Why not WAV?

[Twill]

I've made the foolish mistake of having both Apple and alternative eco systems trying to coexist in my house, which poses the time honoured question: which music format to choose?

I've messed around with various ways of playing FLAC on the iPhone etc, but not being native, none are ultimately that simple. My library is currently in FLAC format but my wife still uses Windows.

Which all begs the question: why not just use WAV?

Is there any good reason - apart from file size and therefore storage - not to just transcode everything from FLAC back in to good old fashioned WAV, which plays on everything?

Am I missing something here? I realise I won't get much WAV on my 32GB iPhone, but apart from that... are there any other issues? And with apps like Synology's DS Audio out there, is storage on portables such an issue now?

Cheers.

 

[The_Lhc]

WAV doesn't support tagging particularly well, so all that nice info you get with each track will mostly disappear. It also requires more bandwidth if you're streaming wirelessly, so could be more prone to speed drops due to interference.

 

[fr0g]

Lack of metadata. Artist name etc.

If you use dbPoweramp to rip, you can download a plugin that rips to 2 formats at the same time.

That's what I do.

I have a FLAC and an MP3 copy.

If I were you I would rip to MP3 at 320 and a lossless format for archival purposes.

You will not notice any SQ difference between the MP3 and the lossless.

 

[Clare Newsome]

You will not notice any SQ difference between the MP3 and the lossless.

A 'may' or 'should' would be better than a definitive 'will' there - the OP should make that judgement for themselves

 

[Alec]

Just rip to Apple Lossless, then it won't matter if you can hear a difference between WAV and MP3...?

 

[Alec]

Actually, sorry, if your wife listens using WMP I'd do as fr0g suggests as, IMO you are unlikely to hear the difference, though by all means verify that for yourself if you feel so inclined.

 

[fr0g]

You will not notice any SQ difference between the MP3 and the lossless.

A 'may' or 'should' would be better than a definitive 'will' there - the OP should make that judgement for themselves

Fair enough...

"probably will not"...then? That okay?

Interestingly that would be a very good idea for one of your get together things. Comparing WAV, FLAC and high bitrate MP3/AAC.

I used to swear I could tell the difference, but I've never been able to do it blind... And of all the tests that do exist on the interweb, this is one I've not seen passed by anyone yet.

 

[MajorFubar]

With hard-drive 'real estate' being so cheap these days I see no point in storing music in a lossy format, unless you really need to store bucketloads of albums on your phone. Apple's equivalent is ALAC, or 'Apple Lossless' as it's called in iTunes. Rip your CDs to that, or convert existing WAV rips to that. All current iDevices can play ALAC (and MP3). I store a dozen albums on my iPhone at a time, which I fly-in from my Mac. When I get bored of them I delete them and upload some more. If you feel you need to store more at once, then convert some of your lossless rips to MP3, just for the phone. On a 32GB iPhone you should get loads of albums at 256K MP3.

 

[TnA200]

Twill,

As some of the other posters above have said, the lack of tagging is a major problem. The storage not so much as HD space is cheap. But for convenience sake, I find ALAC the best format so far for me, having tried a few others in the past. ALAC plays nice with iTunes and all Apple hardware and if need be can be burned to disk at full resolution (for the car etc.) to be reconverted to WAV where needed (someone correct me if i am wrong in this assumption!).

Best of luck with finding your solution.

TnA

 

[SteveR750]

Lack of metadata. Artist name etc.

If you use dbPoweramp to rip, you can download a plugin that rips to 2 formats at the same time.

That's what I do.

I have a FLAC and an MP3 copy.

If I were you I would rip to MP3 at 320 and a lossless format for archival purposes.

You will not notice any SQ difference between the MP3 and the lossless.

I can, and I don't have golden ears by any means....

 

[Twill]

Thanks all. Seems like the 'it's staring you straight in the face... WAV is the answer so obvious you couldn't see it' option is out of the window!

Maybe the answer is to buy my wife an iPod touch for her birthday, and then ALAC becomes a winner. Only problem then I guess is that a lot of streaming hardware - should I want such in the future, only handles FLAC, WAV, MP3 etc. It's a shame there's no cross-boundary lossless option that both Apple and the rest of the world love... but then that would be too easy i guess!

 

[quadpatch]

Exactly, I am forced to use ALAC even though I am a PC user with no Apple products myself because my wife has an iPhone and I use iTunes at work to share stuff. I really wish Apple had not invented ALAC and just used FLAC like everyone else does, I guess they did it for DRM reasons but as a format it needs not to exist.

Luckily most windows software (JRiver / Foobar etc.) support ALAC because they are nice but Apple / iTunes are evil scum for not supporting FLAC!

 

[Alec]

I'd have to suggest trying to stream MP3 to see if you can stand it.

Oh look, I just did.

 

[quadpatch]

Were we talking about streaming, what did I miss?

 

[Alec]

Were we talking about streaming, what did I miss?

Only the possibility that Twill may want to do so in the future.

 

[Twill]

Thanks all,

Looks like either ALAC - as the Windows environment can cope with it - or MP3 high bit rate is the way to go.

I may start off with ALAC, and then if it's impractical try a dual library approach as suggested.

I am aware of the question marks over lossless vs MP3 question, and don't want to kick that can of worms all over the forum again, but for me it's like a single malt, or decent bottle of red, or any other aesthetic experience; whether the difference is there or not, I choose to believe, and I enjoy it more and sleep easier for knowing that I've done the best I can!

 

[fr0g]

Thanks all, Looks like either ALAC - as the Windows environment can cope with it - or MP3 high bit rate is the way to go. I may start off with ALAC, and then if it's impractical try a dual library approach as suggested. I am aware of the question marks over lossless vs MP3 question, and don't want to kick that can of worms all over the forum again, but for me it's like a single malt, or decent bottle of red, or any other aesthetic experience; whether the difference is there or not, I choose to believe, and I enjoy it more and sleep easier for knowing that I've done the best I can!

Dual rip is definitely the way to go. Whether you can hear the difference between lossless and HBR lossy is irrelevant, as you want the lossless version for archive purposes anyway. (If you decide later to transcode, then transcoding lossy WILL result in lower quality).

But while disk space is cheap, it isn't on portables, and a 16GB mp3 player will fit a hell of a lot more MP3s than lossless files!

 

[MajorFubar]

I really wish Apple had not invented ALAC and just used FLAC like everyone else does, I guess they did it for DRM reasons but as a format it needs not to exist.

Luckily most windows software (JRiver / Foobar etc.) support ALAC because they are nice but Apple / iTunes are evil scum for not supporting FLAC!

To be fair, Apple Lossless was by far the first of the two to register on audiophiles' radar (or at least, those audiophiles who used iTunes and iProducts). Apple are not 'evil scum' for not supporting FLAC, but what they are is damn stupid for not licencing ALAC much sooner than they did. Doing so would probably have ensured it became the defacto lossless audio-compression algorithm. Not doing so for so long has meant that FLAC gained a foothold among those many audiophiles who sought lossless compression and who didn't own iDevices or use iTunes. Apple must be kicking themselves for letting that happen when they already had a lossless codec out there which was natively supported by iTunes and their iDevices. And if they're not, they should be.

 

[fr0g]

I really wish Apple had not invented ALAC and just used FLAC like everyone else does, I guess they did it for DRM reasons but as a format it needs not to exist.

Luckily most windows software (JRiver / Foobar etc.) support ALAC because they are nice but Apple / iTunes are evil scum for not supporting FLAC!

To be fair, Apple Lossless was by far the first of the two to register on audiophiles' radar (or at least, those audiophiles who used iTunes and iProducts). Apple are not 'evil scum' for not supporting FLAC, but what they are is damn stupid for not licencing ALAC much sooner than they did. Doing so would probably have ensured it became the defacto lossless audio-compression algorithm. Not doing so for so long has meant that FLAC gained a foothold among those many audiophiles who sought lossless compression and who didn't own iDevices or use iTunes. Apple must be kicking themselves for letting that happen when they already had a lossless codec out there which was natively supported by iTunes and their iDevices. And if they're not, they should be.

FLAC has been around far longer than ALAC and has always been free. Both Apple and Microsoft are a PITA for coming up with different standards for the same thing when one was already available. Obviously money-motivated moves on both their parts.

I am glad FLAC is the standard. It works, it's non-proprietary and it doesn't stink of big business.

 

[MajorFubar]

FLAC has been around longer, but virtually nobody was behind it to give it some oomph, which was one of the side-effects of it being a free open-source codec without any official endorsement.

Is it now natively supported by Windows? It isn't on my Windows PC but my Windows PC is comparatively ancient, running XP SP3. To play FLAC on it I had to download a plug-in.

Standard? Is it? I know 'we' all like it because it gives us lossless compression and decent tagging but I can't say I've seen many albums available to buy in FLAC format. Fair enough I haven't actively looked very much. Not recently at any rate. The main one which springs to mind is the Beatles memory stick.

Most people are perfectly happy with their MP3s and iTunes AACs, which is why any lossless format will struggle to get a decent foothold as far as retail sales are concerned. I still work with people who consider 256k MP3 an unnecessary extravagence when 128k is to their ears perfect quality. So there's no hope really!

 

[manicm]

I really wish Apple had not invented ALAC and just used FLAC like everyone else does, I guess they did it for DRM reasons but as a format it needs not to exist.

Luckily most windows software (JRiver / Foobar etc.) support ALAC because they are nice but Apple / iTunes are evil scum for not supporting FLAC!

To be fair, Apple Lossless was by far the first of the two to register on audiophiles' radar (or at least, those audiophiles who used iTunes and iProducts). Apple are not 'evil scum' for not supporting FLAC, but what they are is damn stupid for not licencing ALAC much sooner than they did. Doing so would probably have ensured it became the defacto lossless audio-compression algorithm. Not doing so for so long has meant that FLAC gained a foothold among those many audiophiles who sought lossless compression and who didn't own iDevices or use iTunes. Apple must be kicking themselves for letting that happen when they already had a lossless codec out there which was natively supported by iTunes and their iDevices. And if they're not, they should be.

FLAC has been around far longer than ALAC and has always been free. Both Apple and Microsoft are a PITA for coming up with different standards for the same thing when one was already available. Obviously money-motivated moves on both their parts.

I am glad FLAC is the standard. It works, it's non-proprietary and it doesn't stink of big business.

Holy cow, we agree. ALAC has always sounded dodgy to me anyway, lossless or not.

 

[fr0g]

I really wish Apple had not invented ALAC and just used FLAC like everyone else does, I guess they did it for DRM reasons but as a format it needs not to exist.

Luckily most windows software (JRiver / Foobar etc.) support ALAC because they are nice but Apple / iTunes are evil scum for not supporting FLAC!

To be fair, Apple Lossless was by far the first of the two to register on audiophiles' radar (or at least, those audiophiles who used iTunes and iProducts). Apple are not 'evil scum' for not supporting FLAC, but what they are is damn stupid for not licencing ALAC much sooner than they did. Doing so would probably have ensured it became the defacto lossless audio-compression algorithm. Not doing so for so long has meant that FLAC gained a foothold among those many audiophiles who sought lossless compression and who didn't own iDevices or use iTunes. Apple must be kicking themselves for letting that happen when they already had a lossless codec out there which was natively supported by iTunes and their iDevices. And if they're not, they should be.

FLAC has been around far longer than ALAC and has always been free. Both Apple and Microsoft are a PITA for coming up with different standards for the same thing when one was already available. Obviously money-motivated moves on both their parts.

I am glad FLAC is the standard. It works, it's non-proprietary and it doesn't stink of big business.

Holy cow, we agree. ALAC has always sounded dodgy to me anyway, lossless or not.

Then you have been listening in a bathroom. It's identical on playback.

And no, we don't agree. ALAC is absoultely fine as a format, it just doesn't need to exist. Same with WMA lossless. They all however sound exactly the same on playback given a bit-perfect rip.

Assuming there is no major problem with hardware or software, then they all play exactly the same bits...as it is made into PCM before you hear anything. ie they are the same.

 

[Alec]

It sounds lossless to you, because it is, despite what your nude emperors may tell you.

FLAC is not a standard. It is an obscure format few care about. If your wishing were enough, it would be a standard.

I don't understand why Apple should be anything other than deleriously happy with their position.

 

[fr0g]

It sounds lossless to you, because it is, despite what your nude emperors may tell you.

FLAC is not a standard. It is an obscure format few care about. If your wishing were enough, it would be a standard.

I don't understand why Apple should be anything other than deleriously happy with their position.

FLAC has become a de facto standard for lossless downloads. No, it isn't sold on iTunes or Amazon, but if you look around for legal lossless downloads you'll find FLAC was there first and continues to be there...ergo de facto standard.

See Linn, Bleep.com, Boomkat, HDTracks etc. All offer FLAC as the default lossless download.

 

[Lee H]

And the latest Android device (Galaxy S3) supports FLAC