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[crp62]

I'm using JRiver to rip my latest audio CD's. In the past, I've always saved rips to .wav files, believing that I'm getting a "bit-for-bit" copy of the original track from the CD.

Now, I'm wondering: 1) Is a .wav copy of a track from an audio CD an exact copy of the original? 2) Knowing that FLAC is lossless compression, but in the situation where storage space is NOT constrained, is .flac inferior to .wav? 3) Bonus: Since JRiver can also save audio rips to other formats too, are any of the non-Apple formats more accurate than either .wav or .flac as far as copying exactly what's on the CD?

TL;DR version: When storage space isn't an issue, what container format (non-Apple) most accurately reproduces what's on an audio CD ripped in JRiver?

Thanks, crp

[AndrewFG]

Most common lossless formats are WAV, FLAC, ALAC (Apple lossless), WMAL (Windows Media Lossless). Functionally they are all bit perfect. FLAC, WMAL and ALAC use less memory on storage. WAV uses less CPU on playback. Apple does not support FLAC or WMAL natively. Microsoft does not support ALAC or FLAC natively. JRiver supports them all, and can convert at any time one to another losslessly. So just relax and take your pick.

[crp62]

So just relax and take your pick.

AndrewFG:

Thanks. Relaxing now, listening to my CD rips....

[blgentry]

It's slightly complicated, but not too bad:

1.  As Andrew said, WAV, AIFF, FLAC, and ALAC are all fully lossless.  When decompressed, they all contain the exact same data.  In fact, you can transcode one to the other and back again and still have the same data.  Because they are all lossless.
2. WAV has terrible tagging support.  It's non-standard and not read by all players equally.  AIFF has better tagging support I believe, but I still don't think it's complete.  FLAC and ALAC have great tag support and can contain all of the standard tags and more. 
3.  However, MC maintains it's own database, which stores the tags separately from the files.  MC also attempts to read and write tags from the files.  Even if the files don't support all of the tags, MC stores them internally.  If you ever move away from MC, you will lose the tags that are NOT in the files.  In the case of WAV or AIFF that might be a lot of tags.
4.  Some audiophiles claim to be able to hear differences between these formats.  They've claimed this in blind testing.  I have a hard time believing it.  A prominent audio designer recently said that he only uses WAV.  When questioned about it, he was silent.  Maybe he just doesn't have time to go into the reasons or doesn't want to start a controversial discussion.  <shrug>

I use FLAC for all of my CD rips and I'm happy.  I suppose if somehow I came to believe that WAV sounded better, I could transcode all of my songs to WAV and store the tags in MC.

Brian.

[flac.rules]

The other posters summed up the formats in a good way, they all give the same sound signal, bit for bit.

However, if your goal is bit-perfect ripping of your CD, you might not attain that without a CD-drive that can overr-read into lead-in and lead-out when using offset correction. The music itself is "bitperfect", but you might miss a few samples at the beginning or end, or get the track-changes a few samples displaced. Highly academical and not anything you would ever notice, but it means you might not have a bit-perfect copy of the CD in the strictest sense of the word. (this has nothing to do with your choice of format though)

[AndrewFG]

Correct me if I am wrong but I think the "lack of tagging support" of WAV and AIFF is an urban myth from days long past. AFAIK both these formats allow one to append RIFF boxes containing an ID3v2 metadata tag. Nowadays ID3v2 tags are readable and writable by almost all players and software including MC.

AFAIK the only minor issue with having metadata tags at the end of the file, is that when the file is served via a remote stream it is sometimes not possible to random access the file, which means that the metadata is only visible at the very end of the track at the instant the track finishes playing. In that respect FLAC and ALAC are indeed "better" because the tags come at the start rather than the end. But in any case it is not an issue within MC since as Brian says, MC caches the metadata itself locally.

[blgentry]

Correct me if I am wrong but I think the "lack of tagging support" of WAV and AIFF is an urban myth from days long past.

I don't have any direct experience with this.  I suppose that makes me a bad source because I'm just repeating what I've read (many times).

Brian.

[Matt]

I think APE files sound a little better than other lossless rips.  But I'm a little partial

[glynor]

Correct me if I am wrong but I think the "lack of tagging support" of WAV and AIFF is an urban myth from days long past. AFAIK both these formats allow one to append RIFF boxes containing an ID3v2 metadata tag.

The problem is that those extra RIFF blocks can break format compatibility with players (dumbly coded ones, certainly) that don't understand them. The RIFF format all along had the ability to add INFO blocks, and reading applications and libraries should ignore any block they don't understand, but a bunch of them are (or at least, back in the day, were) dumb for various reasons, and you could make WAV files that existing applications won't read correctly. Sometimes they do dumb stuff like play them as static, or refuse to read the files at all.

I know all of that was, at one time, completely real. I do, though, strongly suspect all of this is long-since slipped into "legacy" realm though. I don't have any kind of current list for where they work well and where they don't to spit out (though I suspect that making a list like that is so impossible is some of the concern).

Certainly all modern "players" worth anything will be fine with them. But, perhaps the only "real" advantage of WAV is that it "just works with everything", even old dumb stuff. There are lots of other kinds of applications can use and accept PCM WAV file sources beyond things like "music players", so if you do tag them like you can a FLAC or APE file, then you're maybe giving up that one benefit. So... Meh?  

It is certainly a fairly crufty and old file format, written inefficiently to disk.

For the record, I use FLAC for stuff I care about, and -V1 MP3 for stuff I don't care about.

[rudyrednose]

I think APE files sound a little better than other lossless rips.  But I'm a little partial

My original rips, going back to MC9, are still APE 

[AndrewFG]

The problem is that those extra RIFF blocks can break format compatibility with players (dumbly coded ones, certainly) that don't understand them. The RIFF format all along had the ability to add INFO blocks, and reading applications and libraries should ignore any block they don't understand, but a bunch of them are (or at least, back in the day, were) dumb for various reasons, and you could make WAV files that existing applications won't read correctly. Sometimes they do dumb stuff like play them as static, or refuse to read the files at all.

Agreed. Just for info, at CD quality the bitrate is 1.4 Mbps, so even a hefty sized metadata block will be smaller in size than one second of audio. And so if you do hear short clicks or pops at the end of your tracks, it is a pretty sure sign that your player is one of those "legacy / dumbly coded" ones that are trying to "play" the metadata..

[Arindelle]

getting back to the urban myth statement ... just to clarify although WAV can handle ID3v2 metadata, it won't support a lot of Vorbis Comment fields which JR does of course. Thats a lot of info that can't be written to the file. Or am I mistaken? Of course if you only use standard ID3 tags this wouldn't be an issue.

Also, nobody mentioned that if you choose to go flac and for some reason you want to go WAV or ALAC there is no generational loss. So with the exception of potentially losing some of the tag infor, the music would still be bit perfect so I see no reason why you would not want to go FLAC for the better tag handling (or ALAC if you are really in the Apple/Ipod world) as you can revert if needed. Saves backup time too

[dtc]

For people who are worried about effects of compression/decompression for flac files, you can always use flac with zero compression. It is basically the wav data with a flac header. I am fine with compressing, but this is an option for those you have concerns. The concern most often raised is that decompressing for playback takes CPU cycles which can degrade the sound. I am not in that camp, but some are. For those, zero compression flac is an option.

[Awesome Donkey]

Microsoft does not support ALAC or FLAC natively.

If you're running Windows 10, it natively supports FLAC (finally).

[AndrewFG]

If you're running Windows 10, it natively supports FLAC (finally).

Got it.