FLAC On A Mac

HD Tracks specifically addresses the FLAC to MAC issue...
http://www.computeraudiophile.com/content/How-Convert-HDtracks-FLAC-High-Resolution-Downloads-and-Add-iTunes-Video-Commentary

If you have a DAC, you can play your FLAC audio using VLC Media Player. a fairly good quality player that pretty much plays anything you throw at it. and did i mention it's free?

You can also play FLAC files natively on a MAC using Songbird.

Puerto,
If you want to play FLAC files using a USB or Firewire converter or DAC, or directly from the MAC, I would highly recommend using XLD to convert these files first to .wav. You will find that the sound quality of the .wav is superior, not because the FLAC decoding is flawed, but because these decoders simply cannot keep-up in real time with the datastream. Same for AIFF.

I know saying this that I will get a lot if flac from the posters here, yet I know it to be true. I recently was in my room ar RMAF playing a 44.1 track of Steven Stills "treetop flyer". Great track, but it was given to us in FLAC format. one of my roommates said it would souind better as .wav,a and I said no way. Anyway , I converted it from .wav to FLAC and played both tracks.

The FLAC track was like listening through a tunnel. The .wave file was open, airy and natural. I am a believer now. One show attendee in the room said "shit, my entire library is FLAC, I dont want to hear this"

To hear these differences, you will need a truly resolving system. Ours was.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio

Depends on your operating system. I did the same coparison with my Linux music server and no audible difference were heard between FLAC Vs WAV.

If you have enough CPU power and a good decoder, there is no reason to hear any difference. The only issue that may come to mind is a very poor implementation of the audio streaming that have the decoder and the streaming interface fighting for CPU cycles, resources or interrupts.

Saying that WAV is better than FLAC is a wrong blanket statement.

Have fun testing!