How do I play FLAC files?

[Trail Mixorz]

I want to listen to this album i just downloaded in FLAC but I'm not sure how. I don't want to download a lot of stuff

[EmoRarity]

Using a program that supports flac playback like VLC or Foobar. 
But really flac is give or take pointless. 

[Levent]

Using a program that supports flac playback like VLC or Foobar. 

But really flac is give or take pointless. 

and may i ask why FLAC is pointless?

[Fulgrim]

Foobar2000. It works with FLAC out of the box, and it has lots of customization.  

 

Here is my customized Foobar.

 

 

My 2nd recommendation would be Winamp Lite and this essentials pack for codecs, which includes FLAC.

[EmoRarity]

and may i ask why FLAC is pointless?

Because it takes up to much space and there are very slim improves to be had over 256kbps files. 

[Levent]

Because it takes up to much space and there are very slim improves to be had over 256kbps files. 

well i notice huge improvement over 320kbps with 900kbps+ songs and i can easily notice it (imo 60-70mb per song is not bad i can fill up like 350 songs to my 32gb sd card)

[Tech_Dreamer]

Use klite codec pack fo quick  instalation of nessesary codec, go with the standard settings, you'll get to choose between WMplayer or a media player classic , go with either (MPC is reccommended) , you will be able to play flac & a lot more as it supports like huge codec sets, give it a try & post back.

 

well i notice huge improvement over 320kbps with 900kbps+ songs and i can easily notice it (imo 60-70mb per song is not bad i can fill up like 350 songs to my 32gb sd card)

I agree, flac does provide deeper sustained bass imo that makes the audio seems more fluidy & easy to listen to regardless of file size , wav is somewhat better , but flac is somewhat good imo relatively.

[Trail Mixorz]

Foobar2000. It works with FLAC out of the box, and it has lots of customization.  

 

Here is my customized Foobar.

 

 

My 2nd recommendation would be Winamp Lite and this essentials pack for codecs, which includes FLAC.

how'd you get those parts, like album art, and separate album and artist?

[EmoRarity]

well i notice huge improvement over 320kbps with 900kbps+ songs and i can easily notice it (imo 60-70mb per song is not bad i can fill up like 350 songs to my 32gb sd card)

 

 

Use klite codec pack fo quick  instalation of nessesary codec, go with the standard settings, you'll get to choose between WMplayer or a media player classic , go with either (MPC is reccommended) , you will be able to play flac & a lot more as it supports like huge codec sets, give it a try & post back.

 

I agree, flac does provide deeper sustained bass imo that makes the audio seems more fluidy & easy to listen to regardless of file size , wav is somewhat better , but flac is somewhat good imo relatively.

Not to beat a long dead horse. But machines that can hear infinitely more then the human ear can, struggle to make a difference. 

I'm not stopping you from listening how you please, just informing you. 

[Fulgrim]

how'd you get those parts, like album art, and separate album and artist?

I followed this guy's theme.

 

https://teksyndicate.com/videos/foobar2000-theming-organization-file-operations-etc

 

You can search the web for other people's themes, Deviatart is a good way to find themes.

[Fulgrim]

Not to beat a long dead horse. But machines that can hear infinitely more then the human ear can, struggle to make a difference. 

I'm not stopping you from listening how you please, just informing you. 

Nothing wrong with FLAC, as long as it's true and not upscaled form a lower quality bitrate. I have 4TB's worth of music, and a lot of it if FLAC, if not it's 320kbps, either CBR/VBR. The FLAC does sound a bit cleaner, when using quality 7.1 headphones, or my speakers.

[Tech_Dreamer]

Not to beat a long dead horse. But machines that can hear infinitely more then the human ear can, struggle to make a difference. 

I'm not stopping you from listening how you please, just informing you. 

well, you're right in a way, but depends on peoples ears i guess, some can pick up much more details than others, i have an uncle who can't tell the difference between stock earpo that comes with the mobile phone & the sony monitor headset, altho the frequencies we different , he perceived it like the same, but for me it was like switching from 360p to 1080p, it kinda depends on how you hear it, doctors might say 20hz-20k khz is the limit, but when audio goes below of beyong that point it depends on the persons ears,

[Doopywoopy]

I find that although I can't tell the difference between the flac recording and its 320kbps version of it, I find that on average flac files sound better than mp3s. Just because i feel like there is a better chance of it being a good recording if it is flac. If that makes sense at all

[EmoRarity]

Nothing wrong with FLAC, as long as it's true and not upscaled form a lower quality bitrate. I have 4TB's worth of music, and a lot of it if FLAC, if not it's 320kbps, either CBR/VBR. The FLAC does sound a bit cleaner, when using quality 7.1 headphones, or my speakers.

 

 

well, you're right in a way, but depends on peoples ears i guess, some can pick up much more details than others, i have an uncle who can't tell the difference between stock earpo that comes with the mobile phone & the sony monitor headset, altho the frequencies we different , he perceived it like the same, but for me it was like switching from 360p to 1080p, it kinda depends on how you hear it, doctors might say 20hz-20k khz is the limit, but when audio goes below of beyong that point it depends on the persons ears,

Not to beat a long dead horse. But machines that can hear infinitely more then the human ear can, struggle to make a difference. 

Should also be noted that most studios don't even encode into flac, and therefore anything transcoded off that master file, is no better then it. 

So 9/10 times, the file you hearing is upscaled 320kbps and a wicked case of placebo. 

[EmoRarity]

I find that although I can't tell the difference between the flac recording and its 320kbps version of it, I find that on average flac files sound better than mp3s. Just because i feel like there is a better chance of it being a good recording if it is flac. If that makes sense at all

Totally does, better to feel better with a shotgun then wonder what its like without. 

[Fulgrim]

Not to beat a long dead horse. But machines that can hear infinitely more then the human ear can, struggle to make a difference. 

Should also be noted that most studios don't even encode into flac, and therefore anything transcoded off that master file, is no better then it. 

So 9/10 times, the file you hearing is upscaled 320kbps and a wicked case of placebo. 

I can tell if it's upscaled mate, just by listening. And just to be sure i can use a spectrum analyzer like this one --> http://spek.cc/

[EmoRarity]

I can tell if it's upscaled mate, just by listening. And just to be sure i can use a spectrum analyzer like this one --> http://spek.cc/

Not to beat a long dead horse. But machines that can hear infinitely more then the human ear can, struggle to make a difference. And those machines cost more then your house and most its contents including you. 

[Fulgrim]

Not to beat a long dead horse. But machines that can hear infinitely more then the human ear can, struggle to make a difference. And those machines cost more then your house and most its contents including you. 

Stop copy pasting that sentence mate. And what do you mean by machines struggle to make a difference?

[Tech_Dreamer]

Not to beat a long dead horse. But machines that can hear infinitely more then the human ear can, struggle to make a difference. 

Should also be noted that most studios don't even encode into flac, and therefore anything transcoded off that master file, is no better then it. 

So 9/10 times, the file you hearing is upscaled 320kbps and a wicked case of placebo. 

Not to beat a dead horse, yeah! machines do 'hear' infinitley more,

Truthfully , studios (as in real studios) record onto master files as WAV losless form , that is industry standard There is no mp3 or flac in there mp3 might be used to downsamle for portability & simple sampling, even still they do it atleat plausable bitrate with normalised matrix to make the compressed files as close to studio grade, unless it's a corner studio in "tha hood productions" the professional way for releasing a record is wav format (so called original CD quality, upto 1400-4000kbps) even that is compressed original master file is always with the producers (unreleased) with 3x the bitrate that is compared to consumer grade audio ie: wav

 

mp3 & flac is just popular nowadays becuse of portability & a compressed quality options ,

 

That being said sometimes normalised encoded mp3 files will have boosted highs & lows, here the quality headphones come into play, especially if it's  nearfield monitor. if you're outing a mp3 or a lossless format from a mobo out, the peak SNR out standard audio codec on a mobo is 96 db max (unless a specific amped soundcard is provided also ohms rating affects this as well) so difference is slight (here's where you hear people talk about they don't hear any different)

 

so yeah you're right, but you're wrong in a way..

[EmoRarity]

Stop copy pasting that sentence mate. And what do you mean by machines struggle to make a difference?

Because I'm not h.264 and I don't have his links to back up my claims presently (The joys of being passively interested by this forum) 

There are machines out there used to sample audible frequencies and output their amplitude to a chart that will look a bit like spec (That was posted earlier) The difference being that these machines are mind boggling precise and while they can and do pick up the differences, most if not all of them are out of the human audible spectrum. So to simplify what I mean, the machines hear a difference, but in the frequency/amplitudes that we can hear, there are no differences to be heard. 

 

Not to beat a dead horse, yeah! machines do 'hear' infinitley more,

Truthfully , studios (as in real studios) record onto master files as WAV losless form , that is industry standard There is no mp3 or flac in there mp3 might be used to downsamle for portability & simple sampling, even still they do it atleat plausable bitrate with normalised matrix to make the compressed files as close to studio grade, unless it's a corner studio in "tha hood productions" the professional way for releasing a record is wav format (so called original CD quality, upto 1400-4000kbps) even that is compressed original master file is always with the producers (unreleased) with 3x the bitrate that is compared to consumer grade audio ie: wav

To save space and writing times, its generally pushed to the masses in 320kbps, though some "corner studios" who run through something like Bandcamp do upload in a lossless file. At which point we could hop skip and jump through their production process and point out all the fun spots were quality was "dropped" Not that it matters anyway, only but the few super freaks out there will fail a blind a/b test anyway, at which point why bother?

mp3 & flac is just popular nowadays becuse of portability & a compressed quality options ,

Tru dat.

That being said sometimes normalised encoded mp3 files will have boosted highs & lows, here the quality headphones come into play, especially if it's  nearfield monitor. if you're outing a mp3 or a lossless format from a mobo out, the peak SNR out standard audio codec on a mobo is 96 db max (unless a specific amped soundcard is provided also ohms rating affects this as well) so difference is slight (here's where you hear people talk about they don't hear any different)

At this point I point to le super compressed song and go, hm quiet. Though when you jump in to SNR, should be noted, 80db is considered overkill. 

so yeah you're right, but you're wrong in a way..

My girlfriend and SSL are out of town and I don't sleep well, so I will probably look at this later today and go, "Lets pretend that I'm not a babbling retard."

We can go back and forth for days of the technicalities of the matter but the hard truth is that the publicly distributed file IS NOT above 320kpbs. 

(Correct any spelling, I took my contacts out before gaming and am going to bed shortly, so I can't see jack shit)

 

[Tech_Dreamer]

meh , good points, also check the graphs color gradient as well, that defines a general listener from an avid listner, they might look the same but if you look/scan closer for the collective bitrate(richness) between the two, you'll understand the point i was making, it might seem faint but that's where the magic happens for some, (notice the color fill & lack ,comparison between the two & you'll understand what i've been saying , especially @ the high freq range on your graph)

[SSL]

Yet another thread that was answered in the first post devolves into protracted inanity. Pearl clutchers might as well head to head-fi.

 

[EmoRarity]

meh , good points, also check the graphs color gradient as well, that defines a general listener from an avid listner, they might look the same but if you look/scan closer for the collective bitrate(richness) between the two, you'll understand the point i was making, it might seem faint but that's where the magic happens for some, (notice the color fill & lack comparison between the two & you'll understand especially @ the high freq range on your graph)

I see the differences (Sorta, refer to not wearing contacts maymay)

But I can not hear the difference with my $500 headphones, and I can hear the rock thats stuck in my driver side rear tire while driving. (Have yet to pull out) 

[Lays]

The differences half these people "hear" is most likely due to a completely different version of the song, remastered / mastered by someone else, recorded in a different studio etc, not because of bitrate or flac/mp3.

[NannerBeans]

Because it takes up to much space and there are very slim improves to be had over 256kbps files. 

Personally I think people exaggerate when they say it takes up a lot of space. 10MBs per song really isn't that much when hard drives have so much space now.