What is a FLAC file?

You may have wondered what a FLAC file is. It is a lossless compressed audio format that ensures high sound quality.

What a FLAC file is and what advantages it offers

“Flac” stands for “Free Lossless Audio Codec”, which translates as “Free lossless audio coder/decoder”.

• If you find such a file, it is an audio file, just like MP3 or WAV files. The Flac codec was developed by the Xiph.Org Foundation.

• Flac files are only slightly compressed and thus provide lossless sound – quite the opposite of MP3 songs, for example. This gives you very high audio quality with Flac.

• The Flac codec is freely available and can be used without patents, which is why it can be used on all operating systems and devices.

• Flac can also be streamed without any problems.

The small burdens of music files in Flac format

The Flac codec also has disadvantages, but they are not that serious.

• FLAC files are quite large. Compared to lossy formats like MP3, they take up significantly more storage space.

• This can lead to storage bottlenecks more quickly. A four-minute song in Flac format, for example, is about 20 to 30 MB. The same song as an MP3 would be about a third of the size.

• Longer download and transmission times are also an issue. FLAC files are quite large, so downloads and transfers take longer, especially with slow internet connections.

• For the average listener, the sound quality of FLAC is often no better perceptible in everyday life than compressed formats such as MP3, which in turn reduces the benefit.

How to play Flac files

If you want to play FLAC files, there are a number of ways to get the most out of lossless audio quality. Not all devices and players support this format by default, but with the right software or a simple conversion, FLAC files can be played without any problems.

• There are plenty of media players, such as VLC, foobar2000 or AIMP, that you can download for free and use to play FLAC files. They also support a wide range of file formats.

• Modern smartphones, tablets and computers inherently support the FLAC format. If this is not the case, there are apps such as Poweramp (for Android) or Vox (for iOS) that can be used to play FLAC files.

• If your playback device does not support FLAC, you would have to convert the FLAC files to formats such as MP3 or AAC using programs like Free or Audacity.