WAV to FLAC converter

The assumption worth testing is that a lossless format makes audio better. It does not. FLAC stores the identical samples more efficiently, so this route is a shelf decision — same audio, less disk — and nothing here improves the recording.

FLAC stores lossless PCM, but the source is already decoded: any lossy source keeps its existing loss.

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The assumption worth testing

Illustrative: Priya archives field recordings as 24-bit WAV and her backup volume fills up. The instinct is to "upgrade" them to FLAC, as though lossless were a higher quality tier. The truth is narrower: FLAC is a container for the same PCM, coded so it occupies less space. Reading it back gives you the samples you put in — which is exactly what an archive needs, and exactly what an archive cannot gain.

Once that is clear, the decision stops being about sound and becomes about storage, transfer and how long the shelf has to last.

What FLAC stores and what it does not

A WAV stores raw PCM samples behind a small header. FLAC models the same samples with a predictor and entropy coding, so the file shrinks when the signal is predictable.

Lossless means the decoded samples match the input. It does not mean the input was good, and it does not mean the output is better.
The contract this route keeps

Where the saving comes from, and where it does not

The saving depends on your content, not on the file name. A quiet field recording with long ambient passages is highly predictable and shrinks a lot; a dense, noisy mix shrinks less. No ratio is promised here, because the ratio is a property of the audio you recorded.

Questions about the archive shelf

Does FLAC sound better than the WAV?

No. FLAC is lossless, so the decoded samples match the source. It changes how the data is stored, not what the data is. Any difference you hear between players comes from the player, not from this conversion.

Can FLAC recover detail that a lossy file lost?

No. If you feed it a file that was already compressed, the loss stays. FLAC preserves what it is given and cannot invent samples that were discarded upstream.

Does the sample rate or channel count change?

The engine passes your WAV to the encoder rather than resampling or downmixing it, and probes the FLAC result to report the sample rate and channel count it measured. There is no bitrate control on FLAC output; read the report rather than assuming a rate was carried.

Is my recording sent to a server?

No. Decode and encode run in this page through a self-hosted FFmpeg worker whose assets come from the same origin. The first conversion loads the WASM core, and the page must be served over http or https.

What the encoded file is checked against

The engine does not trust the extension. It probes the source stream, encodes with the FLAC encoder, then probes the result and confirms the codec, stream type and duration before handing you the file.

Check the engine performs	What it proves
The source stream is audio	A video-only or corrupt container is refused instead of producing an empty file
The output codec is flac	The bytes you download really carry FLAC-encoded PCM
Duration matches the source within tolerance	A truncated encode is reported as a failure, not delivered
Limits: 60 MiB input, one file, 600 seconds	Oversized or long recordings stop with a clear message

Archive shelf checklist

Keep the decision small and boring, because an archive is only useful if it can be read back.

Convert one file per run; this is not a batch route, so a library is swept file by file
Keep the original WAV until the FLAC has been read back once, then retire the WAV
Do not pass a lossy file through FLAC expecting a repair — the existing loss is preserved
If a receiver cannot decode FLAC, unwrap it with the FLAC to WAV route rather than compressing it again

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