't enough? Let's talk about cloud storage, etc...
That's what I meant
🖖
@@CJANegrcTtpX8HwbR2SBDd Hi,
Poor people🤔🤨
"Poor people" don't buy/store music, they make and play it, it's far better😏
Sorry not beeing gifted
@Douglas Blake Hey YOU
It took me several years to get my 2TB fulled, meaning more than 1 year non-stop music listening!...
You are also talking about movies (not me), this is definitely not the same.
20 years ago, for 1 go storage, you had to pay 8 or 10 times today's price, not a hint, pure fact.
But you're right, nothing is never given
🖖
@@Wizardofgosz Lighten up Francis.
My music just exceeded 300 gigabytes. I keep a copy on a 512 GB microSD on my phone. I'd have to buy a terabyte microSD if I used .wav. I'd also have to consider larger disks for my NAS. It takes long enough to move data around as it is. I certainly wouldn't want to double it.
One day, I am going to re-rip my CDs to either FLAC or WAV, (probably the latter) but the music I bought, online, back in the day, will have to remain as MP3s or AAC.
I never thought such a self proclaimed pro audiophile wouldn't notice the difference in audio performance between FLAC and WAV. Unless you meant converting an WAV file to FLAC (ripping a CD as a FLAC) and listening to that, then I 100% agree with you.
I hope it's the latter 🙄
If your device that decides the digital signal from the flac (your dac) is powerful enough then there is no difference in sound produced.
*decodes
I'm guessing that in order to unfold a flac file and play it in real time, the processing of this flac file would have to be buffered through some form of ram, just to keep up the real time of the file being played, thus the ram itself introducing noise into the system..
Every data transfer is buffered, all the time.
Sorry, decompressing FLAC should take less power, generating less interference,
than accessing more uncompressed data from bulk storage,
for efficient decompression code and processor.
That fails when:
* Power filtering for processer and RAM is poorer than for music's nonvolatile bulk storage.
* FLAC decompression kernel thrashes the processor's cache.
To that end, evaluating a newer AMD CPU with massive level 3 cache would be interesting.
Can you pleasee tell me i have some flace files can i convert flac to wav to make audio cd after converting them will audio remain same without any audio loss ??
Paul, you forgot "Nanny nanny boo boo" LOL
If you convert your FLAC files to WAV, you will lose all the metadata. WAV is not capable of storing metadata.
Hello, I use a program called EZ-CD Audio converter, you load the metadata of the CD and then you rip it to WAV all in Auto. The result is all the tracks in the original WAV with metadata included. I reproduce it through server to a LUMIN U1. The result sounds better than FLAC on my audio equipment. Do the test!
"If you convert your FLAC files to WAV, you will lose all the metadata. WAV is not capable of storing metadata."
wav supports minimal metadata. It is not bereft of metadata.
WAV will store metadata. All my CDs were ripped to WAV using EAC and with a few exceptions I had no issues.
It takes no processing. I guarantee there's a thousand and one things going on in your average processor that takes more effort.
Processors decades ago could easily cope with decoding FLAC, modern chips it's like nothing to them.
absolutely, In fact, Windows machines use NTFS as filesystem and NTFS compress the data... NTFS data decompression is heavier than FLAC decoding and I bet many audiophiles don't know that.
I've never heard a difference between the two, unless the decoder used was dodgy to begin with
haha, great video. 😁
I might be completely insane, but flac sounds brittle on the top end to compared to wav.
This could be down to the fact that my wav files are usually first hand, whereas the flac files I listen to has been created by others and sent through numerous digital devices, mmm🤔
I've got my stick ready 😆
I listen to MP3..😀
With Apple Wired Earbuds I got for free with my iPhone’s from years back. I am a castrated Audiophile 😀
Only time I like to listen to WAV is when I don't have the lossless FLAC file. Seriously 🤷🏻
You are right!
Yes, paul. I have the same conclusion also.
Where are the measurements to back any of this up? I realize we audiophiles just "love" to cite our subjective tastes and opinions, but I also need something measurably scientifically to say WAV is better or FLAC is better or they are the same.
As another stated in replies, is there any studies that back any of these opinions up?
In the end, people are welcome to listen however they want.
Less processing is less processing. Not saying you can audibly hear or not hear it.
But my system is mainly FLAC and with my crappy aging ears, doing blind A/B tests, I don't hear any differences in my system between WAV/FLAC. And in fact, my ears struggle to hear issues in 192 MP3s but I still do FLAC/WAV because my logic KNOWS there is SOMETHING different, even if I can't hear it.
And if you use something like JRMC to play decoded from memory, what's played is WAV equivalent, or so they claim.
"Where are the measurements to back any of this up? I realize we audiophiles just "love" to cite our subjective tastes and opinions, but I also need something measurably scientifically to say WAV is better or FLAC is better or they are the same."
Not everything can be measured (well, at least not of this date).
If you have a revealing stereo (which Paul has), and you have critical listening skills (which Paul has), and you cannot hear any difference between wav and flac, it is because there is no difference between wav and flac (sound wise).
Both wav and flac use pulse code modulation.
It is that code that gets played by your DAC.
Your DAC has no clue whether the bits of PCM sent to it were stored as wav of flac. Your DAC sees the PCM bit stream, and plays it. Your DAC never sees the file from where the bits came from. Both the flac file and the wav file contain the exact same PCM bits, and it is those bits that get sent to the DAC.
Looking at the comments I'm surprised that so many start a discussion on the technical side while it's our ears in the end that makes the judgement.
I also hear the difference and I'm happy that Paul is making this statement. I first heard it when using a squeezebox. Here the logic about processing capacity makes sense. However...I'm now using Roon for streaming and still hear the difference ( other DAC to) . For test comparison I start with a FLAC file that I decompress to WAV. Both the Flac and WAV file are stored on my NAS.I let Roon stream both files to my DAC. As far as I know Roon is doing the decompression. in other words the FLAC file is converted to WAV file is just passed true. Myself ( and others) still hear a difference.
_Are there differences between the two formats that can be heard?_
Of course! To sensitive and picky ears listening on a highly resolving system like mine you can definitely spot a difference. And if you can't, you should just pony up and buy a more expensive system.
false, FLAC is bit perfect and there are many ways to prove it: take a DTS encoded wav (ripped from a DTS-CD for example) convert it to FLAC, play the FLAC file through the optical output to a DTS Receiver... boom, you will get 5.1 DTS audio. That's bit perfect. If not, you'll hear digital noise.
@@Douglas_Blake nope at a high level you can discern small changes good or bad. No different than driving a Ferrari or Porsche on the track with different tire pressures or driving modes. If you're pushing for that lower lap time you'll notice whether any changes helped or not.
I hear things all the time... but I dont hear that 😂. Then again I dont have a $100.000 system so I have np say in this 🤣
What I am pissed off is that Paul and all the other bloody audiophiles keep on blaming FLAC rather than their equipment. Oh, your $10,000 equipment can not decode FLAC before playing, oh deary me, so it must be FLAC at fault.
"What I am pissed off is that Paul and all the other bloody audiophiles keep on blaming FLAC rather than their equipment."
Please provide the time stamp of when Paul and all the other bloody audiophiles blamed flac rather than their equipment.
"Oh, your $10,000 equipment can not decode FLAC before playing, oh deary me, so it must be FLAC at fault."
To what $10,000 component are you referring?
Don't be pissed off - this is stereotypical audiophile behavior. The whole "if I'm not familiar with it, or if my system doesn't handle it, it's crap" mentality. It's quite funny, nothing to be pissed off at.
I use WAV to begin with. So simple!
When I tell people that I can hear a difference between flac and wav, they're very quick to disagree that I am able to hear it. Or they'll ignore that I say flac sounds compressed, and keep telling me that its lossless. I have no problem if people still choose to use compression of that is what suits them, or if they're portable listeners and it doesnt matter as much, thats absolutely fair enough. But I do think its a shame that there may be people out there who could appreciate a difference, and are missing out slightly
You are hearing differences that aren't there. Psycho-acoustics and confirmation bias are b!tches.
@Douglas Blake its the same sense of compression that I get from mp3's, just to a lesser extent. I dont think my system specifically 'dislikes' flac
@@michielderomijn I've had the same album on my computer in mp3, flac and wav ripped from a cd. On random play, with the screen off, I can tell which is which most of the time. I sometimes get confused between the mp3 and flac, but its hard to mistake the wav's
@@shreddherring Oh that's just nonsense. Compare flac to zip: an image that has been zipped doesn't look any different from the original. They're bit perfect copies. How in the world could a bit perfect copy sound any different when played on the same system? (Hint: it can't)
I'm just reporting what I hear, but you dont have to believe me I guess. Maybe this will be helpful for someone else though
It is true that flac must be unpacked before playback, this is done by the player.
What makes the sound between flac and wav sound different?
when you play music, you have a codec that tells the playing software how it should play the music file. the codec file is already in the player or you have installed a codec package in widows that is used.
It depends on how the software plays the FLAC file and what the player is set to in the settings?
The player has to work harder when playing flac. Therefore, very few car players and portable mp3 players supported FLAC.
wav or PCM. is the same format that an audio CD disc uses.
the less converting the better.
you do not save 50% if the flac program is on default settings.
if you set the program to best sound quality or most accurate ripping, it compresses less.
The program I use creates folders to write artist, song name and year so you don't have to
Is this written by chatAPT it almost makes sense but fails to make any conclusions. No actually. You cannot adjust compression of a flac file. Otherwise it would not be 100% in 100% out. It would be 80% in 80% out. That is not Free "Lossless" Audio Codec
Ok follow on to this. DSD is just 1 and 0 right away. Why put into wav or flac. DSD seems superior
DSD is not superior and is, in fact, inferior because DSD has to include large quantities of noise in the file to maintain dithering.
Thus DSD files are significantly larger and require significant filtering (reaching into the audible range of DSD 64) for playback.
@@JonAnderhub DSD 128/256 noise not in audible ranges pushed above audible and easily filtered out. My experience is that pcm no good. DSD retains the “air” and depth. Done lots of comparisons. DSD sounds like vinyl
@@Douglas_Blake disk space is cheap. If you want better sound you go DSD. PCM flattens the sound…if you want the “air” you need the DSD to capture the transients of instruments…which are truncated in PCM
@@Douglas_Blake enjoy… I used to few the same way as you but then saw there IS a difference. The PCM tries squish the info into 24bits creating “more approximations” at a paltry 192k sampling. The DSD is much closer to the actual waveform and in the case of 128 is 5.6Mhz sampling. PCM is missing micro dynamics which ARE audible. PCM is a “fine” format for most people. But those who want more air, space and “closer” to analog sound. Of course if the source was not DSD or pure analog…you will not see the benefits. You need the DSD. The noise is not in the output signal. It is gone by the simple low pass filter. Most people gripe about the noise. But is not in the audible band for 128 and above.
@@Douglas_Blake gain nor dynamic range is the point. Capturing the wave form is. 0/1 is the only quantization in DSD and sampled many times over 192k. You are missing transients or smashing them into your 24 levels. There is decent PCM out there…but it needs a lot of work to emulate the smoothness of analog. I am not an analogphile…but prefer DSD and most people who really done the work recognize it too. The “air” is gone…flattened with PCM. Have you actually done listening comparisons or just talking? DSD is the way to get closest to analog. Plangent processes seems to have figured out how to do it right. But most of this PCM downloads are crap.
As usual, you literally take forever for a final answer.
So, I guess he should have read the question and simply said "no". 🙄
@@chrislj2890 or yes😁 You are right though
The Travel is often more interesting than the aim^^
I give you a like as usual but I’ve no interest in flac etc
Don't rip just play
Storage of data is cheap store in wave
WAV sounds worse because it needs to move data stressing systems much more than the trivial FLAC conversion. This is nonsense too.
Big endian PCM in AIFF or MKA format is the way to go. It's better than WAV.
I'll take UA-cam's OPUS lossy compression any day over the erratic sound of FLAC. ALAC is ok though.
WAV is better than FLAC. WAV is 100 percent more compatible and takes no processing power to play. Storage is a non-issue today therefore using FLAC to save disk space is pointless. I don't care about the metadata. All I care about is the file name. The only reason to use FLAC in my experience is to archive long audio recordings. I remember in 2008 downloading FLAC files from the internet, only to find a way of converting it to WAV file so that I can play the damn thing!
Hello, I use a program called EZ-CD Audio converter, you load the metadata of the CD and then you rip it to WAV all in Auto. The result is all the tracks in the original WAV with metadata included.
@@luisrodrigonunezolguin7038 I use flicflac to do the same thing. WAV is and always will be better for audio editing and for archiving flac is ok
@@luisrodrigonunezolguin7038 oh for cd ripping I just use EAC or wave lab and rip it to wav (or flac) do not use windows media player to rip CDs I made that mistake in 2002 never again!
@@judenihal "WAV is 100 percent more compatible (than flac)"
You just made that up.
"and takes no processing power to play"
Read that, again.
"I remember in 2008 downloading FLAC files from the internet, only to find a way of converting it to WAV file so that I can play the damn thing!"
My grandparents told me that when their parents were growing up, hotdogs costed 5¢.
If you are running Windows 3.1, then you might have trouble playing the damn thing.
If you are running any operating system from the last 15 years, there is a plethora of compatible software, for every operating system, that can play the damn thing. Much of the software is free.
@@NoEgg4u Why download a third-party software when you can natively play it on your system as WAV? Fortunately, my favourite Windows 95 audio player from 2002 is able to take the xiph ogg codec and then import FLAC files in it, and Windows Media Player in Windows XP can play FLAC files after this codec is installed, but why do this when you could just play it natively as WAV? Storage isn't an issue anymore, so I don't see the point of saving disk space with audio files.
Oh and, WAV (and AIFF) is STILL used by audio professionals instead of FLAC ALAC and APE, do you know why? It is EASIER to edit, FLAC requires extra decompression from the processor. Imagine doing this with 24 audio tracks!!! 40???? Yeah I know, even a slow core i3 computer from 2015 is able play 24 FLAC files all at the same time, but imagine the sluggishness of working with this! WAV? Works perfectly with mixing with even old computers!
I don't mind FLAC as an archive mechanism and storing large quantities of FLAC files on a disk, but it's so much better to convert them to WAV before playing and editing the audio.
Flac is better , when you don't compress it .Less processing .cheers
No no no, convert same CD track one flack one Wav. Wav file will a bit bigger…you won’t here the difference in your car, but a 50k system…you might
false, FLAC is bit perfect. Stop the bs