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FLAC versus WAV

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Archived from groups: rec.audio.tech (More info?)

Hi all,

I was curious which of these two standards, FLAC and WAV,
is the best. I am under the impression that they are both
lossless. I know from having compared WAV to MP3/160kbps
that WAV is *much* better. But is there any advantage to
going to FLAC? I am using FreeRIP which produces 16-bit
WAV files.

Does FLAC offer a larger minimum number of bits per sample?
How many bits per sample is a CD anyway?

Also, I notice that audio DVDs have appeared at my local
bigbox store. How many bits per sample are those? Can I
rip one if I buy it?

Thanks,
Yib

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Archived from groups: rec.audio.tech (More info?)

Yibbels wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I was curious which of these two standards, FLAC and WAV,
> is the best. I am under the impression that they are both
> lossless. I know from having compared WAV to MP3/160kbps
> that WAV is *much* better. But is there any advantage to
> going to FLAC? I am using FreeRIP which produces 16-bit
> WAV files.
>
> Does FLAC offer a larger minimum number of bits per sample?
> How many bits per sample is a CD anyway?
>
> Also, I notice that audio DVDs have appeared at my local
> bigbox store. How many bits per sample are those? Can I
> rip one if I buy it?
>
> Thanks,
> Yib

Flac is reduced in size by about 50 to 60%. With an appropriate add-on to
Winamp or whater player, plays the same as a WAV. Can always be converted
back to WAV if necessary. A useful program, I believe is called FLAC1.1.2A.

Try download.com for the FLAC installer, Winamp.com for a Winamp plugin.

Mark Z.

Reply to Anonymous

Archived from groups: rec.audio.tech (More info?)

In article <1114903994.644730.218650@l41g2000cwc.googlegroups.com>,
Yibbels <yibbels@yahoo.com> wrote:

>Hi all,
>
>I was curious which of these two standards, FLAC and WAV,
>is the best. I am under the impression that they are both
>lossless. I know from having compared WAV to MP3/160kbps
>that WAV is *much* better. But is there any advantage to
>going to FLAC? I am using FreeRIP which produces 16-bit
>WAV files.

You're comparing apples to oranges.

The WAV format can be used to store audio having many different
combinations of bits-per-sample, samples-per-second, and channels. A
WAV can be at CD quality (44100 samples/second, 16 bits/sample), or
higher, or lower, or much lower (8000 samples/second, 8 bits/sample).

FLAC, similarly, can be used to store audio data with many different
rates and depths.

WAV data (in the usual format) is not compressed. FLAC data is
compressed, but losslessly - the data is re-expanded to its original
form during playback.

So, in this case, you can say that WAV and FLAC are equal. Both can
store CD-quality audio with identical fidelity. FLAC encoding takes
less space, but takes more CPU cycles (and thus more power, in a
portable system) to play back.

>How many bits per sample is a CD anyway?

CD is 44100 samples/second, 16 bits/sample.

--
Dave Platt <dplatt@radagast.org> AE6EO
Hosting the Jade Warrior home page: http://www.radagast.org/jade-warrior
I do _not_ wish to receive unsolicited commercial email, and I will
boycott any company which has the gall to send me such ads!

Reply to Anonymous

Archived from groups: rec.audio.tech (More info?)

Yibbels wrote:

> Hi all,

<Chop>

> But is there any advantage to
> going to FLAC? I am using FreeRIP which produces 16-bit
> WAV files.

Flac files are typically smaller (by about 50%) then the equivalent .wav
file.

> Does FLAC offer a larger minimum number of bits per sample?
> How many bits per sample is a CD anyway?

16 bits per sample on a CD, so there is not a lot of point in storing audio
ripped from that format at greater then 16 bit resolution unless what you
are storing has been heavily processed (after the rip) where more range can
sometimes be useful.

Note that CD is fixed at 16bit per sample, period. I am not sure what
"Larger minimum number of bits per sample" is trying to say, but a lteral
interpretation would give an answer of NO because CD is defined as 16 bit,
and flac can handle that.

Note that flac is lossless (thats the whole point) you can
go .wav->.flac->.wav and finish up with EXACTLY the same audio file you
started with.
In fact the encoder stores an MD5 hash of the original audio in the
compressed file so that you can easily check the decoded audio is identical
to the original.

HTH.

Regards, Dan.

Reply to Anonymous

Archived from groups: rec.audio.tech (More info?)

"Yibbels" <yibbels@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1114903994.644730.218650@l41g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
> Hi all,
>
> I was curious which of these two standards, FLAC and WAV,
> is the best. I am under the impression that they are both
> lossless. I know from having compared WAV to MP3/160kbps
> that WAV is *much* better. But is there any advantage to
> going to FLAC? I am using FreeRIP which produces 16-bit
> WAV files.
>
> Does FLAC offer a larger minimum number of bits per sample?
> How many bits per sample is a CD anyway?
>
> Also, I notice that audio DVDs have appeared at my local
> bigbox store. How many bits per sample are those? Can I
> rip one if I buy it?

A WAV file can be almost any combination of bit-depth, channels, and sample
rate. CD is 16 bit, stereo, 441000Hz sample rate linear PCM.

Not sure about FLAC, but a assume this is a lossless compression if it is to
compare in any way to WAV quality. A notehr lossless compression scheme
that gets about 50% is Sony PCA, which can be converted bit-perfectly back
to WAV.

geoff.

Reply to Anonymous

Archived from groups: rec.audio.tech (More info?)

"Yibbels" wrote ...
> I was curious which of these two standards, FLAC and WAV,
> is the best. I am under the impression that they are both
> lossless. I know from having compared WAV to MP3/160kbps
> that WAV is *much* better. But is there any advantage to
> going to FLAC? I am using FreeRIP which produces 16-bit
> WAV files.

The basic collection of raw audio samples (with appropriate
format headers, etc.) is a WAV file. FLAC is a lossless
compression sheme for WAV files.

> Does FLAC offer a larger minimum number of bits per sample?

FLAC compresses whatever the original WAV file was.

> How many bits per sample is a CD anyway?

16 bits, 44,100 samples/second

Reply to Anonymous

Archived from groups: rec.audio.tech (More info?)

On Sun, 01 May 2005 00:19:25 -0000, dplatt@radagast.org (Dave Platt)
wrote:

>In article <1114903994.644730.218650@l41g2000cwc.googlegroups.com>,
>Yibbels <yibbels@yahoo.com> wrote:

>>...

>>How many bits per sample is a CD anyway?
>
>CD is 44100 samples/second, 16 bits/sample.

And stereo (two channels), resulting in a data rate of 176,400
bytes per second or 1411200 bits per second.

>
>--
>Dave Platt <dplatt@radagast.org> AE6EO
>Hosting the Jade Warrior home page: http://www.radagast.org/jade-warrior
> I do _not_ wish to receive unsolicited commercial email, and I will
> boycott any company which has the gall to send me such ads!

-----
http://mindspring.com/~benbradley

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