FLAC stands for Free Lossless Audio Codec, an audio format similar to MP3, but lossless, meaning that audio is compressed in FLAC without any loss in quality. This is similar to how Zip works, except with FLAC you will get much better compression because it is designed specifically for audio, and you can play back compressed FLAC files in your favorite player (or your car or home stereo, see <ahref="links.html#hardware">supported devices</a>) just like you would an MP3 file.<br/>
See <ahref="features.html">About FLAC</a> for more, or <ahref="documentation_tasks.html">Using FLAC</a> for how to play FLAC files, rip CDs to FLAC, etc.
Several new devices with FLAC support were announced at 2007 CES, including the <ahref="http://www.netgear.com/Products/Entertainment/DigitalMediaPlayers/EVA8000.aspx">EVA 8000</a> from Netgear; the awesome-looking <ahref="http://blog.stereophile.com/ces2007/107sooloos/">Sooloos</a>; Cowon's iAudio D2, A3, and Q5; the i-Station <ahref="http://www.electronista.com/articles/06/12/30/i.station.mini.dx/">Mini DX</a>; and the <ahref="http://www.mediareadyinc.com/products_MRMC.php">MediaREADY MC</a>. Roxio also recently released <ahref="http://www.roxio.com/enu/products/recordnow/premier/overview.html">Record Now 9 Music Lab Premier</a> with FLAC support.<br/>
<ahref="http://www.sonos.com/">Sonos, Inc.</a> has sent us a complete <ahref="http://www.sonos.com/products/">Sonos Digital Music System</a> for review. Aside from being just plain cool, FLAC support is excellent; see <ahref="links.html#review_sonos">our writeup</a> for details.<br/>
Two new portables support FLAC, the Meizu <ahref="http://www.miniplayer.info/miniplayer_specifications.asp">M6 Miniplayer</a> and the <ahref="http://www.gizmodo.com/gadgets/portable-media/teclast-tl29-pmp-pretty-face-pure-of-heart-198859.php">Teclast TL-29</a>.<br/>
<b>FLAC 1.1.3 released</b> Almost 2 years in the making, FLAC 1.1.3 is a <ahref="faq.html#api__release_versioning">major release</a> with improved compression, improved cover art and multichannel support, better recovery for corrupted files, many new features and options in the command-line tools, and several bug fixes. For developers, the decoder and encoder APIs have also been simplified and there is a new <ahref="api/group__porting.html">porting guide</a>. See the <ahref="changelog.html#flac_1_1_3">changelog entry</a> for complete details. If your locale does not use "." for the decimal point, <ahref="documentation_bugs.html">see this note</a>.<br/>
<ahref="http://winamp.com/player/">Winamp 5.31</a> now includes Nullsoft FLAC plugins for encoding and decoding. The decoder is based on our reference decoder plugin. However the current encoder plugin is based on a pre-release of <ahref="http://flake-enc.sourceforge.net/">flake</a> and we <ahref="http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?s=&showtopic=45013&view=findpost&p=443961">recommend to not use it for archival</a> yet.<br/>
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The new <ahref="http://www.neodigits.com/new/body/products/Xline/x5000.asp">Helios X5000</a> HD network media player from Neodigits supports FLAC.<br/>
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The <ahref="http://www.thephiladelphiaorchestra.com/">Philadelphia Orchestra</a> is making many recordings <ahref="http://www.losslessaudioblog.com/?p=109">available in FLAC</a>.<br/>
