What is your preferred music file format and why?

I *love* db Poweramp. Just f'ing works. Their PerfectTunes app is also pretty great if you want to scan your whole library and replace low-res album artwork with better versions. Sorry @rhythmdevils, back on topic now!

 

FLAC.

I used to have reasons. Once upon a time I might even have argued them strongly!

But now I just use... FLAC.

(and ogg for shamelessly lossy compression for phones etc)

 

MP3's from the wildwest of the Napster and Limewire days. Live dangerously.

 

Before I started using Roon, I had mostly FLAC CD rips with embedded metadata stored on a Synology NAS that offers UPnP/DLNA service out of box, and controlled play with BubbleUPnP. Bubble sees the embedded file metadata, including album cover images.

 

THANK YOU. So I'm only the normal sort of SBAF madman and not too far off the ledge like I was worrying, lmao.

ABX FTW BABY

 

Hmmm... Lossless is Lossless.

Unless someone has done something weird or stupid.

 

When you ripped to FLAC what level of compression did you use? I usually stick right in the middle @ setting 5. Wondering out loud if maybe Bandcamp is using the the highest compressi9on setting...

 

I suck at critical listening compared to ChaCha, but I used Lv 8 compression when I did my own FLAC from the Bandcamp WAV and that's what I used to get the 5/10 result on the first page here (i.e. "you may as well be guessing").

Addendum: I should also note that when I compressed my own Lv8 FLACs from the Bandcamp WAV files, I got smaller file sizes which implies Bandcamp's compression is less aggressive.

 

I

I wonder if Bandcamp is making their FLAC from high bit rate MP3 or similar, rather than a lossless format.

Either way, FLAC should be lossless, excepting screw-ups like described here. Should be identical at all compression levels. The only difference there should be higher computational resources for the encode, and maybe a little more resources for the decode.

So yeah, FLAC level 8 for me. I keep a separate copy at high VBR mp3 for having a copy on the cell phone.

 

All flac here but uh I usually rip them from cd myself. At the time I started switching to flac it was way more supported than alac and I'm an apple hater so the choice was easy

Bandcamp flac files are uhhh from individual uploaders they require a lossless format but do not validate if they have been transcoded from an mp3 or what so kind of a crapshoot.

 

@Lyander can you confirm what you uploaded for me? I downloaded a WAV file and a FLAC file from your link, decompressed the FLAC to a WAV, and then compared the original WAV to the decompressed FLAC in a hex editor. The audio data from that comparison was bit for bit identical, indicating perfect lossless compression and decompression of the exact same source file for the FLAC.

So considering what @ChaChaRealSmooth reported, are those both the original BandCamp downloads? Did I miss a third file?

If those were the two original Bandcamp sources then the FLAC is absolutely the same audio data as the WAV and anything you’re hearing must be on the decoding end of the equation, not the source.

I confirmed the two bytes different in the header were indeed the file size, which is different because the source WAV had appended metadata and the converted file did not. But if metadata at the end of a WAV file causes audible differences we have bigger problems.

 

Confirming that the files I have stored in the Google Drive are both direct downloads from Bandcamp, neither have been converted in any way. My compressing the WAV to FLAC Lv 8 was done after the fact, as evidenced by the time delay between my thinking there had to have been a difference based on what I was hearing and this:

This makes sense but then if both WAV and FLAC samples were actually just shoved with lossy data (I think Bjork is a prominent enough artist to be able to produce stuff that at least meets Redbook standard) then I think that the WAV would still be indistinguishable from the FLAC; different size mugs, same amount of liquid therein (I feel like this could be a gross oversimplification, but again I am not a very smart person).

 

I mean yeah if the files there are the same you would think it should be the same, the complaints I have seen they are comparing the spectral plot from bandcamp flac vs the cd or something and showing how the high frequencies are rolled off on one.

 

For the specific files Lyander supplied I’ve shown this to not be the case. The audio data is identical after decompression of the FLAC. The listening results are implying that foobar or one of its plugins is the potential culprit.

 

Something something fuzzy argument about how decompression draws more power from the cpu and voodoo power gremlins from that degrades sound. If you believe that sort of thing.

Years ago there was some guy who built a dac/dap/something on a piece of magic wood that could *only* handle wav because he believed any sort of compression would affect the sound. Then again, I think the same guy also had special lacquer to apply to the wood to make the digital stuff sound better, so... *shrug*

 

That's got to be 'Mother of Tone'. Craziest of the crazy.

 

Spiritually wav sounds better to me.

But when I download from Bandcamp I download AIFF just because these little bands may never get into a big database and I’ll never recover the metadata.