[nc8000]

Yeah, in any decent gear you wouldn't be able to tell the difference. I remember seeing some blind tests proving this a while ago.

Some people can hear a difference between wav and flac but I can’t

 

[SebaE2012]

I have not yet received them. But my tia noir iem are at 70 to 80 and dsd can go to 95 at low gain.

But I most often listen at 68 regularly low gain

Same here. I've just begun using WM1-A with Z7M2 and, so far, I've been feeling comfortable with low gain, volume around 70 for most tracks. I still need to experiment a bit more, with different songs and some iems.

Cheers.

 

[frost15]

Some people can hear a difference between wav and flac but I can’t

I think that's highly dependant on gear's decoding efficiency... I for one can't tell the difference in my WM1Z

 

[phonomat]

Some people can hear a difference between wav and flac but I can’t

Let's say some people claim (and certainly do believe) they can hear a difference, when all evidence seems to suggest that there should be none.

 

[515164]

Let's say some people claim (and certainly do believe) they can hear a difference, when all evidence seems to suggest that there should be none.

Be careful, you don't want to awaken that crowd

 

[Redcarmoose]

@https://www.head-fi.org/members/vitaly2017.488010/

Thanks for the FWs, had many but never all in one place like now.

Cheers!

 

[gsiu33]

Like @nc8000 my music doesn't fit in the 1TB, I have right now with these SACD frenzy 1.32TB, 8% hi-res 92% CD

no need to bother because in some point of time, just like me, you cannot fit all of your album in a single 1TB or even 2TB card.
I got a few 256gb cards, so just copy selected albums from my music server to one of the 256gb card, then swap the card in WM1Z, I usually do it every 2 months for WM1Z.

 

[Vitaly2017]

Let's say some people claim (and certainly do believe) they can hear a difference, when all evidence seems to suggest that there should be none.

Haa hah look it okay but you need to understand some gear and iems combination can be extremely resolving! And what I use is one hell of a iem setup! I can sens a lot of nuances and dig very very low into the sub world perceptions with this! So it is normal majority of folks cant hear this difference because your setup is simply not going to show you that! Nothing bad here actually I am happy for you guys as you can live with flacs lol and dont get bothered! I do get annoyed and want straight pure sound. Hell there is a reason why wav is used in studios!
I have a friend who is a SOUND MASTERING BROO and he even told me we never use flac in any circumstances as there is some compression happening and the voids are deleted that is how you save room and when its unpacked the voids that been deleted dont comeback so the flacs do have some minor loss in data. Wav loss's nothing and always direst source! as 1z direct source. We can argue on this for ever I tell you there is a difference. But can you hear it or not is a different story.

 

[515164]

I have a friend who is a SOUND MASTERING BROO and he even told me we never use flac in any circumstances as there is some compression happening and the voids are deleted that is how you save room and when its unpacked the voids that been deleted dont comeback so the flacs do have some minor loss in data.

Man, stop saying stuff if you don't actually know how lossless compression works. What the heck is "voids" that are being "deleted", really? Lossless means nothing is being lost.

I thought we already cleared this out........... Please.

Just inform yourself properly, and stop blindly listening to others. Even the record house you were buying hi-res stuff from was actually saying false stuff, if you remember.

Here, this was when that discussion started, with the record house: https://www.head-fi.org/threads/sony-nw-wm1z-wm1a.815841/post-15548024

 

[bana]

Since you are building a PC why not add a DVD drive?

I put a DVD burner in all the computers I build since they are cheap <$20.

The cases I'm looking at just don't have slots for DVD burner. I will have to compromise.

 

[Duncan]

Going back to my battery draining quickly (At least on the gauge), I can now add myself to the voices that will vouch for running the battery flat to recalibrate it, I’m still on 4/4 after using for 5-6hrs

Panic over

 

[Queen6]

i am listening to a stellar vinyl rip by a test pressing of this iconic album , if you think those HD Tracks are good , well ignorance is bliss i guess so yeah ignore my post

otherwise if you want the 24/96 FLAC files , pm me

ps: some of you already know what i am talking about

It's always about the sound never the numbers, that's just something that helps you get there

Q-6

 

[Sonywalkmanuser]

for those interested in the flac vs wave phenomena:

they use a pair of B&W 802 speakers to compare actual sound system difference between wave, flac lvl 0 and flac lvl5. The subjective measurement they used is the ability of the sound system to produce sound stage height. It’s broken down into two parts:

https://www.hificritic.com/flac-wav-sound-quality-research.html

Late in 2014 and early 2015, TAS published our next series of 3 articles. During the course of our work on computer audio, we noticed an apparent correlation on certain recordings between our previous subjective sound quality scale and the ability to reproduce height information. On a lark we measured the height of specific instruments or voices judged from the listening position (with the aid of a tape measure suspended from the ceiling to the center of the midrange between the speakers) as a function of up- or down-sampling between 44.1 kHz and 192 kHz using two recordings (the harp in Chabrier’s España and the soprano chorus in Misa Criolla by Ramirez). When these data were plotted together with our subjective sound quality scoring method, the two methods exhibited a striking linear correlation.

Discussion
We undertook this lengthy investigation of FLAC-induced WAV file sonic degradation because of the strong negative reaction we received as a result of our original description of this phenomenon. This criticism emanated from those whose belief system was based on a one dimensional view of the FLAC system of lossless compression and their firm belief in the argument that “bits are bits”. Our hope was that we could reproduce our original findings and expose the source of this FLAC-induced decline in WAV file SQ. We believe that we have been successful in meeting our goals with the powerful aid of our height method for measuring SQ. Our results provide a two-fold benefit first to the purveyors and consumers of high resolution music files and second to those who have been lulled into a mistaken dependency on DBT and ABX for studying SQ.
To summarize, we have found at least four different reasons why the lossless FLAC compression format degrades the SQ when compared with uncompressed WAV files. These are:
1. The pixel size and file size of the cover art attached to the metadata (MDA);
2. The degree of compression and file size of MDA as created in typical photo editing software;
3. The degree of FLAC compression and file size according to the settings within dBPA;
4. The process whereby FLAC files are uncompressed and converted to PCM format2 (i.e. the degree of CPU and memory utilization).
These factors are independent of one another and, acting together, result in disturbingly large degrees of SQ loss. While the MDA effect can be minimized or reversed, the FLAC compression and decompression effects2 appear to be permanent unless replaced by MDA never exposed to prior conversions. The mechanism for the SQ damage of all of the 4 factors listed above results from their interaction with computer/server playback processes. The effects of this extra loading on computer functioning, although apparently small, must degrade the computer-generated data sent to an external DAC. As discussed by others in the field, these effects are thought to involve several forms of jitter, power supply fluctuations, and noise which ultimately compromise the optimal functioning of the digital and analog sections of the DAC. It is possible that the absolute magnitude of these losses could be reduced to some degree in a purpose-built, maximally optimized computer server (as opposed to Computer 1 used for many of these experiments) but this has yet to be properly examined or quantified.

 

[RobertP]

It's all about how good the master recording sources are. If garbage in then garbage out no matter what. Sadly, less and less high quality records are out nowadays.

 

[Queen6]

End of the day it's all about the music; I'd rather be happier with less than be dissatisfied with more...

Q-6