FLAC to WAV for Podcasts

Podcasters hit this specific conversion because CD rips is where the FLAC came from — a remote guest, a field recording, a clip — and FLAC is lossless but poorly supported outside audiophile software — Apple's Music app won't touch it. For a show you need WAV, so the FLAC-to-WAV step is part of the edit, not an afterthought.

Edit in WAV, publish in something lossy. Keeping the working file lossless means your cuts, levelling, noise reduction, and EQ all happen on raw samples — and only the final episode export is lossy, applied once to the finished mix.

Podcast bitrates are lower than most people assume, deliberately. 128 kbps stereo is the widely used standard, and 64–96 kbps mono is entirely respectable for pure speech — it roughly halves the download for every listener, which adds up across a back catalogue and matters to anyone on limited mobile data. Reserve 192 kbps and above for shows where music genuinely carries the experience.

Mono is the decision most worth revisiting. If your episode is voices with no meaningful stereo image — which describes most interview and solo shows — mono at 96 kbps is perceptually equivalent to stereo at 192 and half the size. Publishing stereo by default is a habit, not a requirement. And archive the lossless edit: social clips, best-of segments, and fixes should always be cut from that, never from the published file.

Disk usage barely moves — this conversion buys compatibility rather than space. Every sample makes it across intact. The only thing that changes is the container.

FLAC is the format of CD rips. It plays where it was made, but FLAC is lossless but poorly supported outside audiophile software — Apple's Music app won't touch it. WAV is the destination when you need uncompressed, edit-ready audio that every DAW and editor accepts. Expect a similar file size; the reason to convert is playback and workflow, not disk. Both FLAC and WAV are lossless, so this specific conversion is bit-perfect: every sample survives and you can go back to FLAC later without any loss.