The comparison between using the ERC-3 or the PC as a transport is, of course, not a good way to make the comparison. It sounds like you also compare the FLAC and WAV both played back from the same computer and using the same equipment. That is a valid comparison. If you are doing that, then you should be able to convert the flac to flac with zero compression as a test. You might also want to try a couple of different players, to verify that it is not some issue with the player.
This issue has been discussed hundreds of times. Some people say they hear a difference, most say they do not. If you near a difference, it is more likely to be an issue with your player or the PC than with just the format. That is one reason I suggested zero compression. It might also be interesting to try different compression levels, like 1,2,3 up to whatever you are currently using.
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Just as you assume flac is indeed lossless, I think it is fair to assume that the decompression algorithm on any reasonable player does its job correctly.
Have you tried zero compression flac? It is not compressed but has a flac header?
Systems that play from memory can decompress a flac file and then put the PCM into memory for playing. At that point, the computing to decompress is not important. Have you tried that approach?
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You just use a conversion program or ripper that outputs a flac file. When you output flac there should be a compression option, with 0 as one of the options. The default is usually level 6. I would use JRiver, the player I use. I am pretty sure dBpoweramp does it also. Whenever you create a flac, you should have a 0 compression option.
Apart from this discussion, it is a nice way to use wav files but maintain the meta data capabilities of flac.
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From the dBpoweramp site
"Compression affects how much effort goes into compressing the audio, all
compression modes give the same decoded audio (it is lossless after
all), the higher
compression levels will give a small % file size saving, but will
require more time to compress and decompress. Compression Level 0 requires the least compression
time, whilst Compression Level 8 the most. Uncompressed is a special compression mode with stores 16 bit audio in an uncompressed state."
So, uncompressed sounds like the best for 16 bit data, although I have never tried it.
No experience with EZ CD Audio Converter.
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audioman58 - Level 8 is the most compressed version of flac, not the highest uncompressed level.
This is a bigger issue than just cables and regenerating usb signals. You may want to do some reading on these issues.
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I have been looking at flac compression levels some more .Let me clarify uncompressed flac, since I confused flac 0 and uncompressed above.
Flac 0 is not uncompressed. It is the lowest level of flac compression, but it is still far from uncompressed. Many packages create flac 0, but dBpoweramp is the only one I know of that does truly uncompressed flac. There may be others, but dBpoweramp is the one I know.
As an example, I have a track that is 69KB (39%) at flac 6. It is 73 KB (42%) at flac 0 and 122KB with uncompressed flac. AIFF and WAV are also 122KB. So, if you want flac with no compression you need uncompressed flac, not flac 0.
Flac and WAV both have well defined meta-data capabilities. WAV
originally did not include meta-data, but many implementations do
include meta-data today, although the implementations can vary. So, if using meta data, flac and AIFF are the preferred formats.
Conclusion - If you want an uncompressed format use uncompressed flac (not flac 0), or AIFF, with WAV an option if you understanding the tagging issues.
The higher the compression level, the more compute time needed
to do the compression. However, people who understand the flac compression algorithms say
that the time to decompress the various
levels (0 to 8) are basically the same. That may not seem intuitive but
there are good explanations from the for the people who know. Uncompressed flac, however, should take not time to decompress, since it is not compressed.
Hope that helps clear up flac 0 and flac uncompressed. They are different.
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ddruveman - I think I started the idea that flac 0 is uncompressed here. But now we know that flac 0 is not uncompressed. I have have had it wrong for a while. You need to go to dBpoweramp to actually get uncompressed. Personally I still used flac 5 or 6, since I cannot hear any difference.
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jwm - look at my data above. Flac 0 is less compressed, but not by much - 39% for level 0, 42% for level 6 for my file. And, according to the flac gurus decompressing for 0 or from 5 or 6 takes essentially the same amount of processor time.
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I believe, Reference Recordings primarily produces HDCD discs. I would not be surprised if he used wav in his processing. He would have little reason to compress data while doing the engineering. Can you point to a reference about Johnson preferring wav? It would be interesting reading.
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The difference of 2 bytes is probably just a matter of how each program pads the end of a file with zeros. It depends on the way the program writes the data. It has nothing to do with the audio data. It is just a programming difference.
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You can do a binary compare of your two files using, for example, the Windows fc command at the command prompt.
fc/b file1 file2
There are other compare options, but this is a place to start if you want to go into the differences in your files in more detail.
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I went through this exercise a few years ago and did notice byte differences. But when I did binary compares there was no difference. That is why I think you are just seeing padding differences. At one point I looked at the files with a binary editor and that also convinced me that the files were the same, other than padding.
There were some "interesting" articles in Absolute Sound a while ago where 2 guys went back and forth between wav and flac multiple times and convinced themselves that the sound degraded the more times they did the conversions. It was a very controversial set of articles and, in the end, most people dismissed their "research", but there are still people who seem to believe that even though the conversions are bit perfect they can change the sound. I've given up worrying about it
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