Newbie Question

[DJL SimplyMe]

Hi everyone,

I have just been introduced to the world of Hi-Res and Lossless audio and wanted to ask a question on file formats.... I have had a quick scan and couldn't find relevant threads?

What is the best to use out of WAV, FLAC and WMA?

From what I can find, they are all pretty similar, but WMA creates smaller files.

Any advise? Darren

 

[NTK]

Welcome to ASR!

WAV is usually uncompressed audio. It is a lossless format, meaning it retains exactly all the samples of the audio tracks. Because it is uncompressed, the files are large. Since the files are uncompressed, they can be read quickly when they are locally stored and without having to spend computing resources on decompression, these days, it is sometimes used in intermediary steps during audio processing. There are few good reasons to use WAV for music distribution, even though it is widely (universally?) supported.

FLAC can be basically seen as compressed WAV files. FLAC is open source (GNU general public license) and royalty free for use. FLAC can typically reduce the file size by 40-50% compared to its WAV equivalent. FLAC is usually used as the distribution and storage format for the highest quality audio.

WMA (Windows Media Audio) is Microsoft's proprietary format. It is usually lossy compressed (like MP3), but there is also the not widely used WMA Lossless. If a WMA file of the same piece of music is small than its FLAC version, it is lossily compressed. High bit rate lossily compressed music, e.g. >256 kbps for stereo (uncompressed CD is 1411 kbps), can sound extremely close to the original.

 

[MaxwellsEq]

The containers enable you to store more complex metadata in a FLAC than a WAV file. This has no impact on sound quality or file size, but can be useful when managing large volumes of content.

 

[Steven Holt]

I strongly suggest that before you decide on which audio codec to use, do this : rip one of your CD's to FLAC, and then rip the same CD to MP3. Then step away from your computer, have a friend come over and ask him/her to randomly play one, then the other. SEE IF YOU CAN HEAR THE DIFFERENCE. You may be quite surprised. Myself, I use MP3 for the more popular music, and I reserve FLAC for my Classical and Jazz music. By the way, Welcome to ASR!

 

[SKBubba]

Use flac. Wav is a waste of space, plus tagging isn't standardized. Wma lossless isn't universally compatible (not supported by roon for example). Flac is the de facto standard, unless you are in the apple ecosystem.

 

[Cote Dazur]

Any advise? Darren

If it is just to listen to music, any of those format will do just fine.
If your goal is to archive, then you should use one of the lossless format.

 

[DVDdoug]

Tags (i.e. metadata = embedded album, artist, title, album artwork, etc.) is not well-standardized or well-supported for WAV files so I'd avoid WAV except as a temporary format if you are editing audio or digitizing vinyl, etc.

WMA seems to be a dying format that was never very popular. MP3 is the most popular (and most widely supported) lossy format but AAC (AKA MP4 or M4A) is a close second and it's supposed to be better quality. A "high quality" MP3 or AAC file is about 1/5th the size of a CD quality WAV file.

If you are making MP3s or other lossy files you may want to keep a FLAC archive. Then you'll always have the option of converting to a different lossy or lossless format any time in the future. (You should avoid lossy-to-lossy conversion because some "damage" accumulates.)

I have just been introduced to the world of Hi-Res and Lossless audio

The guys who do blind ABX tests will tell you that (almost) nobody can hear the difference between a high-resolution original and a copy downsampled to CD quality (16-bit, 44.1kHz). And often, a good quality (high bitrate) MP3 can often sound identical to the uncompressed original or you may have to listen very carefully to hear the difference. Dolby Digital on DVDs is lossy compression and some of the best sounding music I own (IMO) is Dolby Digital surround on concert DVDs!

On the other hand, the ONLY downside to high resolution is bigger files.

Sometimes a high resolution release is a different mix or different master from the CD or MP3 and it might be less dynamically compressed so it might sound better (or at least "different".