# Retain audio quality when transcoding
**URL:** https://forums.plex.tv/t/retain-audio-quality-when-transcoding/730877
**Category:** Plex Media Server
**Tags:** server-linux, fire-tv, chromecast, roku
**Created:** [July 22, 2021, 11:17pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/retain-audio-quality-when-transcoding/730877 "2021-07-22T23:17:20Z")
**Posts on this page:** 2
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Henperor](https://forums.plex.tv/u/Henperor)
#### Post date: [July 22, 2021, 11:17pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/retain-audio-quality-when-transcoding/730877/1 "2021-07-22T23:17:20Z")
Dear lord someone please help me with this; I’ve asked on multiple different websites already and gotten no helpful advise. Surely someone else must have this problem. It seems to happen across all players for me.
What happens is the following: I go to watch a video that is stored as an mkv with FLAC audio and .ass subtitles. Plex doesn’t support direct play of .ass on almost all devices, so a transcode is forced (That is the _only_ reason a transcode is required on this video). When Plex transcodes the video to burn in the subtitles, it reduces the FLAC audio to AAC.
What I want to happen: I play the same video, a transcode is forced by the subtitles, and the audio is transcoded from FLAC to FLAC (or a similarly lossless format).
Why does Plex always convert lossless audio to a lossy format when the video is the only thing that needs to be transcoded? If I turn off the subtitles then it will direct-play the FLAC audio just fine. If I’m going to be eating up a ton of storage space for lossless audio, I would like to actually be able to use it.
Someone _please_ help me stop Plex from reducing audio quality unless _absolutely_ necessary because the client doesn’t support any lossless codecs.
Server Version#: 1.23.5.4841
Player Version#: Various
---
### Author:  [@system](https://forums.plex.tv/u/system)
#### Post date: [October 20, 2021, 11:17pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/retain-audio-quality-when-transcoding/730877/2 "2021-10-20T23:17:28Z")
This topic was automatically closed 90 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.