I haven’t read this whole thread but I have been screaming for years that flac does not sound as good as AIF or WAV. However if I uncompress the flac to WAV it sounds better (Directstream dac fed via Ethernet). WAV also sounds a tiny bit better than AIF, and the reason I’ve read has something to do with album art or metadata that the WAV doesn’t support.
Even in the small rig I put together while away from home based on a Hegel H190 fed via Ethernet, setting bubble upnp to uncompress streaming flac from Qobuz to WAV sound significantly better.
Even in the small rig I put together while away from home based on a Hegel H190 fed via Ethernet, setting bubble upnp to uncompress streaming flac from Qobuz to WAV sound significantly better.