2. digital
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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 3 responses by porscheracer

porscheracer
132 posts
 
@danvignau 

If you use a lossless compression format to store a file and compare that to a format like does not compress like WAV, the data in the files is bit for bit identical. Only the wrapper has changed. Again, the DAC gets the same exact data, bit for bit, using either type of lossless format. In other words, you are getting 100% of the music either way....
porscheracer
132 posts
 
If you read up on FLAC, you will discover that all the hard work is done on the compression side. Decompressing the FLAC file doesn’t really change the CPU load much even comparing level 0 to level 8. Yes, even FLAC level 0 is compressed. There is uncompressed FLAC but it appears you that has not been tried here based on what I have read. 
The DAC never sees the compressed music data. The CPU load is not all that different at any level of compression so what is asserted by the OP here is really far out there. I have never heard any difference in sound quality in FLAC compression levels. 
porscheracer
132 posts
 
The orange juice metaphor is massively flawed. Decompressing a losslessly compressing file leaves you with EXACTLY the same data as before the compression process.

There is absolutely no good technical reason to not use lossless compression. why waste bandwidth and storage needlessly?

The only compression issues with using FLAC versus WAV are what people want to hear.
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