Best FLAC converter software

[ayreman]

Which software is considered to be the best to convert FLAC to WAV? Anyone here who went through testing a dozen and eventually found the "Holy Grail"?

 

[rbbert]

What are your choices? I haven’t found any differences between FLAC, xACT, XLD and dBPowerAmp, but don’t know about “on the fly” conversion inside music playing programs. If you are concerned, I would just convert to wav or aiff before playing.

 

[ayreman]

What are your choices? I haven’t found any differences between FLAC, xACT, XLD and dBPowerAmp, but don’t know about “on the fly” conversion inside music playing programs. If you are concerned, I would just convert to wav or aiff before playing.

If you take an album in FLAC (or APE) and convert it to WAV using 5 different converters you will find that all 5 newly created WAV-versions of your album sound different. What the heck is going on here? Why do they sound different!? There are many dozens of converters out there that can do the job. I don't have the time to go through them all to find the best for the job. So, the point of this thread is to cross-fertilize, collect member feedback and come up with a list of top-three converters out there.

So my question goes to all those addicted to best: what is your favorite FLAC-to-WAV converter?

 

[rbbert]

If you use one of several programs to compare those decoded WAV files (Foobar 2000 has a free plug-in which does this; I think audiodiff maker is also still freeware) you will find that they are identical, both audibly and as data files. Before you argue that the sound is more than the bits, check out those apps. They take into account aspects of the data important to music, such as jitter and phase, they aren’t bit comparisons. If you are comfortable using an audio editor such as wavelab, samplitude, soundforge, etc, you can devise your own comparison algorithms.

As I said, though, on the fly convertors may differ. Have you asked this question at audiophilestyle.com?

 

[ayreman]

As I said, though, on the fly convertors may differ. Have you asked this question at audiophilestyle.com?

No, I have not. Why... is this the best forum to address my question to?

 

[rbbert]

Although many of the members and much of the discussion there is mundane, there are quite a few true experts in the field of computer-based music play.

As an aside, have you tried AudioDiffmaker? It allows you to compare two different files, blindly if you wish, as well as the "difference" file (if there are any audio differences between two files)