Below is a list of devices that support the FLAC format. So far we only have hands-on experience with the Sonos and Squeezebox; see
reviews below. Manufacturers, if you would like your product reviewed here, please
contact us.
Home stereo:
Car stereo:
Portable/Handheld:
Other
- Numark's DJ equipment like the HDX and CDX turntables with integrated hard drive and CD player, and the HDMIX mixer
- The Pico CD/DVD Duplicator
Reviews:
The main purpose of these reviews is to give an idea of how well particular devices support FLAC. Other subjective comments here are based on our general impressions and are not meant to be thorough or authoritative. We only review devices we have tested directly ourselves.
Sonos: A very slick networked audio system. Each ZonePlayer connects to an amplifier or speakers, accessing music over the network. ZonePlayers are controlled by a wireless remote with color LCD and clickwheel; they can network together wired or wireless and play in sync or independently. FLAC support is excellent; nearly the full
subset (i.e. mono and stereo files, sample rates from 16kHz-48kHz, 16-bits per sample) including all standard encoding modes are supported. Also supported: gapless playback, FLAC tags, and ReplayGain.
Squeezebox2: A fantastic networked audio player with analog and digital outputs for connecting to an amplifier/receiver. Has an easy-to-read vacuum fluorescent display, wired or wireless networking, multi-room synchronization, and a bunch of other features. The server-side software, SlimServer, is open-source, runs on Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, etc. and has an active community. FLAC support is excellent; nearly the full
subset (i.e. mono and stereo files, sample rates from 8kHz-48kHz, 16- and 24-bits per sample) including all standard encoding modes are supported. Also supported: gapless playback, FLAC tags, automatic transcoding on the server of many audio formats to FLAC for transmission to the box, and external cuesheet support (internal cuesheet support is in the works).
| Compression
modes | Channels | Sample
rates | Sample
resolution | Gapless | FLAC tags | Cover art | ReplayGain | Cuesheets |
|---|
| Sonos | 0-8 | stereo,mono | 16kHz-48kHz | 16bps | Y | Y | N | Y | N |
|---|
| Squeezebox | 0-8 | stereo,mono | 8kHz-48kHz | 16bps, 24bps | Y | Y | N | N | Y (external) |
|---|
