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1st experience of headphone amp, line out , and Flac.....wow !!!!!!

post #1 of 19
6/18/09 at 6:07pm
Thread Starter 
My new Creek OBH-11 headphone amp arrived today, its the first headphone amp I have ever owned. Ive left it with the power on for about the last 8 hours to get the burn in under way. The cable I ordered with it is a performance QED type with 3.5mm pin and 2 x rca. Id been using it today with my fuze player and Sennheiser HD485`s , for a non-line out signal being amplified, I thought it sounded pretty good .

However......I downloaded lossless audio codecs for windows media player 10 on my pc which has Soundblaster Audigy Platinum 1 installed on it. I also downloaded directshow filters and converted a few of my 320k sampled mp3`s to Flac using advanced WMA workshop ( a program worth its weight in gold ) . I then ran the line out from my pc to the back of the obh-11 amp.

Was there a difference...............you better believe it !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! using the line out and flac format was like strapping a pair of loudspeakers to my ears, every detail, every nuance was there right before my ears as if a blanket had been lifted off the headphones. The HD485`s are silken smooth and the Creek amp just hasnt a harsh note in it.....Im looking forward to listening to a bit of Norah Jones at the House of Blues on Flac format and I think it will just kill.

Im borrowing my brothers Creative Zen Vision M and Dock tomorrow and I have ordered a Creative AV cable for it, should have it in a couple of days . Even though the Vision M doesnt play Flac, if I play 320k sampled MP3`s through the line out on the dock, will the sound quality be anything like what I heard using Flac and the WMP10 ?

Line out and Flac must be so the way to go when it comes to digital audio , for my 1st time , I gotta say I am mighty impressed.
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post #2 of 19
6/18/09 at 6:24pm
You can't upconverst from MP3 to FLAC. Once the audio information is gone, it's gone. When music is compressed, there's no way to uncompress it to its original quality.

That being said, 320KB MP3s are usually more than good enough for a portable player.
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post #3 of 19
6/18/09 at 6:39pm
Thread Starter 
thanks for replying, but relating to my question in the opening post, will the creative zen vision m and 320k mp3`s used with line out on the dock give sound quality anywhere near the sounds i obtained by using line out and flac on wmp10 ? There is a noticable difference in sound when I compare headphone out on the fuze into and amp and line out from my pc into amp.
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post #4 of 19
6/18/09 at 7:12pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Thermonuclear View Post
However......I downloaded lossless audio codecs for windows media player 10 on my pc which has Soundblaster Audigy Platinum 1 installed on it. I also downloaded directshow filters and converted a few of my 320k sampled mp3`s to Flac using advanced WMA workshop ( a program worth its weight in gold ) . I then ran the line out from my pc to the back of the obh-11 amp.
If this is what you did, then you were still actually listening to 320 mp3's, even though they were now in a Flac package.

So your answer is Yes, it will sound as good . . . since it is about the same thing.
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post #5 of 19
6/18/09 at 7:31pm
The most important thing, I think, is that you are happy with the sound of your new amp. There's no way that can be a bad thing.

I have to agree with other posters that there is really no point in transcoding from a lossy (MP3) to a lossless (FLAC) format. The conversion won't degrade the SQ of your files, but it won't help it either.

Having said that, I should also point out that well-encoded 320k MP3s can sound quite good. So it's quite possible that the improvement you are hearing may be courtesy of your new amp, which is delivering SQ from your 320k files that your rig, sans amp, wasn't giving you.

Why not try ripping some CDs directly to FLAC, or just hooking up a good CD player to the amp? Compare your results with 320k MP3s to uncompressed and/or losslessly encoded files.

I'd be interested in hearing your impressions of the differences in SQ between 320s and lossless or uncompressed files. There are some here at Head-Fi who insist that the difference is negligible, and some who argue just as strongly that the difference is like night and day.
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post #6 of 19
6/18/09 at 8:16pm
Glad to hear you made a breakthrough in your listening experience, Thermo. Grab yourself some Li6D to munch on and rev up to the next level:

EAC - EAC Guides

Foobar 2000 - foobar2000

Kernel Streaming Plugin for F2K - Download foobar2000 and optional components

Album Art Downloader - SourceForge.net: Album Art Downloader

MP3 tag - Mp3tag - the universal Tag Editor (ID3v1, ID3v2, APEv2)


You should be able to do everything that needs to be done with these tools. Replay gain is already in Foobar.
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post #7 of 19
6/18/09 at 8:21pm
1) Do not transcode mp3 to flac
2) Ditch WMP for a player that supports bit perfect playback.
3) Get rid of that Creative soundcard.
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post #8 of 19
6/18/09 at 8:23pm
You sure it's just not louder?
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post #9 of 19
6/19/09 at 9:11am
Well, sorry to say again, but when you transcoded 320Kbps file to FLAC the only thing you did is create a bigger file with less SQ (maybe not audible).

If you want to have the files pick them in FLAC, and later transcode them to whatever you want, never the other way around.

Your experience might have been good also, coming from hype most presumably, and you should not worry too much about 320 vs FLAC. I recommend you read a lot about file formats, amplifiers, etc in order to understand before saying amen to some opinions from people here.

Hope you enjoy your setup, in the end it is all about that
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post #10 of 19
6/19/09 at 9:46am
Quote:
Your experience might have been good also, coming from hype most presumably, and you should not worry too much about 320 vs FLAC.
If you can't tell between lossless and lossy, your gear isn't good enough. I deleted all lossy recently because I could no longer listen to them (mp's) without wincing.
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post #11 of 19
6/19/09 at 1:13pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Thermonuclear View Post
..converted a few of my 320k sampled mp3`s to Flac using advanced WMA workshop ( a program worth its weight in gold ) . I then ran the line out from my pc to the back of the obh-11 amp.

Was there a difference...............you better believe it !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Really?!
Cause when you transcode MP3's to FLAC you do not gain any audio quality at all. You just made the files bigger, but did not recover any of the data lost during encoding to MP3.
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post #12 of 19
6/19/09 at 2:51pm
Thread Starter 
when I listen to the files I converted to Flac and using wmp10 and a line out, the music sounds more balanced across frequency spectrums, more airy, fuller and just plain better sounding than listening to 320k recordings coming out of the headphone socket on my fuze and into my creek obh-11.
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post #13 of 19
6/19/09 at 2:58pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Thermonuclear View Post
when I listen to the files I converted to Flac and using wmp10 and a line out, the music sounds more balanced across frequency spectrums, more airy, fuller and just plain better sounding than listening to 320k recordings coming out of the headphone socket on my fuze and into my creek obh-11.
You're mistaken. You can't retrieve eggs from a baked cake. Your transcoded mp3's to flac won't sound better, they're bigger and all its doing is attempting to recover what's lost.

Just delete the mp3's and those transcoded flac's, and rip to flac from the original CD.
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post #14 of 19
6/19/09 at 2:59pm
You are listening to the FLAC files using Line Out.
You are listening to the MP3 files using fuze HO to headphone amp.

Try listening to the two files using the same source, they will sound exactly the same. FLAC does nothing to a file hence why it's called lossless.
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post #15 of 19
6/19/09 at 3:32pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Thermonuclear View Post
when I listen to the files I converted to Flac and using wmp10 and a line out, the music sounds more balanced across frequency spectrums, more airy, fuller and just plain better sounding than listening to 320k recordings coming out of the headphone socket on my fuze and into my creek obh-11.
Consider yourself lucky, cause you are one of few...
Cause to most of us there are no audible difference.
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