WAV versus FLAC

Well, I did some research and turns out there are more people discussing this issue with FLAC because they also hear disadvantages against WAV.

There was a claim of more RAM and more processor power involved with FLAC decoding compared to WAV. So I ripped the same CD track to FLAC (compression level 5) and WAV and played one after the other while monitoring Windows resource monitor. In both cases (FLAC and WAV) the processor remained at 3-4% and RAM at 10-12MB, so the above claim is not true.

Anyway, the difference between FLAC and WAV is subtle but clearly audible (to my ears, in my system).
WAV has better decay (more air), better top and bottom extension; it overall sounds more natural. This is best audible with a well recorded piano material. Violins and large orchestra reveal it too.

There were suggestions of first extracting FLAC to WAV and then play it. I haven't tried that so far. Does anyone around here know a reasonable way of first converting FLAC to WAV before playback?

Best,
Alex Peychev

Ballywho, what? Mp3 is uncompressed! AAC is uncompressed? Both are quite lossy! Not everything uncompressed is lossless; not everything lossless is uncompressed.

I agree 100% with Alex Peychev; to me WAV has that "live" sound that AIFF or FLAC just doesn't convey. Dunno why; I suspect the decoding is more than we think (at elast for FLAC) It's a curse, really, cuz WAV sucks as a metadata manager.

Alex, btw, sorry I couldn't come by that evening for a listen. I want to hear that DAC!!!

There were suggestions of first extracting FLAC to WAV and then play it. I haven't tried that so far. Does anyone around here know a reasonable way of first converting FLAC to WAV before playback?

I'm on a Mac and use Max software to do those kinds of conversions. It seems you are on a PC, in which case Media Monkey should do a fine job converting FLAC to WAV (or anything else). EAC would be a good solution.

That said, I just took your suggestion, Alex, and ripped three files of a well recorded piano piece. I took the first cut from, Bach on a Steinway, and tried three different rips (none are conversions these are all direct rips from the CD). The first was a rip via iTunes to Macs uncompressed format, AIFF. The next rip was via Max to FLAC. Finally I ripped the same cut to WAV using Max. With the iTunes rip "Error Correction" was on. With the Max rips, the much more vigorous "CD Paranoia" error correction was set to "Full Paranoia". Those rips took much longer than the iTunes rip did. I listened via headphones since that would seem to really pronounce any differences pretty unmistakably. I thought the WAV and FLAC ripped with Max sounded a bit better than the AIFF via iTunes but I could not say for sure that I could identify those two every time. I did not believe I was hearing any difference between the WAV and FLAC ripped with Max. YMMV, of course. I'll try it with some other files and if the results are different I'll chime in again.

Sorry folks, I suppose I'm just sick of the veritable splitting-of-hairs about something like a lossless file format. And no, Tedmbrady, MP3 and AAC are not uncompressed; they are, in fact, compression methods. And yes, both are quite lossy. When I said "uncompressed" I was alluding to WAV files. And when it all comes down to it, FLAC, WMA, and Apple Lossless get decompressed to result in the same bit rate as a WAV file...hence an identical sound. If you're hearing differences in sound between these various formats, I can't explain it.

Let me add that MP3, AAC, FLAC, WMA, and Apple Lossless are all compression methods, but when *de*compressed, FLAC, WMA and Apple Lossless end up being the same bit rate as an *un*compressed WAV file... Hence "uncompressed is lossless is uncompressed"... Hence they *should* result in an identical sound (and do to my ears, at least).