Lossless FLAC streaming Beta

Our MP3s are of extremely high quality but for our most demanding users we're starting to roll out lossless FLAC streaming.

You can enable FLAC streaming today on a file-by-file basis. In the coming weeks we will add a global setting that will allow you to enable FLAC streaming for you all files automatically.

This feature is in beta. Do not hesitate to contact us at [email protected] if anything comes up.

About the FLAC codec#

FLAC is a lossless codec which means that, unlike with MP3, the played audio is identical to the original audio file.

FLAC supports different levels of compression which result in more CPU used when playing the audio back. We decided to use compression level 4 which is a good compromise between file size and compatibility with low powered devices. Usually our FLAC files are about 80% smaller than the original .wav files.

Caveats when enabling FLAC on Wavekit#

1. Heavier files#

FLAC files can be up to twice as heavy as our MP3 files. This means reproduction of FLAC files might not be so snappy as our MP3 streaming depending on network speed and other conditions.

2. FLAC is disabled on mobile devices#

Our MP3 files are already of extremely good quality and it doesn't make sense to burden mobile devices with heavier FLAC files.

3. FLAC is disabled on Safari and all iOS/iPadOS browsers#

During our testing we found a bug on Apple's Safari. The bug was reported to Apple. Once it's fixed, we will enable FLAC on the latest versions of Safari. This also applies to all browsers on iOS/iPadOS which internally use the same engine as Safari.