This is my first post guys, but I found this discussion interesting, and compelling on a few levels, so had to chime in.I believe it's clearly a fact that a digital file will sound different than it's vinyl counterpart. There are so many variables involved, with the playback equipment being only one of the reasons for the music to sound different.I have a few hi res digital albums that I also own on vinyl. I obtain the digital files from places like HDTracks and Quobuz, and I trust that they are obtaining them from sources that take care in the quality of the product. These all sound (to me) very good. But not the same as their vinyl counterpart. It's pretty easy to A-B these for very close listening. I don't have "top of the line" equipment, but consider it "very good" equipment. But I would have to think there's more to the differences than just the playback path, as the source creation paths are very different as well.I have master files of my niece's (a recording artist) latest album destined for CD release. These were sent to me via internet by my brother. They now reside on my music server, and I play them back via a Pro-ject DS2 T via a Jolida Glass FX Tube DAC. I burned a cd using these files and play them on my Oppo BDP-83SE. These sound very slightly different to me, even though they came from the same source at the same resolution (32/88.2k). In this case, it has to be the playback path since that's the only difference.I'm currently looking for a phono preamp that I can use to transfer some of my vinyl collection to digital at high resolution. It'll be interesting to see (hear) how resulting files compare with the vinyl sources in this very closely controlled environment.
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