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[Valvefan]

All of my files are FLAC.  Can MC17 or MC18 convert FLAC to WAV on the fly while playing music?

I dont want to convert 12 000 FLAC files to WAV.

Thanks   ?

[Matt]

Yes.  Effectively all files are converted to WAV (which is just another word for PCM) automatically as you play.

[Valvefan]

I have  been reading in audio magazines (TAS and Stereophile) that wav files sound better than flac files.  I don't hear a difference in my system.  Is my DAC getting the same input from my flac files as it would get if I used wav files?

[Blaine78]

It's another (touchy) topic entirely why FLAC and WAV can sound different (like why cd transports, USB cables, firewire vs USB sending same data can sound different). If YOU personally don't hear a difference, save the HDD space and stick with FLAC. Rest assured, it is the same 1s and 0s getting to your DAC.

[Vincent Kars]

Sometime ago there was an article in TAS about computer audio.
One of the things they did was converting WAV1 > FLAC > WAV2
WAV2 sounded inferior to WAV1. Conclusion: FLAC ruins sound quality permanently.
Of course, this was done by listening only. They didn’t even bother (or are to incompetent) to do a bitwise comparison between WAV1 and WAV2.
IMHO if a magazine publish this type of crap, it is a totally unreliable source.

A sighted listening test is a pretty unreliable method, one in general hears all his own biases.
You can also measure. Some interesting experiments by Mitchco
http://www.computeraudiophile.com/blogs/mitchco/flac-vs-wav-vs-mp3-vs-m4a-experiment-94/
http://www.computeraudiophile.com/blogs/mitchco/flac-vs-wav-part-2-final-results-155/

[JimH]

I have  been reading in audio magazines (TAS and Stereophile) that wav files sound better than flac files.  I don't hear a difference in my system.  Is my DAC getting the same input from my flac files as it would get if I used wav files?

Yes.

[faster]

Hi Mat,

Yes.  Effectively all files are converted to WAV (which is just another word for PCM) automatically as you play.

does MC converts the whole song before start playback?

regards Erwin

[Vincent Kars]

Only if you tell it to do so
Tools > Options > Audio > Play files from memory

[Blaine78]

Only if you tell it to do so
Tools > Options > Audio > Play files from memory

That's not true. This option sends the file (e.g. FLAC) as is to memory first, and decompresses on the fly while playing.
I did request a decompress to memory before playback awhile back, but very unlikely this will happen.

[Vincent Kars]

You’re right, it is not true memory playback

[kstuart]

blaine wrote: " I did request a decompress to memory before playback awhile back, but very unlikely this will happen. "

Whatever is the actual truth, such a feature might increase sales a little...

[6233638]

I'm sure the developers know better than I do, but from what I have observed, it seems to store the file in memory, and decode to a buffer of about 40MB.
25MB FLAC file - memory increases by roughly 25+40MB. 800MB DSD file - memory increases by approximately 840MB.

With gapless playback, about 10s before the track changes, the currently playing file is cleared out of memory, and the next one is loaded in. (this is probably why memory playback doesn't work nicely over some networks)
I'm guessing that if you're not using gapless playback, and were using a 16s crossfade (the maximum if I recall correctly) it would happen a bit sooner.


I don't really see the benefit of decompressing the entire track into memory though.
Unless you have something like 64GB of memory so that your entire playlist fits in RAM, it will always have to be decoding something during playback anyway.

And I don't believe that realtime decoding has any impact on the sound unless your CPU is not powerful enough to actually decode the track - and most audio decoding is trivial for modern CPUs.
I get the impression that's the same opinion the developers have.

[Matt]

6233638 had a nice post.  The links above to the articles by Mitcho are also worth reading.

Decoding an APE High file (which generally uses stronger compression than FLAC) uses roughly 0.2% of the CPU on my computer here.  This is insignificant, and has no bearing on sound quality.

However, you can always use WAV if you disagree.  Media Center works great with WAV, including tagging.

I'm going to close this topic now.