FLAC vs WAV
Sep 9, 2009 at 3:30 AM Thread Starter Post #1 of 45

hortoholic

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Hi, I was reading someplace and noticed that FLAC has less "presence" than a WAV. Is this true? If I uncompress flac, will it give me a wav with more "presence"? What did he mean by this?

Thanks for your reply,



hortoholic
 
Sep 9, 2009 at 4:55 AM Post #2 of 45
Quote:

Originally Posted by hortoholic /img/forum/go_quote.gif
Hi, I was reading someplace and noticed that FLAC has less "presence" than a WAV. Is this true? If I uncompress flac, will it give me a wav with more "presence"? What did he mean by this?

Thanks for your reply,



hortoholic



Whoever said that meant to say that he knows nothing of lossless formats and how they work. To put it simply, you can reconstruct the entire wave (identical to CD) from a FLAC, and that is exactly what is done when reading them (well...it does not go to a wave container, but the point is that you get uncompressed out). If you look at what goes to the DAC, FLAC and WAV would put the same thing in.

-Nkk
 
Sep 9, 2009 at 7:20 AM Post #3 of 45
They have the exact same data (hence, both are lossless formats), it's just that they're packaged differently.
wink.gif
 
Sep 9, 2009 at 8:16 AM Post #4 of 45
Quote:

I was reading someplace and noticed that FLAC has less "presence" than a WAV. Is this true?


Decide for yourself. Set up a test. Post conclusions.

FIGHT DA POWA.
 
Sep 9, 2009 at 2:18 PM Post #7 of 45
Create a compressed zip from a photo. Unzip it again. Take a look at the size and file itself. Do you see a difference?
 
Sep 9, 2009 at 3:06 PM Post #8 of 45
The monthly lossless vs. WAV thread is here again...
very_evil_smiley.gif

Do not believe everything you read.
 
Sep 9, 2009 at 4:32 PM Post #10 of 45
Maybe his WAV recording was louder than the FLAC and caused a skewed perception...? Not really sure what more or less "presence" sounds like.
 
Sep 9, 2009 at 9:51 PM Post #11 of 45
There is no measurable or audible difference between a lossless file (like FLAC or ALAC or WMA Lossless) and a WAV file if both files are played and processed properly. The problem is that some media players can process certain lossless files different than WAV files. In those cases then there is the potential for measurable or audible differences. But in those cases it is due to a defect (fault) in the media player and not the fault of the lossless codec. If the media player is treating and processing the lossless file and WAV file the same there will be no difference in playback.
 
Sep 10, 2009 at 12:59 AM Post #12 of 45
Name a media player that treats the flac/wav differently. I didn't hear a single one.
 
Sep 10, 2009 at 1:38 AM Post #14 of 45
Quote:

Originally Posted by tosehee /img/forum/go_quote.gif
Name a media player that treats the flac/wav differently. I didn't hear a single one.


There are media players on the PC that use QuickTime for ALAC decoding and the regular audio processing code path for WAV and other formats. In a case like that you can end up with ALAC sounding different than WAV.

I don't know of any media players that treat FLAC different than WAV (going through a different audio processing code path) but there conceivably could be some that do.
 
Sep 10, 2009 at 1:44 AM Post #15 of 45
Quote:

Originally Posted by Ham Sandwich /img/forum/go_quote.gif
There are media players on the PC that use QuickTime for ALAC decoding and the regular audio processing code path for WAV and other formats. In a case like that you can end up with ALAC sounding different than WAV.

I don't know of any media players that treat FLAC different than WAV (going through a different audio processing code path) but there conceivably could be some that do.



Most so-called audiophiles who claim that they hear differences are either using mac with itunes or foobar2000 in pc, if not other media players that offer bit perfect playback.

In that regard, there is no player that treats the flac any different than wav.
 

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