WMA Lossless Format

The Windows Media Audio format is one of several common lossless formats in circulation. It was originally designed to compete with the MP3 format, which lacks the comprehensive digital rights management capabilities of the WMA format. It is comparable to other proprietary lossless formats in its ability to support multi-channel audio and high-resolution recordings. WMA uses a unique compression algorithm that is sometimes argued to provide better-quality audio when compared to other lossless formats. However, because “lossless” is by definition an identical reproduction of an original source, the WMA format’s superiority is debatable.

FLAC Format

The Free Lossless Audio Codec was originally created by Josh Coalson in 2000, and has since become a common format in lossless audio reproduction. Like the Apple Lossless format, the FLAC format is open-source and free to use and augment as desired. Tools for creating and editing FLAC files are freely available. A major limitation of the format is its lack of support by many proprietary digital audio devices and applications. However, support for the FLAC format has grown considerably, particularly in the area of streaming audio.

Proprietary Versus Open-Source

The most significant different between the WMA and FLAC formats is their use, or lack thereof, of digital rights management technology. WMA is a proprietary format owned by Microsoft and requires a license to implement. Despite this limitation, it is among the most popular codecs in use, and can be played using a wide variety of devices and applications. The FLAC format has the advantage of being freely available to use, but lacks the WMA format’s far-reaching presence. Which format is preferable will always depend on the context in which the file will be used.

Audio Quality

Technically, all lossless audio codecs should provide identical audio quality. However, it is occasionally argued that the different compression methods used result in subtle differences. The WMA codec employs two types of compression to a single file, depending on the complexity of the audio it contains. The result is less compression on complex passages and more compression on less-complex passages, which is said to provide a more uniform quality than other codecs. FLAC’s compression algorithm is much simpler, compressing all of the audio in the same way. If this results in a difference in quality when compared to the WMA codec, it is likely not detectable to the human ear.