Wow -so happy!

[garym]

Did you and your friend compare WAV and FLAC double-blind? And after disabling replaygain? I have and couldn't detect any difference. You can say that my system isn't explicit enough, or my ears are too diminished, or I don't know what to listen for. And I can say that any FLAC transcodes to an identical WAV, and vice versa, which is easily demonstrable.

If you haven't done a double-blind comparison, you owe it to yourself. Software for doing so -- quite easily -- is available in the attics of this forum: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showth...esting-Support

foobar2000 has a very easy to use ABX component as well for double-blind testing, volume matched.

[Soulkeeper]

sometimes when 'beginners' mention WAV they are bombarded by 'experts' or 'senior members' who say noooooooo never dont do it.

Yes, and do you know why that tends to happen? That's because using WAV in a Squeezebox system is generally a stupid idea. The "experts" and "senior members" know that it is a stupid idea, so they try to help the "beginners" to avoid it.

All I wanted to say was yes, it IS possible - give it a go and see for yourself.

Using butter to lubricate engine parts is also possible. But don't give it a go and see for yourself. Because that would be stupid.

If someone wishes to do something a particular way, then why not help them along that path.

Because if that particular way is a particularly stupid way, "helping" them along that path would border on the unethical.

I am simply an advocater of WAV as a file format because I listened and had a preference ......

Your personal preference is not an adequate reason to advocate suboptimal solutions in a public forum, IMO. Subjective whims are generally worthless to everyone except the person whose whims it is. I may start respecting your advice when you can back it up with facts, or at least with something better than "because I feel like it".

[iquadius]

Yes, and do you know why that tends to happen? That's because using WAV in a Squeezebox system is generally a stupid idea. The "experts" and "senior members" know that it is a stupid idea, so they try to help the "beginners" to avoid it.


Using butter to lubricate engine parts is also possible. But don't give it a go and see for yourself. Because that would be stupid.


Because if that particular way is a particularly stupid way, "helping" them along that path would border on the unethical.


Your personal preference is not an adequate reason to advocate suboptimal solutions in a public forum, IMO. Subjective whims are generally worthless to everyone except the person whose whims it is. I may start respecting your advice when you can back it up with facts, or at least with something better than "because I feel like it".

you know what guys, I shall bow out to your obviously superior mind set and run away and hide with my tail between my legs for daring to have a viable alternative to the norm. You may call me or my idea stupid if you like and I will even doff my cap to the ridiculous butter in the engine analogy because it made me chortle ........ but

my personal preference is indeed an adequate reason to advocate an alternative solution, it has performed flawlessly for me for several years and that is all I wished to convey to the person who asked the question in the first place. This is indeed a public forum and as such requires a live and let live attitude, it merely is a platform that lets us all inform each other of our respective experiences I am therefore disappointed that a few of you felt you had to exercise your egos in a public berating .......... hey maybe if the BBC was aware of your definitive expertise on the matter they may have chosen a format other than WAV also. I guess they made their on minds up too based on experience ..... how dare they!

[garym]

you know what guys, I shall bow out to your obviously superior mind set and run away and hide with my tail between my legs for daring to have a viable alternative to the norm. You may call me or my idea stupid if you like and I will even doff my cap to the ridiculous butter in the engine analogy because it made me chortle ........ but

my personal preference is indeed an adequate reason to advocate an alternative solution, it has performed flawlessly for me for several years and that is all I wished to convey to the person who asked the question in the first place. This is indeed a public forum and as such requires a live and let live attitude, it merely is a platform that lets us all inform each other of our respective experiences I am therefore disappointed that a few of you felt you had to exercise your egos in a public berating .......... hey maybe if the BBC was aware of your definitive expertise on the matter they may have chosen a format other than WAV also. I guess they made their on minds up too based on experience ..... how dare they!

you are certainly welcome to your opinion, and can state it here as much as you wish. But given that it is a public forum, those with different opinions can state theirs as well. That's how it works. You have to have a bit thicker skin to post on public forums. And we do try (although it has been hard the last couple of years) to backup personal opinions with facts, science, and engineering. But again, you're free to post whatever you'd like. If you think folks here are to stringent about this, try posting your opinions over on hydrogenaudio.org. Then you'll think we're quite nice and accepting over here.

Nothing wrong with using WAV if you choose to. There are reasons not to, and that's what people are posting. But as you said, it's a public forum. But the BBC does not stream anything in WAV. And if they keep their archives in WAV, it is probably because they started doing this long ago, BEFORE lossless codecs existed and the only choice was WAV.

[JJZolx]

you know what guys, I shall bow out to your obviously superior mind set and run away

Read my posts again. I couldn't care less whether you consider WAV format to sound superior. That's your choice. Great. What I'm saying is that with Squeezebox you can listen to WAV (PCM) without actually having to keep the audio data in WAV files. There is no advantage at all to using WAV _files_.

[aubuti]

you know what guys, I shall bow out to your obviously superior mind set and run away and hide with my tail between my legs for daring to have a viable alternative to the norm. You may call me or my idea stupid if you like and I will even doff my cap to the ridiculous butter in the engine analogy because it made me chortle ........ but

my personal preference is indeed an adequate reason to advocate an alternative solution, it has performed flawlessly for me for several years and that is all I wished to convey to the person who asked the question in the first place. This is indeed a public forum and as such requires a live and let live attitude, it merely is a platform that lets us all inform each other of our respective experiences I am therefore disappointed that a few of you felt you had to exercise your egos in a public berating .......... hey maybe if the BBC was aware of your definitive expertise on the matter they may have chosen a format other than WAV also. I guess they made their on minds up too based on experience ..... how dare they!

Who is exercising his/her ego in a public berating now? Jeez.

"The person who asked the question in first place" never even asked about WAV vs FLAC. The OP was already using WAV, just like you. When you dredged up this 3-month old thread to convey your preferences and ask "Why does everyone try to put people off using WAV?", we explained why we think FLAC is preferable. Just because people don't agree with you mean they are attacking you.

Meanwhile, you've chosen to ignore some of the substantive questions raised (what tagging software do you use, have you DBT'd FLAC vs WAV with volume matched, etc) that may have led the conversation in a productive direction. Oh well, enjoy your WAVs. Sincerely.

[garym]

Meanwhile, you've chosen to ignore some of the substantive questions raised (what tagging software do you use, have you DBT'd FLAC vs WAV with volume matched, etc) that may have led the conversation in a productive direction.

not to mention probably the most important issue of ripping with WMP (to any format, Wav or otherwise). It is not known as a secure ripper and doesn't inform the user when there are errors in ripping...it just creates the output files and moves on (at least that used to be the case....google for plenty of info on this). The good news is that, say, 95% of the time the rips are secure no matter what. But the 5% troublesome rips are hidden from the user when using WMP. That's why I mentioned PerfectTunes (by Illustrate/dbpa) as a way of doing after the fact checking of existing rips against the AccurateRip database in order to confirm bit-perfect rips.

[toby10]

Most people use WAV because they don't know any better so the "experts" chime in to help the beginners to learn of other (and usually better) solutions. Same if the beginner were to post they are using WiFi b and/or WEP security. Will these work to stream music via SqueezeBox? Sure. Is it recommended by those who know better? No, and they post accordingly.

[Mnyb]

Also if you think WAV sounds better than flac .

the overwhelmingly likely explanation is some kind of bias/placebo effect .

There can be a technical reason like if the flac had repaly gain tags and did not play at the same volume if smart volume was on.

And as JJ stated it is no piont to actuaylly have WAV files as the server can be forced to stream your flac file as WAV ( an in itself daft idea but possible ) .

So why some off us like to react on this is that there are probably 1/100 lurkers vs members ratio that reading our treads .
And WAV vs FLAC is one off thoses audiophile fairy tales that simply is not true and it (and the others ) needs to be met with some healty second opinions as the majority of audiophiledom is some kind of new age cult these days.

For further reading I suggest the TAS computer audio tread in this forum .
TAS had made an effort to muddy the waters completely in a completely ridiculous series about computer audio ( they don't understand the subject at all ) and sadly technically ignorant audiophiles gets there " information " from sources like this ?
Most audio forums are usually a torrent of bs to .
For actual facts about file formats and ripping the hydrogen audio forum is very reliable .

I can get a bit grumpy because the flood of mumbo jumbo that exists on this forum has washed away many talented and good forums members that have contributed a lot over the years , they don't bother to post anymore .

I feel that it is not long before only crackpots comparing different silver mains leads etc are the only ones left .
And that would kill the forum as the more coherent members actually does some beta testing and provide valuable info back to Logitech .

[garym]

I can get a bit grumpy because the flood of mumbo jumbo that exists on this forum has washed away many talented and good forums members that have contributed a lot over the years , they don't bother to post anymore .

I feel that it is not long before only crackpots comparing different silver mains leads etc are the only ones left .
And that would kill the forum as the more coherent members actually does some beta testing and provide valuable info back to Logitech .

+1