[Tapiozona]

After spending most of my money on headphones and amps, I finally dove in and bout myself a USB DAC. Granted I didn't go all out and bought an entry level model, I figured it would be a vast improvement over my built in laptop sound device.

I also figured that since I was going to upgrade to a stand alone DAC that I may as well upgrade the music to FLAC and seal the deal.

My impressions..

I hear flaws..a soft background hiss in the recording. When I play the 192kb version of the same song and it's virtually silent in in terms of that hiss but with the FLAC its quite noticable. Especially during quiet parts of a song.

Has anyone else noticed this? At this point I prety much prefer the lower quality recordings over the lossless.

Maybe it's a setting in foobar? Dunno.

 

[PachmanP]

Low grade hiss with the flac but not the mp3 sounds like something is wrong.
Have you tried several albums? Maybe you have one that did have crappy quality or something. How does the straight CD sound?
This is probably a dumb question, but you didn't just convert the mp3's into flac, right? You reripped the songs going straight to flac?

I have never noticed anything like what you are describing with my flac files, and if everything is set up correctly the flac file is exactly like what is on the CD vs a chopped up and monkeyed up mp3.

 

[Tapiozona]

I wont lie...I downloaded the first couple songs I've listened to in FLAC. I have multiple songs and they all seem to have the same problem. . I think I can maybe hear the hiss on some of the lower version rips but its much more amplified with the FLAC. When I have the track paused or stopped it's completely silent so I dont think its the equipment.

I'm going to try with some of my CD's but I can't imaging it being much different as I tried different songs from different artists already.

 

[Hoss]

if you made a flac from an mp3 file at best it wont sound any better than the mp3. start with a CD and rip to flac. playing FLAC files is the first and cheapest and most bang for the buck thing to do to get significant SQ improvment

 

[DavidMahler]

I must say this is the strangest problem I've ever read. To my ears, FLAC / ALAC sounds identical to the CD. I'm thinking either you source has trouble reading FLAC OR your application has a faulty issue, OR possibly......because the source is working harder while reading flac u hear the computer's hum? I'm just brainstorming.......this last idea is the least likely, but maybe the Flac is so detailed that it brings out flaws you don't hear with other rips? I'd be curious for you to post one of ur faulty files or email to a head-fier for a second opinion.

 

[Menisk]

Quote:

Originally Posted by DavidMahler /img/forum/go_quote.gif I must say this is the strangest problem I've ever read. To my ears, FLAC / ALAC sounds identical to the CD. I'm thinking either you source has trouble reading FLAC OR your application has a faulty issue, OR possibly......because the source is working harder while reading flac u hear the computer's hum? I'm just brainstorming.......this last idea is the least likely, but maybe the Flac is so detailed that it brings out flaws you don't hear with other rips? I'd be curious for you to post one of ur faulty files or email to a head-fier for a second opinion.

FLAC is one of the fastest to decode which is why it works well on portable devices. I'd have thought that MP3 would actually be harder to decode. Don't hold me to this, I'm not sure. But you'd think that MP3 is more heavily compressed as well as discarding data because its primary purpose is to make the file damn small rather than maintaining SQ and being quick to en/decode.

 

[krmathis]

It may be that the recording have flaws, which FLAC of course copy. AFter all its lossless.
While encoding to MP3 the psychoacoustic model either remove these flaws or dampen them as part of the saving space process. Hence the MP3 files may sound "better" to your ears.

 

[Nocturnal310]

since it has been downloaded ahem..illegally.

lot of such FLAC rips are on net are full of flaws...ripped in a jiffy ..they are full of errors in many cases.

i also downloaded some albums of which i already had CD's to verify

and at 320 kbps..there was distortion in the downloaded files in the midrange..in guitar.


did u try some other sources?

seems like a bad download

 

[jsaliga]

Quote:

Originally Posted by DavidMahler /img/forum/go_quote.gif ITo my ears, FLAC / ALAC sounds identical to the CD.

It absolutely should, because FLAC is lossless compression. This has been proven beyond a doubt time and again and yet the subject keeps coming up from time to time.

--Jerome

 

[jilgiljongiljing]

Wow, this has to be the strangest thread/issue I've read in a while. I'm not even sure what you are comparing.

Do you have any audio cd's? If you do why not do a test, rip your favourite song from that cd (preferably something that is considered to be of decent recording quality) into 128kbps, 192 kbps and FLAC and then listen to all of them and decide for yourself.

I am a complete believer in the FLAC format, I have not seen or heard any flaws so far and the difference when you move to mp3 to flac is very audible and clear if the recording is good. Not so much for poor recordings.

Like someone said, if the original cd has tons of hiss, the mp3 might have lesser hiss content compared to the FLAC which would sound exactly like the cd.

 

[milkweg]

Maybe the person that created the flac adjusted sound leveling and the gain got increased.

 

[MoodySteve]

Depending on how high the frequency of the 'hiss' he's hearing, it's quite possible that the low-pass filter that is created during MP3 compression filtered the hiss out. 192kbps has a cutoff well in the audible range.

This is where folks often confuse 'fidelity' with 'perceived quality.' An MP3 can sound nicer than a FLAC but a FLAC will necessarily have higher fidelity.

 

[linuxworks]

comparing downloaded files for quality? not useful - waste of time.

setup a controlled experiment. get a good cd (!) and rip/encode both yourself.

anything else and you are wasting your (and our) time.

 

[milkweg]

Quote:

Originally Posted by MoodySteve /img/forum/go_quote.gif 192kbps has a cutoff well in the audible range.

Got any proof of that statement? I ask because I have done ABX testing with 192kb/s mp3 and lossless .wav file and con not detect a difference, nor can another person I ran the same test on. If it truly was in an audible range then I would be able to hear the difference.

 

[Tapiozona]

Right now I'm going to blame it on the files I downloaded. I dont know who did them and how well they were done so they seem like the most obvious reason for the hiss.

Tonight I ripped some of my own cd's and will bring them to work tomorrrow to test and see if the problem still persists. Unforunately I don't really know what I'm doing so I can't guarantee that I ripped my cd's in the best possible manner.

Would anyone have a good flac to lend me..If it's from an album I already own things would be ok?

Ill post my findings sometime in the morning.