WAV versus FLAC

As has been pointed out, WAV does not support metadata. This makes it a royal PITA to deal with if you need to restore from a backup, or move files, or want to share files. I refuse to use WAV for this reason alone. As far as one sounding warmer and the other brighter, I have never heard anything remotely like that myself, and find it very hard to believe that it actually occurs this way (I do not find it hard to believe that someone believes that's what they're hearing though). My own experience is that file types don't make that much difference (if we are talking about full-resolution, uncompressed formats - AIFF vs WAV vs FLAC etc.). The same files ripped with different software have certainly sounded different to me on comparison, but I don't think it would be a warm vs. bright kind of difference. That's one for the tabloids I think.

I do not want an argument but I would test your ears and equipment before speaking about the last bit of air... follow the link and SORRY if it makes you sad....

I'm pretty sure you'd be the only one questioning Alex's equipment here.

On the test site you linked, I could hear 18khz but barely 19khz. I don't believe that is accurate as I don't think my hearing is quite that good as my ears have been around for five decades now. On previous tests (not from the site you linked) last year I could otherwise get to 17khz, and no further. So you are suggesting that because we loose some of our ability to hear the highest frequencies as we age that we are also no longer qualified to make judgments about how well as system/component delivers high-end information? That would probably leave the majority of the folks posting here, the majority of the staff at most of the rags (FWIW), as well as many of the most respected manufacturers of high-end gear at a tremendous loss.

Yes that is some what my point. If there is a difference in the formats it will be at the extreme highend of the frequency. Not sure many of us really (myself included) here it anyway.

I guess my point is the difference is very small, and our systems (and ears) have much bigger issues.

I know my system does not put out anything above 17khz. With Sennhizer 650 headphones I hear to 19 but on my speakers it is dead after 17khz.

Why is the only difference in formats evident in the high end extremes? I've never heard that before. What are you basing that statement on?

The difference between your speakers and headphones, beyond the obvious limitations of the specific transducers, is one of isolation. Your speakers abilities are profoundly affected by the room, the contents, your seating position, etc. Those factors have no effect on headphones, which have a much greater degree of isolation. That's probably why they don't use speakers to test your hearing.

BTW Sennheiser HD650's are not known for their upper-end extension. In that region between 10-20khz they drop down severely just after 10khz averaging around -15db! At 19khz they are -10db.

There were suggestions of first extracting FLAC to WAV and then play it. I haven't tried that so far. Does anyone around here know a reasonable way of first converting FLAC to WAV before playback?

I'm on a Mac and use Max software to do those kinds of conversions. It seems you are on a PC, in which case Media Monkey should do a fine job converting FLAC to WAV (or anything else). EAC would be a good solution.

That said, I just took your suggestion, Alex, and ripped three files of a well recorded piano piece. I took the first cut from, Bach on a Steinway, and tried three different rips (none are conversions these are all direct rips from the CD). The first was a rip via iTunes to Macs uncompressed format, AIFF. The next rip was via Max to FLAC. Finally I ripped the same cut to WAV using Max. With the iTunes rip "Error Correction" was on. With the Max rips, the much more vigorous "CD Paranoia" error correction was set to "Full Paranoia". Those rips took much longer than the iTunes rip did. I listened via headphones since that would seem to really pronounce any differences pretty unmistakably. I thought the WAV and FLAC ripped with Max sounded a bit better than the AIFF via iTunes but I could not say for sure that I could identify those two every time. I did not believe I was hearing any difference between the WAV and FLAC ripped with Max. YMMV, of course. I'll try it with some other files and if the results are different I'll chime in again.