Do WAV Music Files Sound Better than FLAC? Here's Why and Why Not - SoundStage! Real Hi-Fi (Ep:9)

Does WAV sound better than FLAC? Or how about against other lossless music file formats? In this episode, SoundStage! Network founder Doug Schneider explores this popular and controversial topic by giving you the straight goods on why the different music-file formats do and don't sound the same. Watch to find out more.

#lossless #hifi #audiophile

[liamporter]

What a relief as I've been collecting FLAC music and came across recently that WAV is the raw format. I'm a software guy and the logic is sound.

[bill]

This topic is very well presented. I especially like that you converted the file through multiple lossless formats to show that the data is perfectly intact throughout. Your example of playback volume leading to perceived differences in sound quality is also greatly appreciated.

[volkanturgut]

I listened to it with YouTube Music and Apple Music Lossless on the Marantz SR7015 KEF Q900 system and voila! I finally heard the difference in the song Solitude Standing from the album you recommended. It was clearer and more acoustic, especially with small bell-like sounds right at the beginning of the song.
Thank you very much, I was very upset that I didn't feel any difference.

[Ankit-int]

Thank you.
For clearing the confusions.
I have been collecting FLAC music since last month.
But was confused about quality, loss of information between different formats.
You cleared all these things.

[stopthefomo]

Thank you for addressing sighted bias as it’s the number one reason useful reviews can be so elusive

[JakePurches-Basemusic]

What can be said is that this video is a MPEG codec. When we watch this video you notice that it plays perfectly, and we can see Doug with no degradation. The MPEG coding is decoded on the fly in real time, and converted into a video bit stream that is then played by the software. It isn't even lossless, but if the software was not decoding properly, then the video would be corrupted and we would see it instantly. Its the same with sound, except the processing requirements for sound decompression is a fraction of what is required for doing video.

[danlong]

Career computer nerd turned audiophile here ... i agree with you 100%. Lossless means loseless. Same string of 0's and 1's come out of either format. Period.

[victorfernandes]

As much as this makes sense and I always believe this for decades. I was listening to a download in WAV and as usual I convert to Flac. I notice straight away it didn't sound as full. I went back and listened to the original songs and yes, the WAV sounds fuller, like the bass is fuller for example. All settings are exactly the same playing in VLC player. It makes no sense but its true.
But I tested converting back from Flac to Wav and then it sounds the same. It has to be from CD originally to WAV to notice the better sound.

[rdormer]

It blows my mind that there are people trying to out think this. You can demonstrate it in under five minutes with ffmpeg, sox, and the music of your choice. Just dump the wav file to a raw binary bit stream using sox. Then encode the wav file to flac, or m4a, using ffmpeg. Convert back and forth between them a few times, if you like. Then convert the flac or m4a file to a wav, and again, dump it with sox. Note that the two resulting raw bitstreams not only have the exact same length, but also THE EXACT SAME MD5 FINGERPRINT.

[XDemonicBeastX]

Gosh thank you!! I was getting overwhelmed from the massive debates on Reddit about this!!

[leighbartoo]

Very very well done video. Thanks man I love FLAC and the amount of support it has for music info. I honestly find a great passion in just being able to put all the info about the song on it, and have the same quality and less space at the same time.

[jonathanwayne]

Nice summary. This is exactly the same as using zip (or another lossless compression method) on a file. If even a single bit were lost in the process, it would have been abandoned as useless from the get go. Lossless means lossless.

[Gaming]

Thank you James Hatfield brother for this video.

[mayssebmasenya]

I’ve been enjoying your videos- short and sweet, and yet very informative.
And by the way, thanks for the Paradigm Founder 100F review- it was excellent.

[utubeandydent]

The main reason I use WAV is for audio editing and post production. The files are large but there are good reasons for this. Is it broadcast quality on the whole yes. MP3 has its uses.

[talktomenowxbmc]

Just like you I was a bit shocked that Wav file sounds better than Flac on my iPhone. I don’t think it’s due to gain settings but rather the way audio engine that processes bits. I tried various apps, including Apple’s Music and by far the best sounding is Plexamp. Wav file sounds not on louder, but more spacious, detailed instrument separation, more natural with better base response. These differences are audible. By now, most of the people can identify streaming sound. Wav file played on the phone doesn’t sound like streaming.

[antoniopdcj]

One question... When I'm listening to a song on YouTube, how do I identify if that song is an audio file without loss of quality or if it's an audio file with loss of quality? Where can I see the specifications of the audio being played to know if it is, for example: a “WAVE” or “FLAC” format (without loss of quality) or if it is an “MP3” type file (where there was compression and loss Of Quality)? Is there any extension for the Chrome browser that shows real-time specifications of the audio being played? I visited Youtube's audio file guidelines and it says the following... “[...] Supported file formats: (1) MP3 audio in MP3/WAV container, (2) PCM audio in WAV container, (3 ) AAC audio in MOV container and (4) FLAC audio. Minimum audio bitrate for lossy formats: 64 kbps. Minimum audible duration: 33 seconds, excluding silence and background noise. Maximum duration: none “[...]”. Therefore, Youtube accepts audio files without loss of quality and audio files with loss of quality.

[kendoglarson]

I use wave. Storage is cheap these days.

[mladenbasic]

Great episode. Keep them coming! The sound a lot better now as well.

[Stevie]

I just started getting into music (I do hobby low level programming) and there’s many variables that go into the listening experience that any argument can’t be resolved by what format is the best.

Most of the people arguing don’t understand the application of bits to waveform (bytes is an easier representation) and what the data physically looks like and how it’s interpreted.

The biggest misconceptions comes from the people who think wav sounds better than flac or vice versa. Usually positions are taken because Flac is compressed whereas wav isn’t, but that’s actually to Flac’s benefit due to how the compression algorithm contains empty data in much smaller amounts. Both formats are lossless but if a song in wav has a series of empty bytes it’ll store those bytes. The actual streamed array of bytes is exactly the same between the two formats though, one just saves space.

Tldr anyone saying wav sounds better is akin to a snake oil salesman. Doesn’t matter if your Uncle who’s an audio professional think it does, he’s wrong lol