Does the car support FLAC?
2 Answers
Whether a car supports FLAC depends on the specific model. Some car models can play FLAC format files, while others cannot. Here are the details about the FLAC format: Introduction to FLAC: FLAC is a lossless compression format. Audio encoded and compressed in FLAC does not lose any information. When a FLAC file is restored to a WAV file, it is almost identical to the original WAV file before compression. If a car does not support the FLAC format: You can use format conversion software to convert the file format for playback. The loss after conversion is minimal, and the change in sound quality is barely noticeable. If the car's music player does not support the FLAC format: It depends on whether the player installed in the car supports FLAC. If it does not support FLAC playback, you can convert the file to MP3 or WAV format for playback. Steps to convert FLAC to MP3 using GoldWave V5.70 (Chinese green version): Extract the downloaded compressed package, find the GoldWave.exe program and open it (the software is a green version and does not require installation). Open the FLAC lossless audio file, click the "File" option at the top, and find "Save As." Click on it, select the MP3 save path, then pull down the menu for "Save as type" and find [MPEG Audio], select it. Scroll through the [Quality] menu to choose the desired parameters (Hz, kbps—the higher the value, the better the sound quality), then save. Wait for the conversion to complete, and copy the converted MP3 to the desired device.
It really depends on the model year. Newer cars can generally handle lossless formats like FLAC. When I helped a friend with their car stereo last year, I found that most Japanese cars after 2017 could directly recognize FLAC files from a USB drive, and German cars like those with Volkswagen's MQB platform played them extremely smoothly. The easiest way is to check the 'audio format support' section in the manual or simply drop a FLAC file onto a USB drive and test it in the car—if it plays, you're good. However, be aware that some older car stereos might play FLAC files but experience lag, since these are large files of several dozen megabytes.
