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FLAC, WAV, mp3 questions.

jandm9002

jandm9002

Member
I am setting up a laptop to run my home stereo. The laptop runs into a DAC via the USB then into the stereo. I see a lot of people like to store their music in FLAC files.
I believe a store bought CD uses WAV files?
What is the benefit of storing in FLAC over WAV? The size of the files seem to only be minimal in difference.

If a piece of music is downloaded as an mp3 ,say at 320kbps, is that piece of music uncompressed when it is converted into a WAV file to burn an audio CD? If it is, is there a point in converting from a downloaded mp3 to FLAC for storage and playback or would you only be getting a file as good as the original source, the mp3?
As usual all input is greatly appreciated.
 
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FLAC files are usually only about 60% as large as the WAV file, so there is a significant savings in storage space. Another benefit is that FLAC files can contain metadata (tags) such as Title, Artist, Album, Date, etc.

CDs don't use files. They have tracks which are filled with chunks of data containing the music samples, time-code information and error-recovery data. The samples in a WAV file can, but don't have to be the same type as CD.

An mp3 must be uncompressed to raw digital samples (basically WAV) before it can be burned to conventional CD format.

Converting mp3 to FLAC doesn't make much sense because you would have a larger file without any improvement in sound quality. On top of that, it would hide the fact that the music is not really a lossless encoding.
 
Hi Vancouver guy.

I will give you the brief version. I am sure others will provide more detail.

WAV is uncompressed, FLAC is compressed but Lossless. MP3 is compressed but Lossy. With lower bit rates on MP3 files there is greater loss, but 320kps is at least on the good end of the range as MP3 goes so should be pretty good. However once the loss has happened by the original conversion to MP3 from WAV, there is no advantage to "uncompressing" and converting back to FLAC or WAV. Once music detail is lost it is gone for good.

FLAC does save some space over WAV but uses a lot more than MP3. There may be some differences in quality of FLAC vs WAV based on the software used to convert but it should at least be minimal. Between FLAC or WAV and MP3 the differences can be huge.
 
Don't discount the metadata issue with .wav files. I had moved a .wav file library in iTunes and the path to the metadata got corrupted and it took 4 days of stitching a 250 GB library to restore it.

And of course iTunes doesn't support FLAC, so I wound up switching to J. river and getting an Android device for my phone/music.

Go FLAC as it seems to be well entrenched as the standard for many folks, as it is lossless. And don't be too concerned about memory or size as it's really fairly inexpensive with mutli Terabyte USB external drives under $150 everywhere.

That being said, I convert some files to 320 mp3s to play in the car on a flash drive. You can get a LOT of good sounding music on a $20 32 GB drive, but I wouldn't want the 320 resolution as my archival format.
 
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When I was into the digital side, I ripped to WAV only, but then storage space is cheap these days so file size Isn't an issue.

And the lack of meta-data compared to other file types thing is not a feature that bothered me, I would just set Foobar up to show like windows explorer, so not an issue.

As said converting an MP3 is of no benefit, as once the information is removed as in lossy compression....It's gone for good.

Edit:If the meta-data thing is important to you, go with FLAC, when ripping CD's.

I can understand using MP3 and the like for portable devices where space is important, and SQ is not going to show much difference.
 
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So FLAC seems to be the way to go. I just set up Foobar on the laptop and now am learning how to rip to FLAC. Thanks once again to all the good folk at Audio Karma for the excellent input.
To Monty, how's it goin eh?
 
So now here's another question. If a person were to buy an mp3 download and then make a cd of said download does it become uncompressed and then be equivilent of the store bought cd or are you left with the quality of the mp3? What I'm getting at is, is there a point of storing the music from a Cd that was originally an mp3 download as a FLAC file?
 
Once compressed always compressed. Unfortunately, you will gain nothing by converting mp3 to FLAC.
 
As Andyman so eloquently stated:
And of course iTunes doesn't support FLAC, so I wound up switching to J. river and getting an Android device for my phone/music.
Click to expand...

Of course you could have just converted your FLAC files to ALAC with no loss and saved the $50 that J River cost.
 
jRiver's got a lot of other killer features I couldn't live without. EAC conversion is built right into it, and moving/converting files is easy. I also use a lot of their DSP extensions - the "convolution kernel" is what voices my system to the room using REW. That's been bulletproof over time, and the results are pretty f'ing spectacular. PITA making that happen, but hands free once done.

Fun story about FLAC - I use that exclusively on the HTPC, but shuffle and convert my "5 star" list to MP3 on a thumb drive for the ride - the original FLAC files are untouched. As mentioned, you can fit a LOT more music on a thumb that way. Also as mentioned, thumb drives are cheap. Where it gets interesting is compatibility. The file format was just getting popular around the time my 2016 Lincoln MKX was built, and the Revel system's FLAC handling was an upgrade ... that mostly works. Pure FLAC thumb worked fine until I turned on the higher end features, such as sound restoration, THX, and Revel's 7.1 extensions such as Stage and Audience. Even those mostly worked, but the output would distort badly on certain cuts. Lincoln's fix was to replace the synth/amp module - Around $800 retail ... yikes! Switched back to 256MP3 format exclusively, and no problems since, with no significant sound degradation.
 
There is also the option of .aiff, Apple’s version of the WAV file, but can also contain metadata.

I rip all my CDs to the .AIFF format. I am not interested in saving space. TB Hard drives are very inexpensive.
 
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