Best FLAC converter software

[plissken]

On 11/5/2020 at 12:00 AM, cappo said:

So my question goes to all those addicted to best: what is your favorite FLAC-to-WAV converter?

 

I think you meant to ask what is your favorite WAV to FLAC compressor. There is no conversion going on.

 

You should be able to take a WAV, generate an MD5 hash, FLAC compress/decompress and get the same MD5 hash.

 

I shot a video and posted it here years ago bursting this particular myth.

[plissken]

On 11/7/2020 at 12:37 AM, fas42 said:

listening to FLAC means that the conversion mechanism that uncompresses the FLAC is active at the same time as listening

 

You are making blanket statements where you shouldn't be. You are spreading misinformation.

 

FLAC heavy lifting happens on the compression. The decompression time is basically the same regardless of the compression level used. It is asymmetric in this regard. JRiver will 100% uncompress and then play back.

 

Again I shot a video and posted it here years ago showing this to be the case.

[plissken]

On 11/7/2020 at 1:25 AM, sandyk said:

I agree that although the checksums may say that they are identical, that they can however sound different even though all of your different converters show the same result, as they should.

 However, the owner of the Forum and the qualified E.Es and S/W people will insist that you are imagining the differences if the checksums are the same. 

 

Not only that Alex but I've invited you to publicly demonstrate this magical ability you posses.

[plissken]

13 minutes ago, fas42 said:

n what sense? Decompression is an algorithm, that requires processing activity to occur - digital circuitry, and time, needs to be allocated to this. Whether "heavy lifting" is needed, and the clock time to do it, is not relevant to the fact that this activity must occur, to hear the playback - of course, the decompression could occur completely prior to playback - and the WAV data be in a buffer, to be read in real time. But how would this work with a whole CD's worth of music?

 

Component and software selection are always important considerations. Very few software devs have their heads screwed on right.

 

I use JRiver for a few reasons but many have to do with their design approach: 1. They actually take advantage of computers and the ability to have gobs of RAM so they will allow buffering of entire track and album.  2. They take advantage of what ever wire speed you can provide.  3. They take advantage of CPU available by allowing you to choose to decode into memory then playback.

 

Even copying a file 'requires processing activity'. In my video decodes were around 1 second regardless of compression on rather pedestrian x86 silicon.

 

CD's are played a track at a time. Also in another video I concatenated an entire CD in Audacity, compressed to .FLAC, and in Jriver over my 10GB connection clicked play and in the few seconds that it took me to reach in back and pull the fiber the album played back in it's entirety. This was on a $69 Celeron 3350 based ASRock mainboard with 8GB RAM, W10x64 Pro, and SSD, 10GB Solar Flare NIC.

 

 

[plissken]

1 hour ago, fas42 said:

 

If the hardware and software support optimum handling, then everything's good. But if the user needs to know how to organise all this, rather than ticking a box to say, "do whatever is needed to get possible audio playback quality", then it starts getting messy.

 

Previous laptop, I had to check out various media players, find that most thrashed the CPU, while playing - pick the least 'busy' one, Media Monkey in that case - and then refine its settings in the advanced buffering dialogue, trial and error, until the best subjective performance happened. If the software can work that out itself, to some degree, then it definitely gets a tick ...

 

Wholeheartedly agree with you. M$ was the worst, it's fetching routine was bonkers busy.