WAV or FLAC????

[darrenyeats]

As long, as you save cds in lossless format (aiff, flac or whatever) you can convert it later in any other lossless format.

Agreed, lossless is a key requirement and so is good tagging support. (Also being an open non-DRM format, but most are now.) Check the correctness of the details that will be tagged at rip time. Back up your rips - I use portable USB drives.

In short, rip it right in the first place and then secure the files, because ripping is the relatively difficult and time consuming part.

Once you've encoded it in a good lossless format, you can easily change your mind later or transcode to various lossy formats for mobile use.

 

[SteveS1]

I said 'generally'.

There is no convincing reason to use aiff.

ps I use an ipod, iphone and ipad.

Of course there is, a lossless file without encoding that supports tagging which WAV does not. Why wouldn't you use it? You can convert it to whatever other file you need too.

 

[Brian]

Of course there is, a lossless file without encoding that supports tagging which WAV does not. Why wouldn't you use it? You can convert it to whatever other file you need too.

Because it's no better than flac or alac.

 

[Yomanze]

WAV

IMHO in a very good system wav sounds better, than flac. Most probably the decompression process from flac to wav can cause some additional system load and data stream will be more irregural and impact the sound quality.

Just make your own exeperience, do not believe me

HD space is so cheap and with dbpoweramp is it possible to rip cds into waves with all tags included.

I am partly with you on this, but my Media Server uses dual core 2.4ghz Celeron, 8gb RAM, SSD & JRiver (with off-board SPDIF) there is, IMHO, no difference between FLAC & WAV. When using this stuff years ago I did used to prefer WAV & did blind test it, I thought there was something in it, but not now with a properly set up media server.

 

[muzzer]

Because it's no better than flac or alac.

Not in your system maybe

 

[Michael J]

I am partly with you on this, but my Media Server uses dual core 2.4ghz Celeron, 8gb RAM, SSD & JRiver (with off-board SPDIF) there is, IMHO, no difference between FLAC & WAV. When using this stuff years ago I did used to prefer WAV & did blind test it, I thought there was something in it, but not now with a properly set up media server.

Pentium 1 is overkill for FLAC decoding on the processing power side of things.

 

[SteveS1]

Because it's no better than flac or alac.

So what? It's no worse and doesn't need codec, the only reason you might consider flac or alac is if you have space issues. I was referring to the spurious 'being dependent on Apple' comment up thread.

 

[Foxman50]

So, that just means to me that a naim NDX can't play FLAC properly for some reason. naim are hardly world-class when it comes to software, so maybe their FLAC decoding is broken. Or maybe there's some other daft hardware reason. Perhaps the decoding is best done in a separate box. Who knows. The problem is with naim equipment, not with FLAC.

By the way, since the NDX can play 24/192kHz it follows that the processor will actually be doing nothing a lot of the time when playing 16/44.1 material. So it follows that the degradation you say you can hear on 16/44.1 must pulse in time with the packets being received. Is that how you hear it?

Andy, thats a very good point. Maybe swapping to an Aurender, if i do i will redo these tests.

 

[Brian]

So what? It's no worse and doesn't need codec, the only reason you might consider flac or alac is if you have space issues. I was referring to the spurious 'being dependent on Apple' comment up thread.

Not that I actually said that, but once AGAIN...I said "generally".

What is it with some of you people? Do you work for apple, or something?

Anyway, cheerio.

 

[SteveS1]

Not that I actually said that, but once AGAIN...I said "generally".

What is it with some of you people? Do you work for apple, or something?

Anyway, cheerio.

lol so we are agreed any lossless rip is fine.

 

[Brian]

lol so we are agreed any lossless rip is fine.

At no point did I say any lossless rip isn't fine. I can't see where you got the notion I said aiff wasn't fine, judging by your reaction to what was a harmless comment that seems to be what you've decided I said.

People are suggesting .aiff and I'm asking what the advantage is over alac or flac because on the face of it, there isn't any advantage at all given they all sound the same.

 

[sbgk]

think if you're using an apple device aiff uses less power, so better for battery life.

with dbpoweramp wav files can have tags

I rip and archive to flac and then convert to wav.

If you can't hear a difference then that's ideal.

 

[Igloo Audio]

with dbpoweramp wav files can have tags.

Yes, it's just not universally accepted like all the other main formats.

Peter

 

[Paul R]

aiff and wav are essentially the same thing. aiff used to have the bytes the other way round, but I think that's changed now Apple use Intel. Many wav formats require processing, either to transfer packed 16 bit or 24 bit samples to individual 32 bit packets, or to de-interleave. And of course, in principle, wav can contain compressed lossy audio. So wav, per se, does not guarantee uncompressed.

Most tools support tags in wav, and agree about them.

But FLAC (or ALAC if you must) are preferable because only half the volume of data needs to be transferred into CPU memory whereas the output processing is common to all formats. The FLAC decoder is very lightweight in comparison to CPU capacities. If you don't hear the FLAC advantage it's probably because of expectation. I've measured a substantial reduction in CPU interrupt activity using FLAC, and that's got to sound better.

Paul

 

[Brian]

aiff and wav are essentially the same thing. aiff used to have the bytes the other way round, but I think that's changed now Apple use Intel. Many wav formats require processing, either to transfer packed 16 bit or 24 bit samples to individual 32 bit packets, or to de-interleave. And of course, in principle, wav can contain compressed lossy audio. So wav, per se, does not guarantee uncompressed.

Most tools support tags in wav, and agree about them.

But FLAC (or ALAC if you must) are preferable because only half the volume of data needs to be transferred into CPU memory whereas the output processing is common to all formats. The FLAC decoder is very lightweight in comparison to CPU capacities. If you don't hear the FLAC advantage it's probably because of expectation. I've measured a substantial reduction in CPU interrupt activity using FLAC, and that's got to sound better.

Paul

I extracted half a dozen CDs yesterday to AIFF and spent some time comparing these to the same CDs already stored as FLAC. The AIFF did not sound any better.

Someone said earlier it may be my system isn't capable of showing the difference. Well yes, that may be so and I've no idea what the Unitiqute is doing, but if the improved sound of AIFF isn't apparent using your ATCs I'm pretty confident it isn't going to be apparent on anything I'm ever going to buy.

I'll stick with FLAC

 

[Brian]

I just downloaded the latest EAC Beta. I've not ripped anything for a while, so was rusty on the procedure.

Ripped 1st CD & couldn't find any mention of FLAC, so I clicked the WAV button & ripped as WAV..

Now correct me if I'm wrong, but I seem to remember that files on a CD are WAV & the only reason FLAC was preferred is WAV didn't include all the Song Title data???

Anyway, the album plays as normal on SB & has all the titles etc.. Sounds perfect.

Should I stick to FLAC or continue ripping to WAV?



Ta!

This is how EAC is setup for me to use FLAC

Launch EAC
In the menu bar select : EAC > Compression Options

Under the tab " External Compression "

"Use external program for compression" : checked

Parameter passing scheme : "User Defined Encoder" from the pulldown menu

"Use file extension" : .flac

Program, including path, used for compression :
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Exact Audio Copy\FLAC\FLAC.EXE" (I think this was the default so hopefully yours is the same. If not, find wherever you have the FLAC.EXE file stored and ensure the path is correctly entered)

"Additional command-line options":
-6 -V -T "ARTIST=%artist%" -T "TITLE=%title%" -T "ALBUM=%albumtitle%" -T "DATE=%year%" -T "TRACKNUMBER=%tracknr%" -T "GENRE=%genre%" -T "COMMENT=%comment%" -T "BAND=%albuminterpret%" -T "ALBUMARTIST=%albuminterpret%" -T "COMPOSER=%composer%" %haslyrics%--tag-from-file=LYRICS="%lyricsfile%"%haslyrics% -T "DISCNUMBER=%cdnumber%" -T "TOTALDISCS=%totalcds%" -T "TOTALTRACKS=%numtracks%"
%hascover%--picture="%coverfile%"%hascover% %source% -o %dest%
(again, I think this is the default, I don't recall changing it)

Bit rate : 768 kBit/s

Delete WAV after compression : is checked
Use CRC check : not checked
Add ID3 tag : not checked
Check for external programs return code : is checked

Click "Test encoder". If it isn't setup properly, for example you have the wrong path to the FLAC.exe, it will tell you it can't find the program.

Insert a CD. When EAC picks it up select "cmp" from the left hand side and it should extract the audio then convert it to FLAC.

 

[tomek]

I am partly with you on this, but my Media Server uses dual core 2.4ghz Celeron, 8gb RAM, SSD & JRiver (with off-board SPDIF) there is, IMHO, no difference between FLAC & WAV. When using this stuff years ago I did used to prefer WAV & did blind test it, I thought there was something in it, but not now with a properly set up media server.

Have you configured your server in this way, that wav will be sent to squeezebox as wave ?

LMS is sending even wave as flac (compression is made with sox in background) to sbt to save nework load, you have to change LMS settings, if you want send wave as wave.

When i will be home, than i will post right settings for this here.

 

[tomek]

If you want the best possible sq, than avoid flac decompressing on the player (SBT or any other squeeze device) and play waves as waves.

Logitech Media Server standard settings are optimized for low network traffic, it means waves are send as flacs (!), yes, i am not wrong. LMS is compressing waves "on the fly" and sending to Squeeze device as flac. It means, that even, if you will have waves on the server, they will be sent as flacs !

One just need right settings on LMS to sent wav files as waw and to decompress flacs on the server and send it as wav to the player.

Just go to LMS settings-advanced-file types as set at least flac and wav as on this picture and restart LMS :

in this way flacs will be decompressed on the server and send as waves and waves will be sent as waves.

Wired network connection is preffered, playing 24/96 or 24/192 wav files with wlan can cause problems ...

Interesting is, that IMHO even with those settings wave is sounding very little better than flac, i don't know why, most probably any additional process on the server has impact on sq (higher latency, higher stream irregurality or whatever).

Test it in your system, do not believe me

 

[darrenyeats]

If using Wi-Fi like me, the argument for WAV is weaker ... twice as much decryption and RFI .. assuming you're inclined to think these things could make a difference.

 

[davidsrsb]

Decoding flac to wav is designed to be simple. Encoding wav in real time to flac is not easy and I would not be surprised if your media server had glitches in its output. Either store on the server in flac native or stream in wav