FLAC Codecs Supported Players

FLAC stands out as the fastest and most widely supported lossless audio codec. Here, we have tested and marked a lot of FLAC players which provide FLAC codec, and got a fairly conclusion on these programs. Who are the top three?

• Top Winner: Foobar2000
• Runner Up: FLAC for Windows
• The Third: XPlayer

* The ranking might change from time to time since new software programs are bursting into the market and existing ones are getting updated. You can bookmark this page:

Foobar2000 is a freeware audio player for Windows developed by Peter Pawlowski, a former freelance contractor for Nullsoft. Featuring a minimalist interface, it also has many features for metadata support and high-quality audio output.

Foobar2000 contains FLAC codecs, so, you could play FLAC musics easily. It also supports : WAV, AIFF, VOC, AU, SND, Ogg Vorbis, MPC, MP2, MP3, MPEG-4 AAC, and Monkey's Audio, WavPack, Speex, CDDA, TFMX, SPC, various MOD types; extraction on-the-fly from RAR, 7-ZIP & ZIP archives

Foobar2000 is an advanced audio player for the Windows platform. It uses a plain and simple UI - no skins, no fuss. Filesize is 200 kb, while in playback mode the player approximately consumes 1.9 Mbyte of your RAM which is so much less compared to Winamp or MS Media Player.

Foobar2000 is editors' top choice!
	(2.68 MB)

What is a FLAC file?

FLAC files are lossless audio files that preserve the full quality of the original audio source. FLAC files can be made from live concerts, CDs and other recorded music, or just about any kind of audio you can imagine. The beauty of FLAC is that the format itself is free, without any underlying patents, plus the audio is compressed but maintains all the full quality of the source audio. FLAC is currently quite popular, and is used by many people to archive their entire music collection in digital format. FLAC is an acronym for Free Lossless Audio Codec and its file extension is .flac

Another benefit in using FLAC files, is that you can easily transcode to another audio format (i.e. MP3 or M4A/AAC) at any time. Since FLAC is an open, free format, this ensures your hard work in digitizing your audio collection from records and CDs will be accessible for years to come.

The FLAC file format and specifications have been released to the Public and may be freely used without payment of any licensing royalties. To better help FLAC's acceptance, FLAC is under the Xiph.org banner of audio codecs, which includes the popular Ogg Vorbis lossy audio file format.