Audio Formats - What Does What and What It All Means

As the article says, it's not open source.

FLAC is and has been around since 2001 so is firmly entrenched. Like ALAC it offers no advantages over FLAC, so why would anyone choose to use a proprietary format over a well supported open standard?

WMA is arguably better than MP3, but has also effectively failed as it's a closed, proprietary format.

Okay, I'm not talking about WMA vs mp3, so much as WMA LOSSLESS over FLAC, etc.

Saying it's a 'closed, proprietary' format, in this context, what does that even mean?
 
Okay, I'm not talking about WMA vs mp3...
I know, I was just using the example to reinforce the point.

Saying it's a 'closed, proprietary' format, in this context, what does that even mean?
I'd have thought that was pretty clear. Using the example of WMA (all types), the standard was originated by and is maintained by Microsodt. You can't get the details of the inner workings of WMA without paying MS for the privilege and being NDA'd up the wazoo. You also have to pay them a royalty on anything you sell that uses the format.

Contrast that with FLAC, which is royalty free and the full details of its inner workings are freely available from their website to anyone who's interested.

MP3 is similar in that respect, though they do charge a royalty free on encoders I believe.
 
Using the example of WMA (all types), the standard was originated by and is maintained by Microsoft. You can't get the details of the inner workings of WMA without paying MS for the privilege and being NDA'd up the wazoo. You also have to pay them a royalty on anything you sell that uses the format.

Okay.

So?

Most people will initially rip music for themselves. In Ye Earlie Dayes people would only have thought of lossless as a home-bound format, with portable being mp3 only.

Even today, I have a Fiio 3, and it'll play WMA Lossless. This suggest to me that the licensing rights to the format are far from prohibitive.

So why hasn't it taken hold?
 
Most people will initially rip music for themselves. In Ye Earlie Dayes people would only have thought of lossless as a home-bound format...
In "Ye Earlie Dayes" we had no lossless formats other than WAV. Then FLAC and APE arrived. And it was good.

WMA Lossless came along two years after FLAC, it was never going to get much traction outside of Windows. Anyone interested in lossless audio was already using APE or FLAC. You're going to switch to a new, unsupported outside of Windows codec why?

Plus it was from the "evil" Microsoft and had the spectre of DRM associated with it.

Even today, I have a Fiio 3, and it'll play WMA Lossless.
So?

FiiO make high end players, of course they'll support every format going. My Karma supports OGG, another format I've never used.
 
Most people will initially rip music for themselves. In Ye Earlie Dayes people would only have thought of lossless as a home-bound format, with portable being mp3 only.

Even today, I have a Fiio 3, and it'll play WMA Lossless. This suggest to me that the licensing rights to the format are far from prohibitive.

So why hasn't it taken hold?
On my PC I can easily rip to WMA, MP3 or FLAC.

FLAC is lossless so that's the first advantage.

I can play FLAC from my NAS through my SONOS speakers, from a hard drive attached to my PS4 and through my home cinema, on my Android phone, through my cars head unit, and on my PCs.

The PS4 only does MP3, AAC and FLAC. So that alone means that for me WMA is out.

Supported file formats | PlayStation®4 User's Guide

Music
When using a USB storage device, your music files need to be in a folder named "Music" for your PS4™ system to recognise them.
Using DSEE HX™, you can listen to certain audio files (such as MP3) in high-resolution audio. When playing background music, participating in a party, or using the text-to-speech feature, however, audio output is in 48 kHz.

  • FLAC
  • MP3
  • AAC (M4A)
 
Roon is a hardware and software technology not a music format -and what's controversial about that?
 
very well collated info on all the currently existing audio formats. I haven't come across such a concise but comprehensive explanation anywhere else online. thanks for posting. :smashin:
 
If you interest in learning about formats is to enjoy your music at its best, I’d highly recommend subscribing to this guys free mailer AIX Records

He is a Mastering Engineer with 40 years in the business who is expert in analogue, CD and true Hi Res recording. If you are an audiophile, watching it may save you a fortune.

Here are some of his conclusions, but please subscribe at AIX and make up your own mind:-
  • Experienced audio engineers listening to professional audio equipment will struggle to tell the difference between the best Hi Res and Standard Res recordings
  • 95% of Hi-Res recordings are identical to Standard Res - just packaged in a bigger box
  • How can a Pink Floyd recording mastered on tape now produce a Hi-Res format?
  • Vinyl is inferior to CD
  • Anything above 24/192 has no value even in studios
  • The label “Hi Res” means nothing
  • A remastered recording may sound better but it cannot be Hi Res
This video covers most of this......

 
Well Rob Sinden, that says it all. No format can improve on the quality of the original recording. So reissues of analogue recordings onto CD or better, can never be better than the original master tape, at best. As HiFi pundits have said for years, the source is the most important component of the audio setup.
 
Well Rob Sinden, that says it all. No format can improve on the quality of the original recording. So reissues of analogue recordings onto CD or better, can never be better than the original master tape, at best. As HiFi pundits have said for years, the source is the most important component of the audio setup.
The only thing that components can do is to enhance the original recording, in some cases it can show the flaws in the recording as well. Having owned titles on both CD and SACD the SACD is capable of showing more detail in that original recording and even the quality of the player can play a very important part. If the detail is there is can get exploited, for good or bad.
 
I will try to describe my understanding (and viewpoint) below:

There are only two formats of digital audio data.

PCM and DSD !! All of the other terms we use are about compression (lossy or lossless), the packaging of the data and the transmission of data.

DSD Wiki
PCM - Wiki

The vast majority of music is recorded in PCM and then mixed, edited and mastered in that format. PCM allows you to have different bit-depths and sampling frequencies and using software you can manipulate this data to other bit depths and/or sampling frequencies. Obviously this manipulation can not magically add additional detail that wasn't there in the original recordings.

DSD was created specifically for archiving old analogue material with no manipulation. The majority of material made available in DSD (via SACD or downloads) will have been mixed or edited at some point which means it has more than likely been through a stage of conversion to/from PCM. There is some material our there which has been recorded directly to DSD but it is rare.

MP3 and FLAC are just carriers for PCM data. As we all know MP3 works by compressing the data and throwing away some of the data using some very clever algorithms. FLAC on the other hand works by compressing data again using algorithms but in such a way that it can be uncompressed and all of the data remains in tact. ALAC is essentially the same as FLAC - except it has Apple instead of Free in its name. The benefit of using these carriers, apart from smaller files, is the ability to tag the files with data about the music.

WAV - is basically just a simple PCM file (with simple metadata and is not compressed.

There are lots of different pieces of software out there that will allow you to convert between these formats/carriers. So long as you use a lossless carrier then it does not really matter which one you use other than compatibility with hardware.

What do I use? all of my CDs were ripped to FLAC as a carrier and are now stored on a network drive. I have some music in DSD format either ripped from SACDs or downloaded from some of the music sites that use DSD. The Digital to Analogue Converter in my main music system will playback native PCM and DSD so I can play them in their native format. I convert FLAC files to MP3 for use on a USB stick in the car (with all the other noise in the car it doesn't make any difference). Any files I download that come as WAV or ALAC or AIFF get converted to FLAC. I use ROON to play back music on my systems at home which has the advantage of being able to re-sample / convert format on the fly - this is useful when playing back to devices that do not support the carriers or formats. There are are arguments on various forums about WAV vs. FLAC - with something like ROON you can get you server to decompress the data and transmit to your playback device this decompressed data. ROON has several other advantages but not necessarily relevant to this thread.

Hopefully some of you will find the above useful.

By the way I am new to the forum so be gentle with me :)

Paul
 
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I will try to describe my understanding (and viewpoint) below:

There are only two formats of digital audio data.

PCM and DSD !! All of the other terms we use are about compression (lossy or lossless), the packaging of the data and the transmission of data.

DSD Wiki
PCM - Wiki

The vast majority of music is recorded in PCM and then mixed, edited and mastered in that format. PCM allows you to have different bit-depths and sampling frequencies and using software you can manipulate this data to other bit depths and/or sampling frequencies. Obviously this manipulation can not magically add additional detail that wasn't there in the original recordings.

DSD was created specifically for archiving old analogue material with no manipulation. The majority of material made available in DSD (via SACD or downloads) will have been mixed or edited at some point which means it has more than likely been through a stage of conversion to/from PCM. There is some material our there which has been recorded directly to DSD but it is rare.

MP3 and FLAC are just carriers for PCM data. As we all know MP3 works by compressing the data and throwing away some of the data using some very clever algorithms. FLAC on the other hand works by compressing data again using algorithms but in such a way that it can be uncompressed and all of the data remains in tact. ALAC is essentially the same as FLAC - except it has Apple instead of Free in its name. The benefit of using these carriers, apart from smaller files, is the ability to tag the files with data about the music.

WAV - is basically just a simple PCM file (with simple metadata and is not compressed.

There are lots of different pieces of software out there that will allow you to convert between these formats/carriers. So long as you use a lossless carrier then it does not really matter which one you use other than compatibility with hardware.

What do I use? all of my CDs were ripped to FLAC as a carrier and are now stored on a network drive. I have some music in DSD format either ripped from SACDs or downloaded from some of the music sites that use DSD. The Digital to Analogue Converter in my main music system will playback native PCM and DSD so I can play them in their native format. I convert FLAC files to MP3 for use on a USB stick in the car (with all the other noise in the car it doesn't make any difference). Any files I download that come as WAV or ALAC or AIFF get converted to FLAC. I use ROON to play back music on my systems at home which has the advantage of being able to re-sample / convert format on the fly - this is useful when playing back to devices that do not support the carriers or formats. There are are arguments on various forums about WAV vs. FLAC - with something like ROON you can get you server to decompress the data and transmit to your playback device this decompressed data. ROON has several other advantages but not necessarily relevant to this thread.

Hopefully some of you will find the above useful.

By the way I am new to the forum so be gentle with me :)

Paul
Nicely constructed. Just one caveat, the action of digitizing ,irrespective of the resolution or data rate is lossy,to the extent that data changes below the thresholds are lost and time changes in less than the sample interval are lost. However beyond that the information can be stored and reproduced indefinitely without added noise or loss of resolution
 
Cannot understand why record companies haven't reissued discs now more people have the equipment to play them The outlay for them must be minimal
Sony a few years ago were going to increase the number of SACDs for sale. The first one was a Beyoncé release, packaged in three formats on the same disc. CD, SACD STEREO AND SACD MULTICHANNEL. Beyoncé said she wanted royalties for all three formats and was prepared to take legal action, to protect her interests. Sony never released the disc and gave up on its plans to increase the range of SACDs that would have been available.
 
Sony a few years ago were going to increase the number of SACDs for sale. The first one was a Beyoncé release, packaged in three formats on the same disc. CD, SACD STEREO AND SACD MULTICHANNEL. Beyoncé said she wanted royalties for all three formats and was prepared to take legal action, to protect her interests. Sony never released the disc and gave up on its plans to increase the range of SACDs that would have been available.
I didn't know that. Well that's it I'm not buying any more Beyoncé albums. Let me just check my collection......nope no Beyoncé albums at all. Phew.:D

Dutton Vocalion has just released a few SACD titles but again they are going way back in time and some pretty poor albums to boot.

 
I didn't know that. Well that's it I'm not buying any more Beyoncé albums. Let me just check my collection......nope no Beyoncé albums at all. Phew.:D

Dutton Vocalion has just released a few SACD titles but again they are going way back in time and some pretty poor albums to boot.

How could you live without Beyoncé albums? I'll just go and check my collection. Think they must have been mislaid!
 
Not sure which Beyonce album that was but Sony released Dangerously in Love on hybrid SACD back when they were still releasing pop SACDs.

Remember my local HMV having them. Wish I'd bought a pile given what they seem to sell for these days...
 
Great article, good info. I find it interesting that you would consider AIFF and WAV to be equivalents. WAV is a PCM containter with some limited metadata and that's it. AIFF can contain all sorts of other data besides the sounds, MIDI data, instrument designations, copyright stuff etc. Therefore I don't think they really are equivalent in the same way ALAC and WMA-lossless are.

If you interest in learning about formats is to enjoy your music at its best, I’d highly recommend subscribing to this guys free mailer AIX Records

He is a Mastering Engineer with 40 years in the business who is expert in analogue, CD and true Hi Res recording. If you are an audiophile, watching it may save you a fortune.

I've been following his work for many years. He used to be one of the most vocal proponents of hi-res recordings many years ago when hi-res was just starting out, then he gradually changed his position and now says "Experienced audio engineers listening to professional audio equipment will struggle to tell the difference between the best Hi Res and Standard Res recordings" as you pointed out.

It's pretty obvious to anyone with enough Maths/Physics knowledge to understand Shannon & Nyquist Sampling Theorem that this is the case, anything beyond 44.1KHz sampling rate for playback is completely pointless. Higher sample rates can be useful during mastering or so I'm told. The real benefit to SACD/DVD-A is their multi-channel capability, not the above-CD quality resolution.
 
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Not sure which Beyonce album that was but Sony released Dangerously in Love on hybrid SACD back when they were still releasing pop SACDs.

Remember my local HMV having them. Wish I'd bought a pile given what they seem to sell for these days.
You seriously considered buying a Beyoncé album? Or was it you wanted to buy them and save the World's ears?
 
Ha. Purely as a profit making exercise I could have made a killing. I wouldn’t have had to listen to any of them.
 

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