Template:FAQ:Audio quality FAQ
What audio formats do the DS players support?
- DS products support
- FLAC Up to 192k 24bit
- WAV
- AIFF
- AIFC
- MP3
- AAC
- WMA (lossy)
- OGG VORBIS
- OGG FLAC
- ALAC (Apple Lossless) upto 192K 24bit (If these ALAC files were generated by an early version of dBpowerAmp the Linn DS will not recognise these. Transcode these files to ALAC using the latest version of dBPowerAmp to fix this.)
- DSD - limited to some products in a certain configuration. Check DSD Support for more informaiton
- Linn recommends FLAC.
- DRM protected files cannot be played on the DS products
Why does Linn recommend FLAC?
- FLAC is a free open format. It is non-proprietary, which means your music collection is safeguarded for the future, can be played through any open digital music player, and is not tied to a particular manufacturer or product. The specification is published for all to see. In contrast, SACD has failed to achieve significant success because it requires proprietary music content and disc players with proprietary hardware inside.
- FLAC allows even better than CD quality encoding and decoding. Linn Records provides studio master quality downloads in FLAC, at the same quality as SACD.
- FLAC supports metadata, or tags, so that useful information about a piece of music can be stored with the music; for example, album, artist, genre, cover art, sleeve notes, etc. User interfaces can make good use of these tags. Two examples of applications that support tag editing are: Mp3tag (Windows) and Tag (Mac)
- Because it is open and free, there are an extensive set of players, tools, transcoders (to convert between other formats and FLAC), tag editors, and other programs for FLAC.
