Flac to audio cd vs WAV

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Thad said:

but lossless must be 100% If there is a difference in the sound when playing, then something else is going on.

I have specifically talked in terms of data, because, at this level, we are dealing with data not music.

When the CD was launched, phillips declared "Perfect Sound Forever!"

On hindsight it seems laughable......:eek:

A CD has 800,000,000 Bits of data. Not all of hese are writen on the CD perfectly. Also, every time a CD is read in real time ( as in a CD player) not all the bits are read without error either.

Infact audio CDs have error correction ( different from Data) using Reed Solomon Coding. It results in InAudible errors. The Errors DO Exist, but they are deemed inaudible.... by who ever.

( It maybe appropriate to point out that the MP3 format also claimed to be audibly indistinguisable from the original.... ):eek:

Covertion of several Million Bits from Flac to wav, will probably have some errors that creep in. Its not so inconceivable that 2 different programs, converting the Same Flac file to Wav files, will result in 2 slightly different wav files.

To loosely illustrate the point:

Lets say the Original Flac File has some (almost inaudible) errors.

Program 1 deals with errors by replacing them with a blank.

Program 2 deals with errors by relacing them with an average of the value before and after the error.

Now the 2 programs could result in Wav files tghat sound slightly different ....
 
Yes, Wave doesn't keep the metadata when we remove it from library. But I was saying we can add the tags and use it on iTunes/iPod but it can't embed permanently like other formats.

Hi Prepress. What you have experienced actually reinforces what i said.

The additional info is NOT stored in the Wav file by iTunes, but saved separately by iTunes and linked to the orinal wav file thru an iTunes specific link. Hence when you take the Wav file outside iTunes .... Poof ! its all gone.

In a Flac file with properly embedded meta data, you can E-mail or download the FLAC file and when its opend after downloading by the new user, he still has all the metadata including the Album Art.
 
Yes, there are ways to work around the Wav's lack of metadata...

I Rip my CDs to an Image file which actually consists of a tiny cue file + a single large Wav file for the entire CD.

Artist name, Album name etc are contained in the cue file.

Also when burnt to a CDR, it recreates the Original CD so that it can be identified as the original title on the Internet, using any look up program.

Unfortunately, the CD cover has to be saved separately as a separate image file, in the same folder where the cue & wav files are stored.

I MUCH prefer this method than saving each song as a separate file.

Guys, did you know that HDCD and Wav were invented by Microsoft ? ! :clapping:
 
Yes, there are ways to work around the Wav's lack of metadata...

I Rip my CDs to an Image file which actually consists of a tiny cue file + a single large Wav file for the entire CD.

Artist name, Album name etc are contained in the cue file.

Also when burnt to a CDR, it recreates the Original CD so that it can be identified as the original title on the Internet, using any look up program.

Unfortunately, the CD cover has to be saved separately as a separate image file, in the same folder where the cue & wav files are stored.

I MUCH prefer this method than saving each song as a separate file.

But we can't play that image file in multiple sources. That is good to burn the CD. For selected tracks we can't create an image. Yes?


Guys, did you know that HDCD and Wav were invented by Microsoft ? ! :clapping:

Yes, it was invented by MS and globally famous for uncompressed format.
 
Prepress said:
But we can't play that image file in multiple sources. That is good to burn the CD. For selected tracks we can't create an image. Yes?

I am not sure what you mean by "But we can't play that image file in multiple sources." You can play them in almost any Audio playback program like Foobar, VLC, J River etc.

"For selected tracks we can't create an image." Long ago I stopped selecting tracks and judging CD tracks on initial listen. Often tracks that I didi not care for initially, got my attention later. Given the low cost of HDD capacity, I prefer to save the entire CD, preserving the track order etc, forever....:)
 
I am not sure what you mean by "But we can't play that image file in multiple sources." You can play them in almost any Audio playback program like Foobar, VLC, J River etc.

My concern was we can't play that image in iPOD or other media players via USB (I am not sure).


"For selected tracks we can't create an image." Long ago I stopped selecting tracks and judging CD tracks on initial listen. Often tracks that I didi not care for initially, got my attention later. Given the low cost of HDD capacity, I prefer to save the entire CD, preserving the track order etc, forever....:)

hahaha Even I am doing same thing too. By the way what type of music do you like to listen to?
 
Prepress did you mean the Iso files? Some software a must be there for loading Iso's and then files can be taken out of them? And by the way why do some people make the whole album a single WAV file.. i have downloaded few albums that way..Is there any specific use if all tracks are grouped to a single one? Or just the software they use is just not capable?
 
Prepress did you mean the Iso files? Some software a must be there for loading Iso's and then files can be taken out of them?

Yes, there are many applications to extract the audio from them.

And by the way why do some people make the whole album a single WAV file.. i have downloaded few albums that way..Is there any specific use if all tracks are grouped to a single one? Or just the software they use is just not capable?

I think this is because to download whole album in single click :) instead of this they should make it as a zip. Even many website offers to download album as zip. Many softwares also offer this thing, when we extract audio from ACD it asks to "Read by track" or "Read by Disc".
By Track creates each track individually but By Disc creates a single file for all tracks. Single file contains all songs with few seconds (1-3) gap after each track but plays continuously.
 
Alby Tommy

And by the way why do some people make the whole album a single WAV file.. i have downloaded few albums that way..Is there any specific use if all tracks are grouped to a single one? Or just the software they use is just not capable?

I have posted about this yesterday ..... Its the purest way of doing things... Preserves the identity of the original disc when you burn a copy from the downloaded files....

My earlier post:
Yes, there are ways to work around the Wav's lack of metadata...

I Rip my CDs to an Image file which actually consists of a tiny cue file + a single large Wav file for the entire CD.

Artist name, Album name etc are contained in the cue file.

Also when burnt to a CDR, it recreates the Original CD so that it can be identified as the original title on the Internet, using any look up program.

Unfortunately, the CD cover has to be saved separately as a separate image file, in the same folder where the cue & wav files are stored.

I MUCH prefer this method than saving each song as a separate file.
 
Maybe a slightly more detailed explanation is in order.....


When you put an Original CD in your computer, the Computer program goes on the net and recognises the CD, providing full details like CD title, Artist name, Track numbers and Track name, etc

How does it do this ? It obviously cant recognise music.

The CD original is identified uniquely by matching the following parameters from millions in its database:

1. Number of tracks. ( eg a total of 16 tracks on a CD)
2. Duration of each Track
3. Silence Between Each Track.

a. The Cue file creates a record of all these parameters.
b. The single Wav file has all the tracks INCLUDING the Inter Track Silence.

The Cue file is like the index page of a book. It states the exact time ( down to 0.1 sec or better ) where each track commences and ends. It also states when the inter track silence commences and ends.

If you Rip each track as a separate file, and burn them to a new disc, the burnt disc will contain a standard 2 second silence between each track. The Computer program will Never be able to identify the burnt disc. it will simply show it as a "Compilation." :eek:

All track names will be lost and even the track numbers will be lost if this "Compilation" does not have a hard copy ( print out ) of the details.

If you burn the CD for a friend, you could probably mix up the track order .... What happens when you are discussing with friends "I like Track Number 14 on the CD" He and you may have different tracks as Track number 14 !

Creating a Cue file ( Typically a few KB in size ) and a single Large Wav file eliminates all this. To recreate the CD when burning, simply go to the CD Burning software ( like Nero, or Ashampoo or whatever) and choose "Burn Image". Give its the cue file as the image (the Wav file MUST be in the same folder). The Burnt CDR will be an Exact Copy ( excluding some data errors, if any) of the Original CD, with the SAME Inter track silences. The burnt CDR will now be recognised on the Internet as the original Disc !

Hope this helps.
 
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Incidentally, there are various freeware that will use the Cue + sigle large wav file and chop up and extract a particular track that you want....

So you loose NOTHING by ripping your collection to Cue + a single large wav (as i do).

Ripping one's CD collection to HDD is a HUGE effort in time invested. Its best to fully study the options and then take the plunge.... I would HATE to do it all over again ..:mad:
 
My way is the FLAC way* :)

But...

Whilst reading your posts, I was wondering if, in the cause of preserving exact originality, anyone extracts and plays from ISO images? Or is there no such thing as an ISO image of an audio CD?

I have never timed the inter-track silences, but the silences between the tracks are a part of the listening experience. When digitising vinyl, it is important to try to make them feel "natural" and not easy to edit and cut the tracks in the right place, also editing out the noise that may be on the vinyl. I do know that when there is no inter-track silence on the CD there is also none when playing my rips (WAV, FLAC or OGG). This seems to be dependent on the playing software, and gapless playback is essential for those of us who listen to either/both classical music (where tracks are often used to index the "sleeve notes") and live concert material where there is no silence (and sometimes no break) between songs. It was a struggle for me to find such a gapless player for Linux, although there are now several. The ubiquitous and otherwise rightly popular media player VLC, for instance, does not do it, even in Windows.

(My portable Cowon player does not do gapless playback. This is real pain when a dozen tracks in one movememtn of a symphony have to be concatenated to make it play right :mad:)

I believe that the experience of listening to the ripped CD should be, gaps'n'all, identical to the experience of listening to the physical CD.


*It used to be the track/WAV way, but now I regret not having used FLACs and tagging from many years back.
 
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anyone extracts and plays from ISO images? Or is there no such thing as an ISO image of an audio CD?

If you burn the Cue + Single wav file, you are in effect getting an image of the original CD in all respects.

Also the Cue + Wav file can be played in most of the standard software, (Wi Foobar, VLC, JRiver etc and ofcouse Mac programs too.... Sorry I know zilch about Linux.. just ignorant, please excuse me :eek: ) directly without any further Extraction / processing.
 
Here is a 4KB file size .cue file of the CD " A Tasty Sound Collection - ALR-Jordan-Guitar Collection "

Study the file and you will see the start and stop times, Track names and the difference in time between a song ending another starting. That is the Inter-track silence.


REM GENRE Folk
REM DATE 2001
REM DISCID C9115C11
REM COMMENT "ExactAudioCopy v1.0b3"
PERFORMER "A Tasty Sound Collection"
TITLE "ALR-Jordan-Guitar Collection"
FILE "A Tasty Sound Collection - ALR-Jordan-Guitar Collection.wav" WAVE
TRACK 01 AUDIO
TITLE "Fly Like An Eagle-Louie Shelton"
PERFORMER "A Tasty Sound Collection"
INDEX 01 00:00:00
TRACK 02 AUDIO
TITLE "Come To Find-Doug MacLeod"
PERFORMER "A Tasty Sound Collection"
INDEX 01 04:29:27
TRACK 03 AUDIO
TITLE "Nelly-Telecats"
PERFORMER "A Tasty Sound Collection"
INDEX 01 08:38:57
TRACK 04 AUDIO
TITLE "29 Ways-Hans Theessink"
PERFORMER "A Tasty Sound Collection"
INDEX 01 14:58:40
TRACK 05 AUDIO
TITLE "Oh Well-Sara K."
PERFORMER "A Tasty Sound Collection"
INDEX 01 18:21:37
TRACK 06 AUDIO
TITLE "Isn't She Lovely-Livingston Taylor"
PERFORMER "A Tasty Sound Collection"
INDEX 01 21:02:37
TRACK 07 AUDIO
TITLE "Sleight Of Hand-Joyce Cooling"
PERFORMER "A Tasty Sound Collection"
INDEX 01 25:31:07
TRACK 08 AUDIO
TITLE "Last Train To Amsterdam-Ray Wylie Hubbard"
PERFORMER "A Tasty Sound Collection"
INDEX 01 29:21:47
TRACK 09 AUDIO
TITLE "Do It Again-Erlend Krauser"
PERFORMER "A Tasty Sound Collection"
INDEX 01 34:24:22
TRACK 10 AUDIO
TITLE "It Doesn't Matter-Allison Krauss & Union Station"
PERFORMER "A Tasty Sound Collection"
INDEX 01 38:31:70
TRACK 11 AUDIO
TITLE "Traces Of Lovers-Stytz Syndikate"
PERFORMER "A Tasty Sound Collection"
INDEX 01 42:24:70
TRACK 12 AUDIO
TITLE "The Life Of A Thief-Hank Shizzoe & Loose Gravel"
PERFORMER "A Tasty Sound Collection"
INDEX 01 48:26:45
TRACK 13 AUDIO
TITLE "Finger Snappin' Good-Karl Ratzer"
PERFORMER "A Tasty Sound Collection"
INDEX 01 52:28:50
TRACK 14 AUDIO
TITLE "If I Was To Tell You-Connie Kaldor"
PERFORMER "A Tasty Sound Collection"
INDEX 01 57:59:52
TRACK 15 AUDIO
TITLE "Cold Rain-Blues Company"
PERFORMER "A Tasty Sound Collection"
INDEX 01 61:28:10
TRACK 16 AUDIO
TITLE "The Length Of My Arms-Carrie Newcomer"
PERFORMER "A Tasty Sound Collection"
INDEX 01 67:13:25
TRACK 17 AUDIO
TITLE "Big Man Mambo-Robert Lucas"
PERFORMER "A Tasty Sound Collection"
INDEX 01 70:04:20
 
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