Do you know of any portable media players – or even software for Windows Phone 8 – which will allow playback of WAV and AIFF music files? I am a bit of a bedroom DJ and have lots of files I'd like to be able to play on the go, in the car etc when I can't use my laptop. I don't mind iPods but I really don't want Apple's horrible iTunes messing with music formats and filing on my PC.
Pete
This is a good time to think about the file formats you are creating and using, and which way you want to go in the future.
CD audio is stored in uncompressed 16-bit linear PCM (pulse code modulation) format. When that's moved to a computer then you usually get an uncompressed WAV (wave) file on a PC or an uncompressed AIFF (audio interchange file format) file on an Apple Macintosh. The data is the same, but the way the files are stored is slightly different. With Mac OS X, Apple started using a variant of AIFF with Intel-compatible (little-endian) byte order, so you may find that you can rename them as .wav files and play them with a WAV player. Do try this.
Although AIFF was originally developed by Electronic Arts, it's now mostly an Apple iPod thing, and you will have a wider choice of MP3 players if you only need to play WAV files.
Standard file formats
It would be a good idea to standardise on one format, and the obvious choices are BWF (broadcast wave format) and FLAC (free lossless audio codec). BWF was specified by the European Broadcasting Union in 1997 and is now supported by most standards bodies. However, BWF files use the .wav extension and are identical to ordinary WAV files except for the header information, so you can probably just stick to WAV.
Open source, royalty-free FLAC has become the de facto standard for lossless music files, so if you convert everything to FLAC, you will retain exactly the same sound quality. The main difference is that FLAC files are heavily encoded so they take up much less space than WAV/AIFF files, though they are much bigger than compressed MP3 files. For example, Miles Davis's Bitches Brew double album has about 1.4GB of WAV data on CD, which on my PC becomes 463MB in FLAC format, and 214MB in 320Kbps MP3 format.
If you switch to FLAC you will have room for two or three times as much music per gigabyte of storage without compromising sound quality. You can easily convert FLAC files to MP3 and other "lossy" formats for everyday use.
Unfortunately, both Apple and Microsoft have their own lossless file formats – Apple Lossless and WMA-Lossless – so neither supports FLAC, even though it's better. (FLAC is more efficient, seeks faster, decodes faster, and provides longer battery life.) However, many more MP3 players support FLAC: see Wikipedia's list of hardware and software that supports FLAC. Android added FLAC support with version 3.1 (Honeycomb), and Samsung Galaxy phones supported it before that.
You can try playing FLAC files on your Windows Phone 8 smartphone using Shamrocksoft's Flac Player, though some of the comments say "Doesn't work". VLC 2.1 also supports FLAC but I don't know if this is included in the "Partial port to WinRT, for Windows 8, 8.1 and WP8."
MP3 players
If you want to buy an MP3 player, then it depends how much you value sound quality. Some cheap players support WAV or FLAC as well as MP3, but people who are fussy enough to use uncompressed sound files are often fussy enough to want a better playback device, and correspondingly high-quality headphones. You need all three links in the chain to get hi-fi sound.
If you're on a budget, the Sansa Clip/Clip+ and Cowan iAudio ranges are popular choices for playing FLAC files, and they are well regarded for their sound quality. Choose one that has an expandable microSD or microSDHC memory card slot and you can carry all your music on 16GB or larger memory cards. The 8GB SanDisk Clip Zip costs £43.99 at Amazon.co.uk though you can get a Sansa Clip+ for only £34.39.
The 8GB Kubik Evo might be worth a look as it plays MP3, WMA, WAV, and FLAC files for £27.99, but it doesn't seem to be as well made as the Sansa models, judging by its Amazon.co.uk reviews. I've not seen one myself, nor have I tried any of the following hi-fi audio players …
Hi-fi players
Three hi-fi players that meet your needs for file format support are the 16GB Cowon iAudio X9 (£129), Colorfly C3 (£149) and FiiO X3 (£169.99). You may find them for less if you shop around.
Cowon is probably the best known company in the more audiophile part of the MP3 player market, though its cheaper machines tend not to have microSD card slots. The 16GB Cowon iAudio X9 supports WAV, FLAC and MP3, as well as WMA, OGG, and APE. However, it has a graphic equaliser and numerous "sound effects", which may put off purists. Also, it has a 4.3in screen, so it probably has more appeal as a portable video player.
The Colorfly C3 is an established model that supports the WAV, FLAC, and lossless APE formats, as well as MP3 and WMA. It only has 8GB of storage but you can add up to 64GB on a microSD card. The FiiO X3 is a newer device – I'd not heard of it – with outstanding file format support: WAV, FLAC, APE, WMA Lossless, Apple Lossless, MP3, AAC, WMA, and OGG. It also has bass and treble controls, and works as a sound recorder.
The Colorfly C3 has a TI PCM1770 digital-to-analogue converter (DAC), while the FiiO X3 has a (probably cheaper) Wolfson WM8740. Those who care can compare the specs.
If you're really serious, you could have a look at the 32GB Colorfly C4 Pro Pocket Hi-Fi Music Player (£548.99), which has an old fashioned walnut case, and iRiver's space-age Astell and Kern AK100 Ultimate (£569). The latter is very highly rated and also uses a Wolfson WM8740 DAC.
Finally, and alternatively, there's Rockbox. In 2001, some people who were unhappy about early MP3 players decided to develop their own open source software to replace the stuff provided by the manufacturer (originally, Archos). A dozen years later, Rockbox supports all the file formats you need (and a lot you don't), and runs on a wide range of MP3 players. This includes devices from Apple, Cowon, iRiver, Samsung, SanDisk and Toshiba. The vast majority are no longer in production, but you could rescue an old MP3 player or buy a Rockbox-compatible Sansa Clip+. Many target ports are still in development.
TL; DR
To sum up, if you want to stick to playing WAV files, then you should look at the Cowon iAudio X9 (£129) and the Colorfly C3 (£149). Both of these also play FLAC, so you could switch over at your own pace. If you decide to batch-convert all your WAV/AIFF files to FLAC then you have a wide choice of cheaper players, including the Sansa Clip+ (£34.39). Otherwise, if you are willing to convert your WAV/AIFF files to MP3, with some loss of sound quality, then any MP3 player will do. This includes your Windows Phone 8 smartphone.
