[Quaddy]

:deadhorse
GOTO END

gYrOdEc, its simple all right, if i hear a difference then there is. because i am judging for myself, not others, i am not interested in proving to the disbelievers - if i had to prove to you, then it would only be fair of me to ask you to prove that there isnt a difference.

if there really really really real 2 reel isnt a real world difference, then i couldnt care less because i cant hear that there isnt a difference. all that matters is my perceived music and my ears and my perished asaparagus straps!

in fact i couldnt live without placebo, it makes my music sound better than most actual upgrades!

the patient who is suffering real world conditions is fed a pill that is claimed will help their ailment, that patient over a few weeks feels better and eventually is free of the cursed condition that marred their life formerley

in actuality, unbenkownst to that patient, the pill was an ineffectual dried milk powder pill.

the question is does it matter that it wasnt actually medinical affectations that helped the patient, NO. all that matters is that they were now better, the final destination is more important than how you arrived there.

for instance, near a tree by a river theres a hole in the ground where an old man of aran goes around and around and his mind is a beacon in the veil of the night for a strange kind of fashion theres a wrong and a right but he'll never, never fight over you

:END
GOTO deadhorse

 

[gyrodec]

Quaddy

Don't get many Nick Kershaw referrences these days. Too bad they let him produce himself and hence start making boring sounding records - the kid had a future before that.

Couldn't agree more with your last post. If you put something more like that in the post before I would never have needed to put my 2cents in.

You said "all you need to know is you can hear a difference. then there is a difference", but now you agree with my opening sentence - if you think the is a difference, then you think there is a difference - and perhaps there actually is or isn't but who cares because you like the effect of hearing one anyway.

Semantics, those pedantic little b**tards.

 

[Zanth]

Quote:

Originally Posted by gyrodec /img/forum/go_quote.gif You said "all you need to know is you can hear a difference. then there is a difference", but now you agree with my opening sentence - if you think the is a difference, then you think there is a difference - and perhaps there actually is or isn't but who cares because you like the effect of hearing one anyway. Semantics, those pedantic little b**tards.

Semantics here don't really apply, and people do care because false information running rampant on a forum that induces and/or at minimum supports folks to spend money really ought to have as much valid real world truth vs. subjective hocus pocus statements.

In this instance what could be the result of posting FLAC is inferior to WAV?

1) Person rerips their collection or convert their existing FLAC files to WAV (if they feel confident enough that all went well the first time). This means time and my time at least is worth money. I hate wasting it.

2) This may require a monetary cost. If one needs to purchase more storage capacity, then one may want to be certain there is a difference, particularly for those that are strapped for cash.

3) One now may additionally need to rework their backup system to address the usually 2x-3x in size of the collection.

4) Person decides that it is important to spread this information to "help" people get the most out of their collection. More people start doing 1-4.



Just because someone believes there is a difference does not mean there is a difference. That statement is a fact. What isn't a fact as yet known is whether there is a difference or not. In the vast majority of cases with modern computing, there should be no difference because the extra step of decompressing the FLAC file will be transparent to the playback software because the entire track will be cached in RAM if not the entire album. Modern *Nix/BSD systems have incredible memory handling and even with 15 programs running that are rather intensive, the system ought to handle everything just smurfy! If not, playback would be affected outright, that is, Wav, MP3, Midi etc.

Therefore, it is important to fully address whether there is a difference or not and if so, figure out why because the files are bit for bit EXACTLY the same with only 1 additional step involved in getting at those bits. This extra step again is so insignificant with modern computers that there should be no difference. If there is, hardware needs to be upgraded or software rewritten. The first is a trivial endeavor though could be pricey. The second is certainly not trivial and could be far more costly.

 

[japc]

Zanth, what you so explendidly described in your post is called FUD. And yes, there's no good coming of it.

 

[krmathis]

krmathis lean back in the chair and watch this endless discussion.

 

[Quaddy]

some simply find wav easier to use, and less time consuming than constantly transcoding them to different formats, archaic IMHO

storing everything in flac, for me was the most time consuming format i have ever dealt with.

so if time is money, then wav should be your answer from the get-go.

wav is much more universally accepted by players, small or large than flac, but at the end of the day whatever suits your own setup, one shouldnt dicate to others, but one should be able to comment on what works for him or her also.

after all this site is a great resource of information and differing opinions, and hope that everyone is well rounded enough to take bits and peices from varying words of wisdom to suit their own setup and to not be misguided so easily, maybe this forum should have a disclaimer when joining then that warns newcomers that not everything they read on the internet is gospel!

 

[Zanth]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Quaddy /img/forum/go_quote.gif some simply find wav easier to use, and less time consuming than constantly transcoding them to different formats, archaic IMHO

I don't know why you used the word archaic here, particularly since, if one is going to rip to a lossless uncompressed format, WAV is about the most archaic and worst still, it can't handle meta data. AIFF would be a far more suitable lossless uncompressed format. One step, same as WAV and one queries a variety of online music db's to retrieve info automatically. If such info is useless to somone (as in, will never want to know the title of a track without going to the CD case) then so be it! For the vast majority of people out there, they like to know what they are listening to without having to memorize each and every track title.

Quote:

storing everything in flac, for me was the most time consuming format i have ever dealt with.

I will agree with this from my personal experience as well. Not because FLAC is inferior but because the players I chose to buy don't support FLAC outta the box. So...even though ripping and encoding to FLAC is a single step for me (given the software I use) it was a minute or so more to rip an album. My problem is music management. I have all these wonderful FLAC files now what do I do with them? Do I transcode to AAC or MP3 so they can be easily played from pretty well any hardware? Streamed throughout my house without hacking away at software? Or...do I transcode to ALAC and just buy more Apple hardware, being locked into a single company's idea of how life should be? These are large enough issues for me at present but are certainly personal and if I wasn't such a OC guy about having tons of music on me at any one time, I'd just go out and buy a Cowon which can play FLAC files and just be done with this neuroticism.

Quote:

so if time is money, then wav should be your answer from the get-go.

Well, AIFF actually for most.

Quote:

wav is much more universally accepted by players, small or large than flac, but at the end of the day whatever suits your own setup, one shouldnt dicate to others, but one should be able to comment on what works for him or her also.

I don't recall anyone dictating whether one format was better to use than another. I believe what is on the table is a discussion regarding the SONIC DIFFERENCES between one lossless format vs. another. This is a VERY different topic.

If I could, right now, get a 2 TB DAP, I'd have simply ripped all my discs as AIFF. But at present, the best we have is a 160 GB discontinued DAP and a few 120 GB options. Far too low to suit me. So I compress losslessly to get more music on the hardware available. Sonically, FLAC, ALAC, AIFF, Wav...they are all the same.

Quote:

after all this site is a great resource of information and differing opinions, and hope that everyone is well rounded enough to take bits and peices from varying words of wisdom to suit their own setup and to not be misguided so easily, maybe this forum should have a disclaimer when joining then that warns newcomers that not everything they read on the internet is gospel!

Perhaps this should be so! However, why make someone doubt every single word read when this is completely inane? There are plenty of factual statements meant to be read and spread to ease the burden of learning, purchasing and having fun. No need to second guess every last word because "people can't be trusted." I don't believe that fundamentally people can't be trusted. However, I do believe that people who make subjective claims and call them objective truths do a severe disservice to the membership here.

So then, IF there is a DIFFERENCE (I'm not yet disputing this though I've never heard one) then WHY is there a DIFFERENCE. The WHY is very important. Is it a hardware bottleneck? Is it a software coding error? This is not the difference between analogue and digital, this is between bits and bits on the same system!! So long as the hardware is not strapped, there can't be a difference. If there can't be a difference from a theoretical standpoint, then why is there one?

 

[cerbie]

Quote:

Originally Posted by krmathis /img/forum/go_quote.gif krmathis lean back in the chair and watch this endless discussion.

A Laz-e-boy, no doubt, with a transport, DAC and amp being fed FLAC over the LAN, I hope

 

[Agnostic]

First
Let me suggest we make a reasonable assumption:

Until proven otherwise I will asume that those people claiming to hear differences between FLAC and WAVE are imagining things. So far I have not heard one even remotely likely reason to assume otherwise.

Second
There can not be any discussion about a difference between properly decoded lossless file and a WAVE of the same file. I'm sorry but if you think there can be you are simply stupid.

Third
FLAC requires very few computing resources to decode, that's what it's been specifically designed for so decoding problems due to insufficient resources are highly unlikely.

Fourth
The proper way to troubleshoot this problem is:
1. Do an ABX test to check you're not imagining things.
2. Decode the lossless file to a Wav and run a bit comparison.
3. If you do not find a difference in the bit comparison check if there are any DSPs running.

I suspect doing step one will be sufficient to resolve the problem in almost all cases.

 

[Hellenback]

In Foobar you don't even need to decode the Flac file to get a bit comparison. Load both files, (highlight them both holding control or shift) and right click utility ->bit compare. (Assuming you have installed the "foo_bitcompare" component).
Having said this, I have an electrical engineer acquaintance (who designs speakers and other audio equipment) who swears he hears "soundstage" differences between the two formats on playback. Go figure.

 

[krmathis]

 

[jacc1234]

How is that ABX coming?

 

[uraflit]

Quote:

Originally Posted by jacc1234 /img/forum/go_quote.gif How is that ABX coming?

you just HAD to bump this didnt you?

 

[Scrith]

I have noticed quite a difference in quality between FLAC and WAV files with regard to playback quality.

The story begins where I downloaded an album by Thomas Feiner and Anywhen in WAV format (Samadhisound.com)

Also I recently upgraded my system a bit - PC > Yulong DAH1 Mark > Senn HD650 & STAX SRS-3050

However this stunning album seemed quite harsh especially Thomas' vocals, and the sound stage appeared fairly flat - two dimensional. Separation between instruments also sounded a little smeared.

I tried this recording with the STAX and the Senns, same problems.

However, I decided to convert the WAV files to FLAC (using DBPOWERAMP)
and discovered something unexpected - but a pleasant surprise indeed.

All of the problems I had experienced are now gone. It appears that the WAV file despite being lossless, has some effects on playback.

I tend to upsample (SRC in Foobar) to 88.2khz / 24bit and this is where the effects were most marked.

Anyway just a point to discuss - am I the only one who has this experience?

 

[Currawong]

Sounds like whatever software was decoding the WAV files has weird settings or a fault.