Random Question about FLAC vs WAV

[ShoryuSam]

Hello,

So I have a few vinyls recorded via my iON turntable, and have always recorded my vinyls using Audacity, plus 16 bit PCM wavs.

Now, since I really like FLAC as well, how could I convert these wavs to FLAC without loss of quality?

I believe I read somewhat on the Audacity forums once that wavs and FLAC's are interchangeable.
Would I still lose quality either way?

 

[thee_prisoner]

Wav quality is the same as FLAC, both are lossless formats. FLAC just has the advantage that you get information tags on the name of artist, album, songs and etc. Since you recorded into wav it really make a difference but you could add tags. Also, using the FLAC format it might not play on some devices you're using where wav might play on more devices.

I have heard of iON products but never used them. I'm somewhat suspect of these products because I think the quality of the turntable is low but if you are getting acceptable quality recorded sound, that's what really counts.

I don't have a problem with digital but I prefer to go total analog when using an analog source since speakers are an analog output, if that make sense(haha).

To really answer the question, no you won't lose any quality unless you're a person who has very high end equipment and ears that can tell the difference.

Be seeing you, the Prisoner...

 

[ShoryuSam]

Wav quality is the same as FLAC, both are lossless formats. FLAC just has the advantage that you get information tags on the name of artist, album, songs and etc. Since you recorded into wav it really make a difference but you could add tags. Also, using the FLAC format it might not play on some devices you're using where wav might play on more devices.

I have heard of iON products but never used them. I'm somewhat suspect of these products because I think the quality of the turntable is low but if you are getting acceptable quality recorded sound, that's what really counts.

I don't have a problem with digital but I prefer to go total analog when using an analog source since speakers are an analog output, if that make sense(haha).

To really answer the question, no you won't lose any quality unless you're a person who has very high end equipment and ears that can tell the difference.

Be seeing you, the Prisoner...

Yeah, the quality is pretty good, same as headphones. I don't have the budget nor patience to buy the $500 type turntables, and honestly, it sounds just as good as when I listen to it in headphones.

I never got the same sound from CD's, though I heard if you use a DAC, you can get them to analog quality.

Either way, so you're 100% that there's no quality loss in converting 16bit pcm WAV to FLAC?

Just wondering, because I'm pretty neurotic when it comes to even mp3's, making sure that they're 320kbps if I HAVE to do mp3.

Trust me, I can tell the difference lol. Tinny drums and vocals are always the first thing I notice too ;D

 

[americanaudiophile]

You should not notice any quality difference between WAV and FLAC. Some computer audiophiles feel they can hear a difference because the CPU has to decompress the FLAC file to play it and that makes a difference. What I do suggest to get higher quality on your vinyl rips is to use higher than CD quality setting (which is 16 bit 44.1 sampling rate) such as 24 bit 96khz sampling rate. You can always create lower quality files from these. Audacity will create such files in WAV or FLAC.

 

[ninalucklove]

There is an article about how to convert WAV to FLAC and it introduces the difference between FLAC and WAV:

The Comparison between WAV and FLAC

WAV format, created by IBM and Microsoft, is a standard digital audio format in Windows. Since WAV is uncompressed raw data audio format and contains any sounds such as sound effects, music or spoken words, the file size of WAV is usually very big. With the appearance of MP3 and MP4, WAV format is getting less popular.

FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec) is an open source codec. Compared to WAV, as a lossless compression type, FLAC has a smaller size with excellent quality. Normally, FLAC is used to back up a CD collection because the sound quality will remain high. FLAC can compress an audio file to approximately 50% of its original size.

After vinyl and Cassette, CD is the most popular music publication format. However, CD is hard to store and carry. People want to store their music in computer disk or portable device must rip the music off the CD and store as a computer file. The files will be WAV format if you rip music without conversion. Because WAV is an uncompressed format, it will take too much space (about 600MB per hour). To save space and without losing any quality, you should convert WAV files to lossless audio compression format, such as FLAC and ALAC.