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Quality vs. physical hardware

post #1 of 3
6/16/11 at 3:00pm
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I know many people prefer higher bitrate formats and such, but is there a point where FLAC simply overwhelms the driver to produce sounds you wouldn't naturally hear(out of the hearing range) vs. a compressed format that's easier to produce?

 

I'm curious because I have some songs, both FLAC and AAC, that many "complex" or heavily-layered music sounds better in compressed format than uncompressed.  Though, in a multi-driver setup(usually car and/or home-audio), the FLAC format sounds much better.

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post #2 of 3
6/16/11 at 3:30pm

I wouldn't really think that's an issue, 44.1 KHz audio goes up to 22050 Hz which most speaker systems / headphones will handle without a problem provided they have adequate tweeters, the Prodipes (Ribbon tweeter) I have go up to 30 KHz for example, planar-magnetic headphones can go up to 60 KHz...

 

Even audio systems way back in the days had no issues reproducing the audible frequency range which is really all that standard CD quality songs contain, they don't add anything that the speakers would have trouble reproducing.

 

Also, I've never found a song that sounded better as an MP3 - it can at best sound equal at high bitrates, and most of the times obviously worse.


Edited by WrxSTI - 6/16/11 at 3:34pm
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post #3 of 3
6/16/11 at 3:48pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by K2e2vin View Post

I know many people prefer higher bitrate formats and such, but is there a point where FLAC simply overwhelms the driver to produce sounds you wouldn't naturally hear(out of the hearing range) vs. a compressed format that's easier to produce?

 

No - any competent driver can cope with any arbitrarily complex waveform within its usable frequency range. Music from a CD is bandwidth limited to 22khz well within the capabilities of a competent driver.  

 

Even so called High Res music will have close to zero content above 22khz not noticeable and again not a problem for a decent driver. 

 

Compressed music works by removing lower amplitude adjacent or time-adjacent stimulae - ie stuff you will not hear because it is masked, the overall waveforms however will be extremely similar up to at least 16K unless you are talking about 64kps encodes, and the driver will have no more problem with FLAC than mp3. A poor mp3 encode may introduce artifacts such as clipping on high levels or wooshing if is is a poor encoder.

 

I'm curious because I have some songs, both FLAC and AAC, that many "complex" or heavily-layered music sounds better in compressed format than uncompressed.  Though, in a multi-driver setup(usually car and/or home-audio), the FLAC format sounds much better.

 

Blind tests are your friend here. Try running a few lossy vs lossless compressed DBTs in FooBar

 



 

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