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
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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.  


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