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Converting my CD Collection from .FLAC to .WAV

Lately I have begun converting my CD collection from .flac files to uncompressed .wav files. on the theory that doing away with a computing step in my transport and dac might improve playback sound. In some cases it does so quite unequivocally. Especially, there is a slight de-glaring of female vocals and horns. James Taylor's voice on October Road is now less shouty. Listening in general feels more relaxed and paced. SRV's guitar jangle is less rankling at times. Julian Bream's lute is less smacking.

Most of the websites from which I download files now offer only MP3 and.flac. In the old days they offered .wav too - understandble since download time and server space cost money.

What say you, knaves?

bolong
designsfx
794 posts
 

Got it. You have nice equipment- should sound good. JRiver’s conversion to WAV is done in memory (as I’m sure you know) so as long as that requirement is met I don’t see it affecting your Dac. I agree that starting from WAV to begin with would be better as it eliminates the process entirely.

bolong OP
617 posts
 

Another factor may be CD burn speed. Since music Cd's have traditionally been burned at low speeds to preserve data integrity, I reset the burn speed in Windows Media Player to "slow," and this has resulted in yet another layer of glare disappearing from CD playback. It is possible that the "fast" and even "medium" burn speeds that Windows is factory set to are too fast to guarantee absolute data integrity for music files. Of course, this also presumes that the flac files I am downloading were also recorded at a speed slow enough to preserve data integrity.

designsfx
794 posts
 

@bolong 

Have you checked any of the downloaded files with software like “Audiochecker” to determine the file provenance? Just a thought as some files are manipulated from lower resolution prior to being available for download or streaming. 
I’ve never experienced sound quality issues as a product of copy speed but then again its been almost 15 years since I used a computer to copy and store (used DB  Poweramp). I’ve been using a Naim Uniti Core for ripping/storage the last 5 years or so and have had no issues. Once in a great while a disk might produce ripping errors but the Naim will make multiple passes until it is overcome. I’ve never heard as much as a click during playback.

designsfx
794 posts
 

Here’s a link to the “Audiochecker” site if you’re interested-

Audiochecker

davehg
85 posts
 

On the topic of metadata - having invested tons of time to rip my files to WAV, I wished I had started with FLAC instead. Transferring any WAV files to another device, I invariably lose album and track data and have to rip again, or worse, I end up with incorrect data when I try to synch with Gracenote. I too chose WAV files based on listening tests, but in hindsight - hard drives fail, you will need to copy onto new devices, and FLAC keeps the meta data intact.

 

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