I find it an interesting question. Lossless should be lossless, i.e., bit perfect, whether a WAV file or FLAC. This brings me to another age-old debate on here. If FLAC is bit-perfect, and it supposedly is, if one rips a vinyl album to FLAC using a good quality analog rig to FLAC, shouldn't the FLAC file have the same "analog" sound as if one were playing the album on a turntable? I have done that experiment and on my system (all digital), the vinyl inevitably has some "crackles and pops" from the album that is absent from the same music ripped from CD or streamed. That plus the convenience of digital makes me not miss my turntable!
Why do Wav and Flac Files Sound Different?
This article is from 2016, so outfits like JRiver may have developed workarounds for the metadata/sound quality issues sussed out below. Inquiring minds want to know.
Why Do WAV And FLAC Files Sound Different?
"Based on these results, we attempted to pinpoint which section of the metadata might be responsible. Since the cover art file associated with the metadata is the largest contributor to the metadata header size, we began by examining the effect of deleting cover art prior to the WAV-to-FLAC-to-WAV conversion protocol. This proved fortuitous, as our first suspicion proved correct."
Showing 2 responses by moto_man
@erik_squires, I think my point is slightly different. When one is ripping from a vinyl album, I would think that the analog signal from the cartridge would be captured and converted "lossless" to FLAC. That should mean that the FLAC so captured, when played should have the exact sound as if the signal was played from the turntable. Therefore, if you are playing vinyl because of its "analog" sound, shouldn't that analog sound be captured bit for bit on a FLAC and then sound "analog?" I guess that the mere act of converting an analog signal to digital and then back to analog through a DAC might possibly change the sound so that the FLAC is not "identical" to what is coming out of the cartridge or phono preamp, but . . . |