Once you get great audio files in FLAC, which is a free lossless audio code, you must get FLAC audio players to enjoy the sound or music in all its glory. Most media players only support MP3 files, which should be the best FLAC player for Windows, Mac, Android phone and iPhone.
The article provides a complete list of the best FLAC players for different platforms. Whether you want to listen to FLAC files on your computer or enjoy audio files on the go, you can always find the right solution in this article.
- Part 1: Best 3 FLAC Players for Windows
- Part 2: 3 Best FLAC Players for Mac
- Part 3: Best 2 FLAC Players for Android Phones
- Part 4: 2 Best FLAC Players for iPhone
- Part 5: Frequently Asked Questions about Playing FLAC with Free FLAC Player
Part 1: Best 3 FLAC Players for Windows
Top 1: Free Blu-ray Player
When you need a FLAC player for all video and audio formats, Free Blu-ray Player is capable of playing FLAC audio and HQ videos with high quality. Moreover, it also supports both DVD and Blu-ray discs.
- 1. Supports Dolby 5.1, DTS, HD audio and the latest playback technologies.
- 2. Play video, audio, DVD, Blu-Ray discs with original quality.
- 3. Capture your favorite snapshot when playing video files.
- 4. Various screen modes such as full, half, normal, dual and others.
Wonderful
Rating: 4.9 / 5 (176 votes)
Top 2: Audacious
A cheeky simple and advanced FLAC audio player available for Windows and Linux. It contains several great tools, plugins, flows and other features in an intuitive user interface.
- 1. Save computer resources to play FLAC files in original quality.
- 2. Create and edit your own playlist for a large collection of FLAC files.
- 3. Customize your sound with a graphic equalizer or experiment with effects.
- 4. Advanced plugins for downloading lyrics, setting alarms in the morning, etc.
Top 3: Foobar2000
Similar to other FLAC media player for Windows, you can play FLAC, MP3, CD audio, WavPack and other audio and video formats with Foobar2000 . The latest version is also updated with the latest UPnP playback code to listen to files from other devices.
- 1. Fully support playback mode and pause-free playback during audio playback.
- 2. Advanced tagging options to resume playback with ease.
- 3. Support audio CD ripping and transcoding of all supported audio formats.
- 4.Easy to customize UI layout and keyboard shortcuts.
Part 2: 3 Best FLAC Players for Mac
Top 1: VOX Player
VOX Player is a professional FLAC player for Mac for transferring Hi-Res audio files. Simply listen to your favorite artists losslessly and with clear audio. It is a completely free for public audio player that everyone can enjoy FLAC with high quality.
- 1. Save and play all converted files in original quality.
- 2. Integration with a number of other online music streaming sites.
- 3. Access over 30,000 different stations using the built-in radio app.
- 4. Unlimited cloud storage to play FLAC audio from Mac, iPhone, etc.
Top 2: VLC Media Player
As a universal media player, VLC Media Player supports lossless FLAC natively. It is a useful tool that works with Windows, Mac, Android and iOS. This should be a good FLAC player if you need to handle multiple videos and audios, including the FLAC format.
- 1. Extract FLAC audio from video files or convert audio files to FLAC.
- 2. Stream FLAC files and other audio and video files over the Internet.
- 3. Record your computer's audio files to FLAC files or video formats.
- 4. Remote control for playing video and audio files from the browser.
Top 3: AIMP
AIMP is another free FLAC player for Windows. Apart from crystal clear audio for FLAC, you can also access a large number of file formats and playlists. This allows files to be played in a queue.
- 1. Get minimum consumption with maximum functionality.
- 2. Sensitive equalizer and other flexible program settings.
- 3. Expand your FLAC player with advanced plugins.
- 4. All creation of bookmarks and has a playback queue of audio files.
Using virtual players
Before using software players and coming to an understanding of how to open .flac, you need to realize that the codec itself implies very high sound quality. In particular, you will almost never see a composition encoded with a sampling frequency of 44100 (or even 48000) Hz and a quality of 320 kbit/sec. Standard audio in the same .mp3 format has a quality of 44100 Hz/16 bits.
Of course, if you are not a professional musician, the difference will not be particularly noticeable by ear. But any professional, hearing the frequency response, will immediately understand the difference in sound.
There is also the question of how to open .flac, which may come down to the fact that there is no division into tracks in the standard version without the corresponding codec. All information is presented in the form of a single file (.flac or .mp3). If the player installs its own codec, you can listen to each song separately.
These products include the most popular players such as WinAMP or AIMP. The second software product, however, is preferable because it works with the .flac format as with a regular playlist created in the same WinAMP player. Simply put, the program is capable of splitting a single file into its constituent tracks.
Part 3: Best 2 FLAC Players for Android Phones
Top 1: Pi Music Player
Pi Music Player is one of the best FLAC players for Android to satisfy all your music needs. You can easily browse all your music files using the advanced folder view in the audio player. Moreover, Pi Power Share allows you to share FLAC across different platforms.
- 1. Built-in 5 equalizers with bass boost, 3D reverb effects, virtual, etc.
- 2. 25 stunning backgrounds for the glossy theme with in-app purchases.
- 3. Ringtone Cutter to accurately cut any MP3 to make your default ringtone.
- 4. The most minimalistic and excellent FLAC player to watch FLAC audio files.
Top 2: PowerAmp Player
PowerAmp Player A powerful FLAC audio player for Android that works with most audio formats and even some video formats. It includes crossfade, no skipping, playback boost, Chrome-cast support, dynamic queuing, and even playback of songs from folders/own library.
- 1. Graphic equalizers optimized for 10-band, for all file formats and presets.
- 2. Unique direct volume control for extended dynamic range and deep bass.
- 3. Several widgets with many selectable styles, advanced settings.
- 4. Headset support, automatic reconnection of headset and/or BT.
How to set up FLAC playback over DLNA?
Good afternoon
Brief question: store FLAC files on a PC or NAS (Digital Media Server), play on a receiver (Digital Media Renderer), manage playlists, playback from an Android mobile/tablet (Digital Media Controller) - has anyone done this? What software and settings can you recommend?
And now more details.
I'm asking for advice on organizing the storage and playback of digital music.
Given: 1. Denon receiver with the ability to play music files and playlists (m3u, wpl) from DLNA-compatible servers, including PCs and storage devices (NAS), on my network. Also supports external control, incl. from mobile devices: native HEOS applications, Denon remote and third-party applications, for example, Hi-Fi cast. The receiver is connected to the home local network. 2. There is a collection of music on the PC hard drive (Windows 10 OS), mainly Flac 44/16 large files with CUE markup, some flac hi-res and dsd.
I would like to: 1. Play music files from the PC’s HDD on the receiver and, if it turns out convenient, buy a separate NAS for them.
2. Control playback from your Android mobile in a convenient player-type interface (I use AIMP as the latest - I like it): creating and editing playlists, rewinding, reading CUE files breaking the album into separate tracks, setting up sorting and grouping of tracks/albums (alphabet, year, styles, folders, artists, etc.).
I don’t want to: 1. Buy extra. iron.
2. Change the FLAC music library into separate files using CUE splitter, etc. BY.
Difficulty: I tried to solve it with minimal measures, launch the built-in Windows / WMP DLNA server, connect to it with the HEOS application from the receiver manufacturer. There is sound, but it is impossible to use: mobile. The HEOS application sorts compositions only alphabetically, there are no groupings, and WMP DLNA gives FLAC without cutting into separate compositions according to CUE.
What did you do. I tried different software by searching/googling and settled on an intermediate option:
• DMS (Digital Media Server): Home Media Server https://www.homemediaserver.ru... with flac transcoding profile https://hms.lostcut.net/viewto... • DMC (Digital Media Controller): Hi-Fi Cast for Android https://play.google.com/store/…
I can’t settle on this option: • Due to transcoding on the Home Media Server side, rewinding within FLAC compositions does not work. • Transcoding in HMS seems to affect the sound of some FLACs. • Hi-Fi cast is inferior in the flexibility of setting up playlists to conventional mobile players (AIMP, foobar etc).
Has anyone solved a similar problem? What can you recommend, especially regarding software?
Part 4: 2 Best FLAC Players for iPhone
Top 1: Golden Ear
As a FLAC player name for iPhone, Golden Ear is capable of playing most lossless audio formats such as FLAC, APE, WAV, WavPack, AIFF and ALAC. It has a rich set of playback themes to enjoy FLAC audio files according to different requirements.
- 1. Play supported lossless audio formats up to 24bit/96KHz with high quality.
- 2. Supports CUE and LRC files with recommended UTF8 encoding.
- 3. Multiple editing tools to create, rename, delete folder and loop songs.
- 4. Recognize embedded artwork and comment tag inside FLAC files.
Top 2: Tonido
Tonido is a personal cloud with streaming access to all your data and media. FLAC Player for iPhone lets you access your entire collection of music, movies, photos, and documents you've saved. You can also download FLAC videos with the program.
- 1. Stream your entire music collection in FLAC, OGG, WMA and more audio.
- 2. Wirelessly download files directly to your iOS device and access them offline.
- 3. Create and manage music playlists for your music on iPhone.
- 4. Remote access to FLAC files for different devices.
Part 5: Frequently Asked Questions about Playing FLAC with Free FLAC Player
1. Is FLAC the best audio format?
FLAC is an acronym for Free Lossless Audio Codec. This is a popular lossless format. The sound quality is higher and better than other audio formats such as WAV and AIFF.
2. Can VLC play FLAC files?
Yes, VLC Media Player is an open source media player that supports playing FLAC files. Simply open VLC Media Player and click "Media" to "Open File" to import the FLAC file for playback.
3. Is FLAC better than MP3?
A FLAC file is a lossless audio format. Well, MP3 is a lossy format. So FLAC is technically better than MP3 in terms of quality. But FLAC files are about 6 times larger than MP3. When the two file formats remain the same quality, MP3 file size is smaller than FLAC.
How to open flac?
The mp3 format, in which audio files were recorded, was very popular. But, despite its great popularity and recognition, it could not boast of high sound quality, which suffered when the file was compressed. Now a new flac format has appeared and a logical question has arisen: if the music file you downloaded is recorded in this format, how to open flac and what programs are suitable for this purpose? The presented material offers several options for solving the problem.
What is flac
The name of the FLAC format can be deciphered from English - Free Lossless Audio Codec, which means free lossless audio codec. Now it is very popular all over the world, as it allows, unlike AAC, MP3, and Ogg Vorbis, to record and store audio information without removing anything from the audio stream. The listed formats suffered from such quality losses. Therefore, flac, which provides the opportunity to listen to music without distortion, began to find more and more supporters. It is suitable for many audio applications and is compatible with all operating systems. Using a convenient format, you can create archives and listen to music daily. When thinking about how to open the flac format, it is sometimes difficult to imagine that there are many programs that can be used to play files in the named format, or there is the possibility of transcoding them into a form convenient for you. Let's take a closer look at the players.
Programs for playing files in flac
There are a considerable number of applications that can read files in the flac format. For example, VLC media player, a program remarkable in its qualities. It is distributed free of charge and is very easy to use. After downloading the player from the Internet, you need to install it on your computer; in the window containing the “File Association” menu, there should be a checkmark next to flac. After that, click “Next”. The program for opening flac is installed on drive C by default. After that, launch the player and select “Open file” in the “Menu.” Then you need to find the file recorded in flac format and click on the “Open” button.
Winamp has been popular for a long time. If you prefer it, you will need to install a plugin to read the format to play flac. When choosing how to open flac, you can opt for Windows Media Player, but the program will need special filters - Illiminable or CoreFLAC. Thanks to the developments of Russian programmers, the AIMP player was created, which combines the best characteristics of audio players. The player has a built-in converter with which you can convert information to other audio formats, it has a sensitive equalizer and the ability to work with multiple playlists. In addition to the thirty-seven formats that the AIMP player supports, it also reads files in the flac format.
When discussing programs to open flac, one cannot help but dwell on the Foobar 2000 player, which, having a modest interface, is capable of supporting almost any audio format. The Media Jukebox 12 media player is widely used abroad, capable of working as a music center and being an organizer of media files. This software has become free and is now beginning to circulate among domestic users. The multimedia player KMPlayer is suitable as a universal tool for playing flac format.
If you need an audio file editor, then a program that works with the flac format, Adobe Audition, is perfect.
The best format for playing music is flac. There is always an optimal way to open it. For example, modern DVD players. They are equipped with universal firmware, thanks to which they are able to support files of many formats. The flac audio file can be written to a flash drive or laser disk. It is better to play it on a computer if your TV does not have a connected speaker system. The flac format has a rich spectrum of frequencies, the number of which is much smaller in files with other extensions. Therefore, very high quality audio equipment is required. If you don’t have one, then you can convert a flac file to mp3, for which a program such as Format Factory is suitable. When converting, you need to set the sampling frequency to the highest. This will maintain sound quality.
