[71 dB]

With how brick walled, much modern music is when encoded in Flac the average bitrate is 1000 ~ 1415kbps. With TAK codec some albums even reached 1950kbps despite being 16bit at 44.1 kHz!

Dynamically over-compressed brick-walled music uses effectively all the bit depth and that's why lossless endoders struggle to find opportunities of getting rid of redundancy. Sacrificing bit depth can make lossless files smaller as I have demonstrated earlier:

This is how to do it correctly:

1 - Generate normal 16 bit dither of your choice for the duration of your original track to be (re-)encoded losslessly.
2 - Multiply this dither by 2^n, where n is the amount of bit depth to be sacrificed, for example n = 3 => 2^n = 8.
3 - Add the dither to your track in floating point mode so that signal clipping doesn't happen.
4 - Divide your track+dither by 2^n.
5 - You are good to go. Export as a lossless file.

These steps do not reduce sound quality at all apart from raising the noise floor by 20*log10 (2^n) dB. There is no increased distortion. Only increased noise level, but with "brick-wallet" music that is super loud all the time you don't need much dynamic range, do you? Since the most significant bits aren't used at all, the files are quieter and volume needs to be raised a bit, but it helps they sound typically super-loud to begin with (the motivation for brick-walling).

 

[Blackwoof]

Dynamically over-compressed brick-walled music uses effectively all the bit depth and that's why lossless endoders struggle to find opportunities of getting rid of redundancy. Sacrificing bit depth can make lossless files smaller as I have demonstrated earlier:

This is how to do it correctly:

1 - Generate normal 16 bit dither of your choice for the duration of your original track to be (re-)encoded losslessly.
2 - Multiply this dither by 2^n, where n is the amount of bit depth to be sacrificed, for example n = 3 => 2^n = 8.
3 - Add the dither to your track in floating point mode so that signal clipping doesn't happen.
4 - Divide your track+dither by 2^n.
5 - You are good to go. Export as a lossless file.

These steps do not reduce sound quality at all apart from raising the noise floor by 20*log10 (2^n) dB. There is no increased distortion. Only increased noise level, but with "brick-wallet" music that is super loud all the time you don't need much dynamic range, do you? Since the most significant bits aren't used at all, the files are quieter and volume needs to be raised a bit, but it helps they sound typically super-loud to begin with (the motivation for brick-walling).

You can shave off the bitrate while still being lossless with Wavpack lossy I can cut those albums to 500kbps with forced DNS without any issues. In one case I got Wavpack to compress a HNW album to 480kbps inn lossless mode while FLAC was 980kbps. FLAC not that great at compressing music I've gotten lower better compression with TAK/Wavpack.

Yet TAK can be quite crazy with albums that are 890 ~ 1200kbps under Flac but when done TAK P4m the bitrate is 540 ~ 1090kbps.

 

[gerelmx1986]

You can shave off the bitrate while still being lossless with Wavpack lossy I can cut those albums to 500kbps with forced DNS without any issues. In one case I got Wavpack to compress a HNW album to 480kbps inn lossless mode while FLAC was 980kbps. FLAC not that great at compressing music I've gotten lower better compression with TAK/Wavpack.

Yet TAK can be quite crazy with albums that are 890 ~ 1200kbps under Flac but when done TAK P4m the bitrate is 540 ~ 1090kbps.

Well TAK maybe obscures as well as wavpack. Compared to flac which is the moat wisely supported lossless codec just after apple ALAC followed by Monkey audio APE.

i ve sone test with ape, while in insane compression and wven high and extra high modes it has slightly better compression than flac, IMHO is not worth of it as ape is very cpu inefficient (intensive)

 

[71 dB]

You can shave off the bitrate while still being lossless with Wavpack lossy I can cut those albums to 500kbps with forced DNS without any issues. In one case I got Wavpack to compress a HNW album to 480kbps inn lossless mode while FLAC was 980kbps. FLAC not that great at compressing music I've gotten lower better compression with TAK/Wavpack.

Yet TAK can be quite crazy with albums that are 890 ~ 1200kbps under Flac but when done TAK P4m the bitrate is 540 ~ 1090kbps.

But aren't these file compressors not supported by any players? So You need to uncompress them before playing them? Sorry my ignorance on the issue. Never heard of TAK for example. Google tells it means "Tom's lossless Audio Kompressor" which sounds funny.

Seems like plugins for Winamp and Foobar are currently available.

I am such a dinosaur. I just listen to CDs on a CD player, or I stream music on Spotify without worrying about the sound quality.

 

[gerelmx1986]

So my comcensus would be (based on file sizes. Not on kbps)
Ape compresses better than FLAC which in turn compresses better rhan MP4a (ALAC)

 

[gerelmx1986]

On modern DAPs i see using lossy codecs as if you gave ypur grand mom an Alienware Gaming laptop for just reading emails, biewing knitting websites or cat videos instead of giving that laptop to a Hardcore gamer to play demanding games

 

[bigshot]

I'm sure that analogy means something, but it escapes me.

 

[KeithPhantom]

I'm sure that analogy means something, but it escapes me.

It just means that you are using overkill tools for simple tasks. He is arguing that using a DAP for decoding lossy files is overkill.

 

[bigshot]

If lossy is overkill, then what isn't? Low rate lossy?

 

[71 dB]

If lossy is overkill, then what isn't? Low rate lossy?

I don't think anyone claims lossy is overkill. I think the claim is modern DAPs are overkill when decoding lossy files. If I am mistaken, someone can correct me.

 

[bigshot]

Ah. Well DAPs and DACs just do their job. There isn't really a range of audible quality there.

 

[PhonoPhi]

Ah. Well DAPs and DACs just do their job. There isn't really a range of audible quality there.

Transparency is the most applicable in terms of not being a limiting stage.
Cables can (and should be) transparent, recordings can (for a given system - DAP/DAC, transducer, listener).

With DAPs, DACs - the applicability of transparency is much more limited.

DACs/DAPs process the signal from digital to some analogue rendering/approximation (colouring is very common, starting with the "house sound" of major chip manufacturers). Then there are often power limitations to deliver the perfect rendering, so DAPs/DACs are definitely the bottleneck.

 

[PhonoPhi]

...so DAPs/DACs are definitely the bottleneck.

This last statement needs to be amended.

Transducers are a more common limitation in a sound reproduction chain.

Then very often, DAPs/DACs and transducers have their specific limitations - that is when the synergy/compatibility can be observed.

 

[bigshot]

Yes, transducers vary. DAPs and DACs should all be transparent. If they aren't, they are defective by manufacture or design. They aren't supposed to sound different. Every DAC chip I have in my collection of players all sound the same. I know I have Wolfson, Apple and Sabre for sure. Probably more.

 

[InvisibleInk]

Some DACs are described as “dry” and clinical (Sabre DACs). Some are described as warm (Burr Brown). Some as “lively” (multi-bit or R2R).