Flac Concerted To Wav Files

[Livin' in New Orleans]

Are Wav files that are converted from flacs still lossless? are the flac-converted wav files still better than mp3s?

[Analogman]

Yes

 

 

What are FLAC files?

 

FLAC stands for Free Lossless Audio Codec, an audio format similar to MP3, but lossless, meaning that audio is compressed in FLAC without any loss in quality. This is similar to how Zip works, except with FLAC you will get much better compression because it is designed specifically for audio, and you can play back compressed FLAC files in your favorite player (or your car or home stereo, see supported devices) just like you would an MP3 file.

 

 

What are WAV files?

 

WAV (or WAVE), short for Waveform audio format, also known as Audio for Windows[2], is a Microsoft and IBM audio file format standard for storing an audio bitstream on PCs. It is an application of the RIFF bitstream format method for storing data in “chunks”, and thus also close to the 8SVX and the AIFF format used on Amiga and Macintosh computers, respectively. It is the main format used on Windows systems for raw and typically uncompressed audio. The usual bitstream encoding is the Pulse Code Modulation (PCM) format.

 

Uncompressed WAV files are quite large in size, so, as file sharing over the Internet has become popular, the WAV format has declined in popularity. However, it is still a commonly used file type, suitable for retaining “first generation” archived files of high quality, or use on a system where disk space is not restricted or the time involved in compressing or uncompressing data is unwanted (for example while editing audio).

 

More frequently, the smaller file sizes of compressed but lossy formats such as MP3, ATRAC, AAC, (Ogg)Vorbis and WMA are used to store and transfer audio. Their small file sizes allow faster Internet transmission, as well as lower consumption of space on memory media. However, lossy formats trade off smaller file size against loss of audio quality, as all such compression algorithms compromise available signal detail. There are also lossless codecs, such as FLAC, Shorten, Monkey's Audio, ATRAC Advanced Lossless, Apple Lossless, WMA Lossless, TTA, and WavPack, but none of these is yet a ubiquitous standard for both professional and home audio.