2. digital
  3. 156968-116029

has anybody else noticed this about flac audio?

o.k are you ready for some truth friends ? flac has compression levels from 0 to 8 with the official flac default level being 5. now flac is lossless compression so there should be no sound loss from the original source no matter what compression level you use however if you encode the same song using every different flac compression level even though they will all be lossless there absolutely is a difference in the overall sound including tone and sound stage from level to level and doing your own test will only prove me right. now here’s where it gets strange? vintage vinyl has stereo + stereo depth perception (3d sound stage).digital audio has stereo + mono depth perception (2d sound stage) and this includes all new remastered vinyl cut from the digital master. this is why digital audio does not sound like vintage vinyl along with brick wall compression.i find it odd that the only flac compression level not recommended as a default no matter what software you use is flac compression level 4 ? it just so happens that re-encoding digital audio to flac with compression level 4 converts digital mono depth perception back into digital stereo depth perception (3d sound stage) just like vintage vinyl! and i don’t think this is by mistake friends ? do your own test and get ready to have your mind blown. here is an audio sample: level 5 http://pc.cd/pCcrtalK level 4 http://pc.cd/iVWrtalK
guitarsam

Showing 1 response by corente

corente
26 posts
 
Guitarsam - Some years ago I made tests comparing same track/file with different levels of compression and comparing to AIFF format. I did not get any difference. That is a fact for my equipment and ears as I am sure that you have really heard differences.I made this because in old posts and reviews there were a strong advice to use AIFF / WAV formats.
This is my opinion: I think the quality of digital music regarding the “computer” where the player runs depends strongly on the “silence” of the hardware: RAM, hard disk, processor usage, power supply, USB cards, etc.
I think that your computer is old and could be “overcharged” with normal operation
A lot of tweaks can be made and if you look into the dedicated hardware to play / serve music to DAC, you will realize it is always based in these tweaks adding in most cases a very “light” operating system that does not charge the processor (Aurender, Innuos, Antipodes, 432evo, ...)
There is also a lot of literature regarding that playing from RAM increases the sound quality: you can find it easily (forums about Euphony operating system are a good example as they recommend this)There are also places where you can find ways to make your computer less noisy but I do not know anyone for Windows.
I have been thru all this for some years and I am slowly increasing the sound quality when using my Mac mini as source.
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