FLAC and WAV transfers

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.

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?

How can I rip CDs in wave if I only have a flac???

Yes, paul. I have the same conclusion also.

Only time I like to listen to WAV is when I don't have the lossless FLAC file. Seriously 🤷🏻

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 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 🤣

Wonder if WavePack or Monkeys Audio aound the same. A./B comparison would be awesome

Thays all I use FLAC, it holds all the cover art and meta tags, I grab from Musicbrainz Picard

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!!!

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.

Mean Lean Exact Audio Machine 😁

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.

I've never heard a difference between the two, unless the decoder used was dodgy to begin with

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.

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..

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.

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

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🤔

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.

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.

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...

WAV sounds worse because it needs to move data stressing systems much more than the trivial FLAC conversion. This is nonsense too.

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...

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).

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.

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!

I use WAV to begin with. So simple!

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.

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.

Storage of data is cheap store in wave

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...?

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.

There are players (as APlayer) that decode and load to RAM whole album or playlist and then play from RAM.

if anyone can hear the difference between flac and wav, I salute their system (and perhaps susceptibility to placebo effect)

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!

I give you a like as usual but I’ve no interest in flac etc

I love your way of humor so much, Paul!

Ok follow on to this. DSD is just 1 and 0 right away. Why put into wav or flac. DSD seems superior

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.

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.

This is the funniest video I've watched all day! you're the best Paul!

If you convert your FLAC files to WAV, you will lose all the metadata. WAV is not capable of storing metadata.

You are right!

Flac is better , when you don't compress it .Less processing .cheers

Paul, you forgot "Nanny nanny boo boo" LOL

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

Don't rip just play