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WAV or FLAC????

WAV files are not smaller than FLAC files, in fact FLAC is generally larger because of the metadata. However you can compress a FLAC file where as I don't believe you can with WAV.

Personally i dislike apple so out of principle i would not use their format. I prefer storing FLAC, uncompressed, and transcoding to WAV if required.

Although i prefer WAV played on my NDX there is very little in it.
 
tomek said:
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.
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WAV and FLAC are bit-by-bit identical and sound identical. FLAC processing time has no audible effect. The one you cite is a myth which has been put to rest a long time ago.

Here is a good read:

http://thewelltemperedcomputer.com/KB/WAV-FLAC.htm

which quotes NWAVguy, the inventor of the Objective DAC/Amp:

"On my PC, using Sysinternals Process Explorer (the benchmark tool for CPU usage analysis), playing a WAV file in Foobar required a scant 0.327 seconds of total CPU time from a single core of my multicore processor. This works out to about 0.2% CPU usage. Playing the exact same file in FLAC format, required 0.312 seconds of total CPU time—also about 0.2% CPU usage. These numbers are essentially the same, and the FLAC number is even slightly lower. Why? It’s likely because the CPU has to read half as much data with FLAC compared to WAV. But these numbers are so small, they really don’t matter. Other background tasks in the operating system consume far more CPU than FLAC decoding. So this alone should put the myth to rest."
 
albireo

While i will agree I don't think it is processing power, there is most definitely a difference in sound between them. The reason, I've no idea.
 
I know that wav and flac are bit identical, but they sound different and IMHO wav sounds very little better, than flac. I don't know what is the reason for it, i think that everybody should make own experience.
 
Foxman50 said:
albireo

While i will agree I don't think it is processing power, there is most definitely a difference in sound between them. The reason, I've no idea.
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There can be no difference in sound between them (the clue is in the word lossless) something a double blind listening test would confirm.
 
Foxman50 said:
albireo

While i will agree I don't think it is processing power, there is most definitely a difference in sound between them. The reason, I've no idea.
Click to expand...

Assuming you are playing side by side, on the same equipment, a WAV and a FLAC file, both representing the exact same digital recording (not a different mastering, so the FLAC MUST be obtained from the WAV you compare it to), the only possible reason for a difference would be a buggy FLAC encoder/decoder.
 
Naim stated in the listening day I went to 2-3 years ago @ Cloney in Dublin that the processing overhead did induce noise and therefore WAV was better....I did (somewhat cheekily) say that the CPU in a washing machine could deal with this, surely you can design to cope with it, but they were adamant in their view.
 
wiresandmore said:
Naim stated in the listening day I went to 2-3 years ago @ Cloney in Dublin that the processing overhead did induce noise and therefore WAV was better....I did (somewhat cheekily) say that the CPU in a washing machine could deal with this, surely you can design to cope with it, but they were adamant in their view.
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I heard something similar at a Naim hifi dealer. Apparently the bit perfect rips made using a piece of Naim equipment would be higher quality bit perfect rips than from a computer. Unbelievable - literally!

Perhaps the dealer believed what he was saying, perhaps not. Either way a dealer to avoid.
 
albireo said:
Assuming you are playing side by side, on the same equipment, a WAV and a FLAC file, both representing the exact same digital recording (not a different mastering, so the FLAC MUST be obtained from the WAV you compare it to), the only possible reason for a difference would be a buggy FLAC encoder/decoder.
Click to expand...

I'm talking about having a FLAC file, converting this into WAV via dbpoweramp. Then playing both back from a NAS via the same Naim NDX. There is a clear but subtle difference. WAV does sound more natural, where as the FLAC sounds a little more strident and edgy. I've done this test many times with the same result.
 
camverton said:
I heard something similar at a Naim hifi dealer. Apparently the bit perfect rips made using a piece of Naim equipment would be higher quality bit perfect rips than from a computer. Unbelievable - literally!

Perhaps the dealer believed what he was saying, perhaps not. Either way a dealer to avoid.
Click to expand...

Surely everyone knows Naim do better bit perfect rips than anyone else's bit perfect ones :p
 
Foxman50 said:
I'm talking about having a FLAC file, converting this into WAV via dbpoweramp. Then playing both back from a NAS via the same Naim NDX. There is a clear but subtle difference. WAV does sound more natural, where as the FLAC sounds a little more strident and edgy. I've done this test many times with the same result.
Click to expand...

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?
 
Mullardman said:
I was happily using EAC, (or at least the very simplest bits of it) to rip and burn CD for some time on an XP machine. I since got a Win7 machine and cannot get EAC to work. It seems to get confused between the two DVD drives and a Clickfree external backup. When you are as old and stupid as me, you shouldn't have to deal with this shit...
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Buy cheap machine, install XP (easily found on eBay), use that. No?
 
Brian said:
Yes, but isn't support for aiff 'generally' available on apple devices and not on others? For example, devices by FiiO don't playback aiff but recognise alac and flac among others.

Regardless, what is the advantage of aiff over alac or flac? They sound the same, after all.
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Pro studio gear will happily use AIFF. As will the Astell & Kern Hi-Res portables.

If you haven't found non-Apple gear that will use it, you haven't looked far enough.
 
Mullardman said:
I was happily using EAC, (or at least the very simplest bits of it) to rip and burn CD for some time on an XP machine. I since got a Win7 machine and cannot get EAC to work. It seems to get confused between the two DVD drives and a Clickfree external backup. When you are as old and stupid as me, you shouldn't have to deal with this shit...
Click to expand...

I would demand a refund, immediately!
 
I have windows 7 64bit pro with Intel i7 3770K processor 16g ram. I use foobar 2000 most of my music CD rips Hi-Rez downloads and recorded vinyl are saved wav ,aiff and some flac I rip with dBpoweramp great software for ripping but also great music converter(all for only $35 money well spent) that gets used a lot making flac files for play in my fiio X3 player.
dBpoweramp is a much better ripper IMOP because get's more metadata and album art than EAC and it's easyer to set up also.
 
albireo said:
"On my PC, using Sysinternals Process Explorer (the benchmark tool for CPU usage analysis), playing a WAV file in Foobar required a scant 0.327 seconds of total CPU time from a single core of my multicore processor. This works out to about 0.2% CPU usage. Playing the exact same file in FLAC format, required 0.312 seconds of total CPU time—also about 0.2% CPU usage. These numbers are essentially the same, and the FLAC number is even slightly lower. Why? It’s likely because the CPU has to read half as much data with FLAC compared to WAV. But these numbers are so small, they really don’t matter. Other background tasks in the operating system consume far more CPU than FLAC decoding. So this alone should put the myth to rest."
Click to expand...
So it is the disk access that costs cpu time - not surprising as FLAC was designed to be trivial to play back. This means that if there are audible differences due to poor design, people prefer the sound of the increased interference
 
So, is this not just like every other aspect of hifi? Simply try both flac and wav and see if you can hear a difference? If you can, go with the one you prefer?
 
formbypc said:
Pro studio gear will happily use AIFF. As will the Astell & Kern Hi-Res portables.

If you haven't found non-Apple gear that will use it, you haven't looked far enough.
Click to expand...

I said 'generally'.

There is no convincing reason to use aiff.

ps I use an ipod, iphone and ipad.
 
The good thing about dbpoweramp is, that it can convert the whole library from any format into any other format.

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