[Flac] technical questions about FLAC

[Casey]

Hey everyone,

I have a few questions about FLAC that aren't answered in the FAQ or the documentation.  Maybe someone knows about these details.

1. What exactly is meant by "reference encoder"?
2. Concerning interchannel decorrelation, what is the point of creating separate signals, why not just keep the channels you have?  For example, you might create "mid" and "side" channels, but you still end up with 2 so what's the point?  The only reason I can think of is maybe a couple of bits are saved by storing the "side" (difference) value.
3. Is left-side (or right-side) just the left/right channel paired with the difference between left and right?
4. Why was 655,350 Hz chosen to be the maximum supported sample rate?  I noticed it's not a power of 2.  Also, this is an unimaginably fast frequency, doesn't it exceed the limit for most channels?

Thanks for any guidance you'd like to share.

-Casey
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