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FLAC is the go-to format for selling non-DSD high-resolution downloads. It's also often used for CD resolution download sales. Apple still stubbornly won't support FLAC as standard to iTunes, so sellers of high-resolution must also offer ALAC versions (mainly a sale-backend PITA, not really a PITA to convert WAV to yet another lossless format). Having used FLAC files for years, both creating them and purchasing them, I cannot hear any difference from WAV. One of the audiophile magazines, I think Absolute Sound, presented some subjective listening opinions claiming to hear the difference between FLAC and WAV played with one of the non-free playback programs. I cannot hear any difference using Foobar 2000 on Windows XP and Windows 7 platforms, Same for using the Logitech Squeezebox Touch music streamer, digital output going to my Benchmark DAC/preamp. I have most of my CD's ripped to a FLAC archive, mostly listened to across the network, either via the Squeezebox in the main system or streaming to various other devices via ethernet or wifi. -- Tom Fine ----- Original Message ----- From: "Richard L. Hess" <[log in to unmask]> To: <[log in to unmask]> Sent: Sunday, May 10, 2015 4:40 PM Subject: [ARSCLIST] Is it time to rethink FLAC ? > Hello, all, > > Peter Kurilecz posted this following article to the Society of American Archivists listserve: > > http://bit.ly/1DZo1Yn > > It is about Harvard using forensic techniques to image obsolete media and then extract the data. > > One interesting piece of software was mentioned: XENA from the National Archives of Australia. The > Wikipedia article states: > > MP3, WAV, AIFF, and OGG formats are converted to FLAC files. > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xena_%28software%29 > > Hence the subject of this post. When did FLAC files become the go-to standard? It appears that the > XENA Wiki confirms this: > http://sourceforge.net/p/xena/wiki/Setting_up_the_audio_plugin/ > > At one point (many years ago, DSpace software (or at least the Univ of Toronto implementation > thereof) converted audio to MP3. I hope they have changed their practice. > > Any thoughts? > > Cheers, > > Richard > -- > Richard L. Hess email: [log in to unmask] > Aurora, Ontario, Canada 647 479 2800 > http://www.richardhess.com/tape/contact.htm > Quality tape transfers -- even from hard-to-play tapes. > >