For devices that predate FLAC support
Many car stereos and portable players from roughly 2005 to 2015 play MP3 and WMA, but not FLAC. The same goes for older Windows computers with Windows Media Player 11 or earlier. If you have such a device and keep your music in FLAC, converting FLAC to WMA is one option. MP3 is usually the more universal choice, so check whether your device supports MP3 first; if it does, FLAC to MP3 may be simpler. Some people prefer WMA because a specific player handles it better, shows tags more reliably, or was set up that way years ago.
Quality and bitrate
The converter creates WMA version 2. From a lossless FLAC source, the result is a single clean encode:
| WMA bitrate | A 45-minute album | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 128 kbps | about 43 MB | fine in a noisy car |
| 160 kbps | about 54 MB | good balance |
| 192 kbps | about 65 MB | very good; the safe maximum for many car stereos |
| 256 kbps | about 86 MB | best quality, for PCs and players that allow it |
The FLAC version of such an album usually takes 250 to 350 MB.
Tags, folders and car displays
Title, artist, album and track number are copied from the FLAC into the WMA header, so car displays and players can show song names. Cover art may not be carried over, and most car stereos ignore it anyway. Many car stereos play files in the order they are stored or named, so keep track numbers at the start of each file name, for example "01 Title".
Things to watch
- Hi-res FLAC at 96 kHz or more is converted to a sample rate WMA supports, usually 44.1 kHz.
- Some car stereos read only a limited number of folders or files per USB stick; check the manual.
- Loudness often varies between albums. Running the WMA files through normalize saves you from turning the volume up and down while driving.
- iPhones, Macs and many Android phones cannot play WMA, so use it only for the device that needs it.
Keep the FLAC files as your master copy. If you later replace the car stereo, you can convert again to a more modern format such as M4A.