Recently on a forum the old argument about whether wav files sound better than flac files came up once again.
My view is that wav files DO sound better than flac, but quantifying the difference is something I can't easily do. It's not as if the bass is tighter and better defined or the treble is airier or that the sound staging is more 3D with better imaging.
Wav files just simply sound better, more natural and organic , I don't know why, I just enjoy the sound of wav, all things being equal.
But the difference is minimal at least, and probably invisible to most listeners. I imagine good equipment and ears with a lot of listening experience would be required to reliably pick the difference, although I suspect it is something that is more intuitive than critically heard. Perhaps we are using some 6th sense as instruments can't seem to detect the difference easily.
My rating of digital file quality goes something like this:
(1) DSD native files played back on DSD capable equipment.(No PCM conversion)
( 2) 352Khz wav files, played back on 352khz capable equipment, natively, no down sampling.
(3) wav files, upsampled with software to 352Khz, played back on 352Khz capable equipment.
(4) flac files, processed as (3)
(5) mp3 files, processed as (3)
(we'll ignore the Mac friendly AIFF,ALAC files for the moment)
But there is a factor that determines sound quality that has a far greater influence than the type of file, and that is the quality of the recording. A properly recorded and mastered mp3 will sound a hell of a lot better than a poorly recorded DSD.
I've had a few audiophiles in my listening room in raptures about the sound, not knowing they were listening to a mp3.
The majority of my digital files are flac, with a roughly equal amount of DSD,wav and mp3. A few apes and aiff,alac on my Mac system , only rarely used.
All things being equal, I would purchase digital files as wav files but the difference in sound quality is so minimal it's just not worth the effort to maintain an all wav collection and transferring a a flac or mp3 to wav won't make it sound better.
What I did find interesting about the debate on the forum was that one of the protagonists arguing that wav was superior, uses what I consider an "interesting" system.
The system uses tube amps with very low damping factor and when I heard the amps and speakers I was not surprised by poorly defined, booming bass that was more typical of a boom box than an evolved hifi system.
To argue that a type of digital file is better than another when using such an inaccurate system for resolving the difference seems a bit misconstrued to me.
