If you want to maintain the original quality of the audio (i.e. lossless), play it often and on various systems then we recommend FLAC. FLAC offers probably the best hardware and software support of any of the lossless codecs.

However, if you're a musician or sound engineer and wish to archive Wav files (such as backing up multi-track recordings or 24bit or 32bit masters) we recommend WavPack. Also, CheckWavPack is an excellent free, complimentary utility for Windows which checks Wavpack encoded audio files for errors (very useful for critical files such as source recordings or master tracks).

SOMEWHERE BETWEEN LOSSY TRANSFORM CODECS AND PURE LOSSLESS CODECS

For lossy encoding with the option to restore to the uncompressed original, WavPack's hybrid feature will also be of interest. Instead of creating a single file, the Hybrid mode "creates both a relatively small, high-quality lossy file that can be used all by itself, and a "correction" file that (when combined with the lossy file) provides full lossless restoration".

Along similar lines to WavPack's hybrid option is a new technology called LossyWAV which can substantially reduce the size of lossless files while maintaining transparency. LossyWAV is a pre-processor for lossless encoders, which rounds the LSB (least significant bit, i.e. below the noise floor) to zero, adding inaudible levels of noise and variably altering the bitdepth of the WAV file, making it easier for lossless encoders (such as FLAC, WavPack, TAK) to compress. The WAV pre-processing is lossy; the subsequent lossless encoding (i.e. to FLAC or TAK) is lossless. This lossy process has a profound advantage over "transform" codecs such as MP3, in that if you wish to transcode a Lossy.FLAC file to a Lossy.TAK file, the process is lossless, whereas transcoding from MP3 to AAC will result in additional data loss. Click here for more on LossyWAV.

LOSSLESS SUMMARY

FLAC and WavPack both offer excellent lossless compression. If you work with audio then we recommend WavPack due to its support of 32bit float streams. However, if you only listen to music then FLAC is a better choice due to its hardware support.

If your lossless music collection will never leave your PC (i.e. you'll transcode to lossy for your DAP, which is sensible) then TAK is the best solution. It has better compression rates than FLAC and WavPack and encodes and decodes very quickly.

For a complete comparison of all lossless codecs see Hydrogen Audio's comparison page.

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