I love FLAC for archiving, and have used it also for playback quite successfully (esp Foobar 0.8.3), even with the fact that I ripped to large FLAC album files and use CUE sheets (EAC -> Copy Image and create cuesheet, then used FLAC front end to encode; long story but it's fine). I now want to convert most/all my archived FLAC/CUE albums to WAV (cuz I think I hear a slight sonic improvement) and have them as individual track files (so many front-ends can't deal with CUE sheets). I'd also love to do this batch.

Why not use Foobar? One, I can't seem to figure out how to batch these up, except per playlist...but most importantly, because I've read on this forum that Foobar's wav extraction is inaccurate if presented with certain cue sheets that might have index zeros, etc. Also, I've tried DBPowerAmp batch facility but it just converts whole album to whole album (at least that's all I can make it do). FLAC front-end does same.

My only solution, other than Foobar, is to use FLAC front-end, decode into a folder that holds the orginal wav-related cue sheets, then use Daemon Manager to load the image and have iTunes, etc import it as wav. This is cumbersome and lengthy.

I know I'm missing an obvious choice, or am splitting hairs with Foobar's convert inadequacies, but my system is highly resolving and I'd like to create bit-perfect if possible.

BTW, I've searched but come up with only the above mentioned non-solutions.
Thx
Ted

You'd be sorely mistaken.

If you're happy with the command line ACDIR will split FLAC's with a cuesheet, and can prepend any TRACK 01 INDEX 0 audio to the first track (which is the best I know of).

If you want to split to tracks, fine; but don't do this because you think WAVE sounds better, please!

You can't hear a "slight sonic improvement" from going from FLAC to WAV. FLAC is lossless, and unless the files were encoded with errors, there will be NO (let me repeat that) NO difference between the FLACs and the WAVs. Period.

Edit: I have to get up pretty early to beat Synthetic Soul.

Thanks, but I'm not the only one who's heard subtle differences (maybe not the actual code, maybe the extra processing...dunno). nevermind that issue. I'm still interested in figuring out how to batch up a bunch of FLAC albums and have them converted into multiple wav files with tags associated from the original CUE sheet. Cue Splitter only does the splitting, not the converting. So far Foobar doesn't seem to carry the cue info along (weird), despite it's alleged inaccuracies.

I'm not pc illiterate but I honestly don't know/remember the basics of command line stuff....but I can find a primer online, I'm sure, if that's my best bet. What is ACDIR?

Audio CD Image Reader (ACDIR) is a command-line tool for converting audio CD images into another format such as WAV, MP3, MPC, Ogg Vorbis, etc. This tool can:

• parse a cuesheet (*.cue file or the one embedded into an audio file)
• read the audio data (supported format: Microsoft Riff WAVE, etc.)
• decode the compressed audio data (supported format: Monkey's Audio, FLAC, WavPack )
• extract individual tracks to Microsoft Riff WAVE files
• for each track, call an external encoder with a configurable command-line argument (e.g., setting output files, adding tag information, etc.)
• send the actual PCM data to the STDIN of the external encoder
• enumerate cuesheets recursively under a directory
• process multiple cuesheets
• skip encoding when the output file exists (useful for encoding newly ripped CD images)

surely you can see that a flac decoder has to be used whether you're playing back directly or converting back to wav, and each will decode to the exact same pcm samples whether they get written into a wav file or out to the sound card.

then it logically follows that if there is any difference in the sound it must be coming from your playback software treating the 2 differently. e.g. not sure if it is still true but in winamp the EQ on flac playback used to not be applied. so people would say the EQ'd wav sounded "better" than flac.

Only one playlist is needed. Search for the cue files in Windows Explorer and drag them to a playlist. Select all files in the playlist, right-click and convert. Personally, I would do that in smaller batches, a few cue files at a time and after the conversion I would use foobar's bit-compare tool for verifying the converted files.


Please, provide exact information when you claim things like this. Provide links to the forum threads and post a sample cue file that foobar misinterprets.

In my experience foobar converts standard EAC CD image & cue files to separate track files correctly, just like a typical CD ripper would rip separate track files.


J. River Media Center can import cue tracks to its database and batch convert them to track files sample accurately. However its cue interpreter works similarly like the one in foobar, so if foobar has a problem then probably J. River Media Center has the same problem.


These programs can't tag wave files. There is no commonly accepted and used standard for tagging wave files.

Nyaochi has released Cuesheet Processor (CueProc), the successor tool to Audio CD Image Reader (ACDIR). A fine piece of software.

Indeed. I only mentioned ACDIR as I was unsure whether CueProc allows you to extract the index 0 data.

AFAIK, INDEX 00 entries should be ignored when separate track files are created.

(... or are you speaking about extracting possible, but rare "a hidden track before the track one" passages to separate audio files. I have done that manually a couple of times. However, usually those tracks are not worth the extra work. They are mostly mediocre jokes made by the audio engineers.)

Another option is to decompress the flac image to .wav. And let EAC split it in tracks by cuesheet.
Either way you will lose the tags. Wav's don't have those most of the time.

Yes, I am (and was assuming the OP was) speaking about those rare cases where hidden tracks have been inserted at TRACK 01 INDEX 00.

If you have the audio data there then I see no reason why not to keep it.

Thanks. I guess I'm stupid or misccmmunicating something here, cuz my cumbersome iTunes method certainly retains the tags (it's just not an option for 900 cd's). Maybe I'm using the wrong terminology, but when I let the FLAC front-end batch convert a bunch of FLAC files into a folder I call "decode" that folder contains the orginal cue sheet that EAC built when I ripped to wav in the first place (initially ripped to wav so I could load into iTunes for my lossy collection, then deleted wav once FLAC was encoded). When I use Daemon Manager to "load" the cue sheet onto a virtual drive, iTunes sees it as a cd and imports it and creates 12 individual wav files, each of whom have track info, name, etc. I'd love to batch up that process.

If I simply let Foobar convert my FLAC files/cue sheets (yes, I could move them into one playlist) then it converts them into individual wav files with all the same name, the name of the album....useless to me. And yes, the issue I referred to was it's hiccuping on index 0 stuff.

Thanks to all for their great suggestions. I'll keep trying, and look to EAC for at least an option to my iTunes "solution", but I'm afraid it will be a serial process...i.e one at a frickin time.

Finally, yes, you are all correct that my "wav sounds better" comment is clearly around the processing or media player, not that FLAC is corrupted. But the net is that I'm hearing more detail and a slightly less congested soundstage when I hear a wav file vs having that file decompressed on the fly.

Hey Ted,

I tend to agree with you on hearing a difference. On one of my systems, flac just wouldn't work with the upsampling I was doing...the same file but as a wav worked and sounded great. On my pc, there definately was something different about how Foobar handled flacs and .wavs when upsampling. I probably was just on the edge of resources, and that extra 3-7% made a difference. Who knows. There was one engineer who had a theory as to what could be going on that fell out of the lossless is lossless is lossless argument:

http://www.audioasylum.com/forums/pcaudio/...es/2/21105.html


Anyhow, I am not sure I understand what you are trying to do. I mean Foobar handles big wavs and cues just fine.

Why not use that as the player, since it seemd you can get flac front end and dbpower amp to create big .wavs and cues??