# Best lossless music cloud service



## PuerAzaelis (Jul 6, 2021)

Apologies if this has been discussed before. I am looking for the best music storage service online, like Soundcloud, only lossless, with no compression, which will play a wav or flac without compression ...


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## bill5 (Jul 7, 2021)

Sorry don't have one but may I ask why this matters? I'd bet a month's pay that neither you nor anyone else here (move I'm at the front of the line!) could tell the diff between a FLAC or WAV file and an MP3 of the same file 99 times out of 100, at least.


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## rrichard63 (Jul 7, 2021)

I think a lot of people still have internet connections that can't download uncompressed audio data (.WAV, .AIF) fast enough for playback in real time. FLAC would be more workable, but even that might exclude more users than hosting services want to contemplate.

Are there hosting services that have MP3 in their players but allow the user to download FLAC or WAV?


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## bill5 (Jul 7, 2021)

? FLACs are way bigger than WAVs, at least that I've ever seen.

But again really I think it's all moot.


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## rrichard63 (Jul 7, 2021)

bill5 said:


> ? FLACs are way bigger than WAVs ...


Go to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FLAC and scroll down to the table under heading "Compression Levels".


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## bill5 (Jul 7, 2021)

? Because? I've had many audio files of FLAC and WAV format; FLACs were always far bigger.


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## cygnusdei (Jul 7, 2021)

I have used clyp.it in the past, they do offer lossless streaming. 

As for compression, it does matter a lot for high frequencies. Harpsichord and cymbals sound positively ghastly on Soundcloud. I don't know what bit rate they are using, but even at 128 kbps these instruments sound pixelated.


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## Zedcars (Jul 7, 2021)

bill5 said:


> ? Because? I've had many audio files of FLAC and WAV format; FLACs were always far bigger.


Strange. I wonder what’s causing that to happen. I’ve never heard of this issue or had it myself (I’m not denying the truth of your statement). I would suggest you try doing the conversion yourself. Something sounds like it has gone wrong when compressing. May I ask what format the WAV file(s) is that has a bigger FLAC counterpart?


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## bill5 (Jul 7, 2021)

? Not following your question. WAV *is* a format. So is FLAC. FLAC files were always much bigger.


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## cygnusdei (Jul 7, 2021)

Not sure if this is relevant but WAV used to be 16-bit, CD standard only. But now you can go 24-bit and 32-bit even, and the file sizes scale accordingly.


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## Zedcars (Jul 7, 2021)

bill5 said:


> ? Not following your question. WAV *is* a format. So is FLAC. FLAC files were always much bigger.


Format: as in mono/stereo, 16-bit/24-bit etc.


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## Technostica (Jul 7, 2021)

rrichard63 said:


> I think a lot of people still have internet connections that can't download uncompressed audio data (.WAV, .AIF) fast enough for playback in real time. FLAC would be more workable, but even that might exclude more users than hosting services want to contemplate.
> 
> Are there hosting services that have MP3 in their players but allow the user to download FLAC or WAV?


Lossless streaming is becoming standard with no premium due to Apple and Amazon recently offering it and others will follow.
CD resolution using Lossless compression should be around 1Mbs which will be achievable by most. There will be compressed options also which be handy for some.


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## Technostica (Jul 8, 2021)

bill5 said:


> ? Not following your question. WAV *is* a format. So is FLAC. FLAC files were always much bigger.


FLAC 96/24 will be larger than WAV 44/16 for example, of the same audio source. 
But FLAC 44/16 will almost always be smaller than WAV 44/16.
That's the nature of compressing data, the same is seen with Zip files. 
You do need to compare the same sample rates and bit depths to have a meaningful comparison.


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## cygnusdei (Jul 8, 2021)

Anyone remember this? Pono music player/service, based on lossless 24-bit 192 kHz FLAC (compared to 16-bit, 44.1 kHz CD standard), billed as the solution to inferior MP3, but went defunct 2 years after its release in 2015. Maybe it was ahead of its time.


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## Zedcars (Jul 8, 2021)

cygnusdei said:


> Anyone remember this? Pono music player/service, based on lossless 24-bit 192 kHz FLAC (compared to 16-bit, 44.1 kHz CD standard), billed as the solution to inferior MP3, but went defunct 2 years after its release in 2015. Maybe it was ahead of its time.



Yeah, I remember that. Backed/promoted by Neil Young wasn’t it? Since a lot of people would want to pop a music player in their pockets, it’s funny no-one wanted a sharp pointy thing stuck in their crotch!


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## cygnusdei (Jul 8, 2021)

Zedcars said:


> Yeah, I remember that. Backed/promoted by Neil Young wasn’t it? Since a lot of people would want to pop a music player in their pockets, it’s funny no-one wanted a sharp pointy thing stuck in their crotch!


Maybe it reminded people of this?


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## rrichard63 (Jul 8, 2021)

Technostica said:


> Lossless streaming is becoming standard with no premium due to Apple and Amazon recently offering it and others will follow.
> CD resolution using Lossless compression should be around 1Mbs which will be achievable by most. There will be compressed options also which be handy for some.


That tells me that there ought to be answers to @PuerAzaelis 's original question, thanks. But I don't know of any either.

EDIT: @cygnusdei named one earlier in this thread: clyp.it.


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## bill5 (Jul 8, 2021)

Zedcars said:


> Format: as in mono/stereo, 16-bit/24-bit etc.


ah, of course, d'oh. I don't have any offhand to compare. They're both real big though.  I never saw a point for anything other than my own material (and even then suspect it's a waste of space!).




cygnusdei said:


> Anyone remember this? Pono music player/service, based on lossless 24-bit 192 kHz FLAC (compared to 16-bit, 44.1 kHz CD standard), billed as the solution to inferior MP3, but went defunct 2 years after its release in 2015. Maybe it was ahead of its time.


Or people just realized they couldn't hear a difference.


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## cygnusdei (Jul 8, 2021)

A related question: do people still buy CDs (or know what they look like)? 
An unexpected development from recent years is that back-catalogs of classical music recordings made their way into Youtube music, i.e. out of print stuff that you couldn't even buy 3 years ago are now freely available as streaming content. I listen to Youtube music while driving, connecting my phone to AUX with low tech audio cable and all. But I can see how serious audiophiles with hi-fi equipment at home would be interested in lossless streaming.


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## Trash Panda (Jul 8, 2021)

cygnusdei said:


> Anyone remember this? Pono music player/service, based on lossless 24-bit 192 kHz FLAC (compared to 16-bit, 44.1 kHz CD standard), billed as the solution to inferior MP3, but went defunct 2 years after its release in 2015. Maybe it was ahead of its time.



Don’t worry. Sleep Number was able to repurpose that into Smart Bed Remotes.


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## bill5 (Jul 8, 2021)

cygnusdei said:


> A related question: do people still buy CDs


No but I make them for my car, as I don't have an MP3 slot.


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