What is your preferred music file format and why?

I'm curious to know what members here choose and why and I think this would lead to good discussion.

I have the opportunity to download my entire Bandcamp purchased music catalog thanks to a kind SBAF'er and I'd like advice on which file format to choose before I commit to it for good.

I'm leaning towards FLAC because it seems that's the standard. I'm not inclined to use ALAC because it's Apple's proprietary format and they don’t like sharing.

I also don't know how a Pi2AES or a Holo Red (which I hope to get sometime soon) reads files via BubbleUPNP. Does it use metadata tags in the song file, or is it just folder Hierarchy? Genre folder -> Artist folder -> Album folder -> song files ? So I'm not sure if I need a file format that can include metadata tags for organizational purposes.

I'd really like this to be future proof because I'm downloading all my purchased music at once and will have to continue using this format.

Go!

 

I stick to FLAC for the most part since it's compatible just about everywhere, and it has smaller files than WAV. Storage space is cheaper than ever, so might not be the best reason but with WAV files it's problematic if you want to change the meta-data for filing which kinda bugs me.

 

Clarification on ALAC: "After initially keeping it proprietary from its inception in 2004, in late 2011 Apple made the codec available open source and royalty-free." ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Lossless_Audio_Codec

I've converted all my CDs to ALAC along with purchases from Bandcamp so I have compatibility with Apple Music should Roon ever disappear.

 

So I hate that I can tell a slight difference between FLAC vs WAV files but a recent experiement using some tracks I got on Bandcamp and CD rips from friends show a bit of a discernible difference between the two, enough to get 4/5 in an ABX using the built-in foobar tool.

The differences aren't enough that I'm willing to burn even MORE storage space archiving everything in fully uncompressed PCM or tolerate all the metadata shenanigans that come with using WAV (FLAC is so much better for this), but they're very much there and I'm beginning to reconsider going all-digital instead of looking for CDs at flea markets etc (not really, I like convenience too much).

 

ALAC or FLAC depending on if you use Apple stuff or not. Can convert between them easily without losing quality so it’s not a critical decision. For you that sounds like FLAC, while for me ALAC.

I wouldn’t use one of the uncompressed formats because of spotty tag support and little to no upside over lossless compression.

 

I was going to write something, but you just said everything I would. So, I'll just say +1, lol.

 

Sorry for adding a post but I can't edit the above. Just dunking this here to show that I can apparently do 5 in a row before I get stressed out and mess up lmao. It really is just easier with relatively repetitive pieces like the intro to this song, it's more a sense of space and how filled in the harmonics are. FLAC is a bit more muted, WAV just feels more "there".

I will say the differences are minute and if it were a more chaotic, less repetitive piece, I will likely mess up in splendid fashion. I should point out this was rapid A/Bing, I seldom get past the first few bars.

https://bjork.bandcamp.com/track/crystalline-omar-souleyman-remix

PC USB> Zen DAC V2 > Magni Unity > HD600

 

I won’t claim you’re not hearing exactly what you hear, but take a FLAC, decode it to wav, and compare the waveforms. Unless something is broken software wise they will be identical, bit for bit.

The conclusion would be something else in your decoding chain is responsible for the difference you hear.

 

I tried this both with a WAV that I converted to FLAC myself and, in the case of the sample above, downloading WAV and FLAC versions of the album off Bandcamp. The differences are, again, minute, but they are there.

If it interests you any, here are the files: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/18WFRinRcyUUtL1kQzzk7pLzurAH5ox0O?usp=drive_link

Deleted an earlier reply to add this screenshot. Top is the FLAC, middle is the WAV, bottom is the FLAC that I converted to WAV.

 

I appreciate you sharing that. I converted the FLAC to WAV using foobar with no metadata and compared them in HxD (a hex editor). There are two bytes different in the header (before the audio data) at 04h and 05h. The files are then identical until the end of the audio stream where the source has some metadata appended.

 

FLAC is the open standard. I see no reason to use anything else.

 

This is where I think a conversation that'd be of interest to others may arise: I am a proper idiot on the best of days and readily admit that while I have a vague conceptual understanding of how compression and indexing and the like are, I am fully ignorant as to what a "header" is in this case (though I can guess based on what I know about literature); is it just something to signal what sort of file it is to any program that might read it? You also specify that it's before any audio data.

Heck I'm just as much at a loss as you are. I'm gonna go yell at someone backchannel for even bringing up that WAV could be different because frankly I've never tried ABXing it and FLAC before that I can remember. Maybe it's my PC working more efficiently because PCM is uncompressed (I'm on a Ryzen 5 3600 and a B550 motherboard with 16GB of 3600 CL18 RAM, pretty up to date on drivers and AGESA and such) (for the record, this is a joke).

Also, would be curious to hear whether you can catch any differences here.

I should point out that I'm using WASAPI (push) into the Zen DAC. No DSP whatsoever. I'm also using the 32-bit version of foobar because my preferred visualiser (which I should point out is disabled during ABXing) doesn't work with the 64-bit version.

 

The header defines the file type, data format, and similar information. For the WAV format it starts with the file type, then describes other aspects of the audio stream that follows. After the header is the RAW PCM data in the format described in the header.

http://soundfile.sapp.org/doc/WaveFormat/

The two bytes I noted as different appear to be ones describing file length, which would make sense given the converted file includes no metadata while the original has some appended at the very end, so the files are different length.

As to what you're hearing, I believe you but I don't think it's the file type per se.

 

Believe you me I really want you to be right cuz WAV file size is dumb and I'm well aware of how loony this all sounds.

Just for the record I voted FLAC above, no idea who picked WAV lmao.

Addendum: 95% of my listening is done on YouTube Music, not even a lossless service. I would very much like for this to be all bullhokey, more than anyone else.

 

@Lyander thanks for sharing your experience even if it doesn't make sense. What sounds good is good. Kudos for being bold enough to share what sounds good to you in the face of objective evidence to the contrary.

And thanks to everyone else for sharing as well!

 

ALAC for me pretty much my entire audio life. Been a Mac user since I was a kid, so just used to being in that garden. My music library has always been maintained in iTunes (now Music app).

It's not always convenient, and as someone who doesn't do streaming services, buying music (digital downloads) and adding to my library can sometimes be time consuming, but I find it to be a bit of a ritual chore that I do not mind.

 

ALAC for me too. I've been a Mac user for 20+ years and have no intention of changing that. Also with software like dB PowerAmp, it's easy to convert if needed.

 

Right, probably my last post here (sorry for wasting people's time) but I'm calling myself out on my own BS.

Again, I overlook remarkably simple things very often. For some reason I never thought to ABX FLAC files I converted from WAV myself, only the FLAC files I got off Bandcamp. As evidenced here, I was full of hot air.

Not sure what sort of weirdness FLAC v WAV downloads on Bandcamp undergo or why the audio information reads as being the exact same, but comparing the same WAV file versus my own squishing of it into a FLAC container, myself this was basically a crapshoot. I have NO idea why the FLAC from Bandcamp sounds different, but it does.

This is dumb.

 

.mp3

perfect sound quality, small file size, lots of nostalgia

 

dB Poweramp user here for as well. Has been great ripping CD's and converting sound files for the last 8 years or so. Have also used the Tascam Hi-Res editor for snipping off the ends of my vinyl rips and can convert DSD <--> PCM (WAV).