Sound Quality

For what it’s worth, I always rip my CDs to WAV files. Although less supported these days, WAV is an exact copy of the CD and is an uncompressed file. If you look, you’ll find a WAV converter out there. FLAC is a lossless compressed format and please remember ‘lossless’ is a euphemism for negligible loss. FLAC is 60% the size of the original file. Although, in most cases, you may not be able to hear the difference…with a high resolution system and good ears, the difference is there. My argument is twofold: 1) file size is not an issue these days so why compress. 2) once you convert to FLAC, there is no going back.

I really like playing my ripped CDs on my streamer. The SQ consistently is a tick above what I get from commercial services.  I listen to Classical and find that most services scramble the order of movements in a piece, which is a real PITA.

  If the OP is still interested in ripping CDs-he seems to have changed his mind mid-thread- I would recommend getting a Melco server and their dedicated Optical Player to do the rips

sandthemall

FLAC is a lossless compressed format and please remember ‘lossless’ is a euphemism for negligible loss.

No, FLAC is lossless. That is to say it can render a bit perfect copy of the original file.

FLAC is 60% the size of the original file.

Not necessarily. It depends on the degree of compression used.

... once you convert to FLAC, there is no going back ...

I’m not sure what you mean here. Certainly a FLAC file can be converted to a WAV file and if that was its original format you’ll get a bit perfect rendering. (Although, of course, you’ll lose any metadata.)

+1 @cleeds

He’s correct. There is no loss and the extracted data from FLAC, ALAC or WAV is the same.

There was a period of time when at least Stereophile was promoting the idea that the decompression process itself could result in audible effects like jitter depending on the device, CPU, algorithm, etc. and that because FLAC and ALAC used different decompression methods the three (FLAC, ALAC, WAV) could actually sound different even though they held the same data. Honestly I’ve never lent that theory much credibility. It certainly is possible that poorly implemented software with highly variable CPU performance could make for poor replay experience but I’ve never actually heard that happen.

If it did happen it would be very much replay device dependent, and in the 21st century I just can’t believe devices could overlook these issues and not mitigate them.  Decompression, buffering and clock driven DAC is just not rocket science anymore.

@erik_squires, which format would you recommend that I rip CDs Eric or does it matter?