What is the difference between WAV and FLAC?

Question

My understanding is that the WAV and FLAC formats are containers for lossless audio. I have seen the FLAC format as being perhaps better because it is able to losslessly compress audio from say a WAV file.

However today I noticed that bleep is offering both WAV and FLAC files to download. Is their practice redundant or am I missing something?

After reading allquixotic and slhck answers I was curious as to the audio codec for the wav files in question. This is what I found

Input #0, wav, from 'Exai-001-Autechre-Fleure.wav':
  Duration: 00:04:51.39, bitrate: 1411 kb/s
    Stream #0:0: Audio: pcm_s16le ([1][0][0][0] / 0x0001), 44100 Hz,
                 stereo, s16, 1411 kb/s

Answer 1

You might be confused about different concepts:

• FLAC is a lossless audio codec (its container also happens to be called FLAC, but the main idea here is the actual codec).
• WAV, on the other hand, as a container can hold numerous kinds of audio codecs, but mostly, you'll find PCM-encoded audio.¹

Since FLAC is all about mathematically lossless compression, FLAC files will be smaller than corresponding PCM-encoded WAV files, since PCM doesn't allow for lossless compression and just represents the data as-is.²

So, simply put: Take a WAV file with PCM-encoded audio, and the corresponding (mathematically equal) FLAC file will be a tad smaller. The downside is that FLAC is not as widely supported as WAV. For example, most (all?) operating systems won't play or convert FLAC files without extra software.

Bottom line, I'd say their practice is redundant but a nice gesture for folks who don't want to download massive amounts of data and prefer the compressed version.

_{1 – For example, variants of MP3 can also be stored in a .wav file.
2 – The analogy for images would be that BMP files contain the raw image data in an uncompressed form, whereas a (lossless) PNG is much smaller, but showing the exact same contents.}

Answer 2

FLAC is a compressed lossless audio stream, WAV is uncompressed lossless audio stream. FLAC is like ZIP in audio world, you can compress/uncompress the data multiple times without any loss. But compression ratio is better than ZIP, because this compression format is tailored specifically for audio.

Answer 3

FLAC is superior to LPCM (WAV) in almost all aspects, but FLAC's support is very limited. Many devices (music systems, portable devices, TVs, etc.) cannot playback .flac files.

Answer 4

WAV has a constant bit rate. That means even the silent parts are stored as 0 Hz and occupies space in the container.

FLAC on the other hand has a variable bit rate and eliminates the silence parts and stores only the part of the audio between 1 and 655,350 Hz. If any audio frequency in that range is not detected, say 0 Hz or anything above 655,350 Hz, FLAC treats it as silence and does not store it. As reference, humans can only hear frequencies in the range between 15 Hz and 20,000 Hz, which also narrows with age.

So if a song is long but has a lot of silent parts, then its FLAC size would be significantly smaller than its WAV file would be.

The reason why some audio stores offer both WAV and FLAC files is that audiophiles are particularly finicky about quality and they sometimes feel that FLAC, being of smaller size, is inferior to WAV.

I also feel that way, although I am perfectly aware that they deliver the exact same quality. Not getting the WAV file makes me feel that something is missing, which in fact is largely untrue if in reality, I will only be missing something that is not there and something that nobody in this world would be able to hear: even the bats.

Answer 5

I do not understand why people say FLAC is lossless. It is lossy by definition because in music there is no such thing as an absence of sound. Now people can go back and forth on the specifics and arguments if they want but here is the absolute truth of it. If your listening to music over a boombox or your cellphone you won't notice a difference at all. But and this is a really, really big BUT. If you have any kind of quality stereo system ( ex. Your speakers alone are more then a couple hundred bucks ) You will most definitely notice a drop in Fidelity. For me being a HI-FI buff pretty much since birth and loving Klipsch cornerhorns that's a huge difference. Having said all that I'm sitting here at this very moment debating FLAC or WAV for the car as I only have 32GB to play with. The difference in a song being 32mb vs. 97mb. Basically it's the same as a 1080P movie vs. 4K movie both are very nice. So YES there is a difference and you will without question notice it if you're using audio of higher quality then CD and you're looking for it.... That's the skinny.

Answer 6

WAV is superior to FLAC.

I’ve tested this on my rig with the start of a Mozart track (the first 30 seconds) and there were some artifacts which were only slightly greater represented on the wav. when compared to the flac. To someone who doesn’t understand audio and to the naked ear they’re almost identical.

Any kind of compression has some limiters. WAV is also used in studios for its raw accuracy.

Just some facts…

Any of those High-Res 24 bit /192 KHZ, DSD, or 32 bit/384 KHz are HUGE space wasters. The human frequency range is limited - and on a summit-fi rig of Hi-Fi separates with an amplifier, CD player, sound field processor, and tuner is able to extract ultrasonic frequencies when used with compatible headphones (5 HZ - 40 KHz) to the point of being able to feel these ultrasonic frequencies around you; even disrupting listening sessions when you will believe someone has stopped on the floor. This is possible with redbook CDs. You aren’t going to get any higher than that as far as sound quality goes. stand alone DAC's are also inferior to a top-flight cd player. If you really want to hear how it was recorded and in all its glory - go for TAD components (Pioneer) or Accuphase.

Cables can make a difference but not always. For example, a poor quality CCAW (copper clad aluminum wire) is inferior to pure copper. The only time a cable will make a difference on sound quality is when: 1st if the quality of the copper is not pure, and 2nd if the cable impedance has been tampered with by scam cable makers. At the end of the day, buy pure copper cables for your speakers. And for headphones make your own cables with pure copper. Silver cables on the other hand can sound more dynamic and “bright” and buying silver wire could benefit you if your speakers sound dull. Any special power cables are rip offs as well. So yes, cables can make a difference.

Measurements are sometimes inaccurate as the measurement system was not implemented perfectly. And of course, measurements don’t tell the whole story. If you look up how human beings actually hear frequencies you might understand the truth of this matter.