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Why do Wav and Flac Files Sound Different?

This article is from 2016, so outfits like JRiver may have developed workarounds for the metadata/sound quality issues sussed out below. Inquiring minds want to know.

Why Do WAV And FLAC Files Sound Different?

"Based on these results, we attempted to pinpoint which section of the metadata might be responsible. Since the cover art file associated with the metadata is the largest contributor to the metadata header size, we began by examining the effect of deleting cover art prior to the WAV-to-FLAC-to-WAV conversion protocol. This proved fortuitous, as our first suspicion proved correct."

bolong
ossicle2brain's avatar
ossicle2brain
129 posts
 

and I just ripped about 400 CDs in FLAC at the "5" setting.....onto the SSD of my Eversolo A8

So now I want to A/B the rip with the original CD, because the rips sound fine to me but haven't compared them back to back.

jond's avatar
jond
5,841 posts
 

WAV and Flac sound identical to me and WAV just takes up too much space.

bolong OP
617 posts
 

The more interesting point of this article seems to be that both Flac and Wav are sonically adulterated by metadata during playback to the extent that fidelity is somewhat harmed. A significant portion of my digital library contains flac files downloaded from Allflac.com and converted in JRiver to Wav. Now that Allflac accepts only bitcoin from overseas customers I just use Quobuz - downloading their Wav files into JRiver and then burning to CD's for my transport. A useful conclusion for my situation would seem be that I not include files such as "cover art" in the download since it appears in the article's graphs to pollute the sonic data.

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