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ridhuankim
669
Feb 27, 2018
I would recommend buying CDs. And maYbe someine here can explain what I had experimented in the pastbecausethat was the reason supporting CDs over FLAC.
I bought IlDivo CD for few bucks and wanted to see if I make FLAC if it would sound exactly the same.
I hooked up my Sony DVD player to Peachtree DAC via optical or coaxial cable. Also connected my laptop to my DAC via usb and play the CD from internal optical drive. Listened to the songs.
Then I converted my CD to FLAC. Laptop connected to my DAC via usb. Listened to the songs.
I can note the differences at some high frequencies and instruments.
repeatedly noticible.
It all goes through same DAC and same AMP.
So I tried with different softwares to convert to FLAC but results were the same.
I thought Lossless FLAC would be able to provide the same CD audio but it did not.
Can anyone pount out what I might have done wrong or if you experience the same?
elira
222
Mar 1, 2018
ridhuankimFLAC if properly done contains exactly the same information than a CD. So you are not losing information in that, what probably happens is that the USB connection is not good enough and adds jitter to the data and/or noise to the DAC. Computers are very complex and they just pollute the electricity with noise, digital circuits are not affected by this up to a certain degree but analog signals can have a perceptible impact. That's why there are a lot of products to fix USB connections, which usually just replace the power with a cleaner one and reclock the signal to eliminate jitter. Some DACs are inmune to these problems while others are very sensitive, so YMMV.
ridhuankim
669
Mar 1, 2018
eliraWhen I play the audio cd from my laptop optical drive that also comes.through the same dac. when I play the flac on that laptop that also comes.through the same dac.
rastus
1391
Mar 1, 2018
ridhuankimYou may have a poor CD or player or both. When you play a CD, Reed-Solomon type error correction is actively compensating (its on the CD interleaved). When you rip the CD you are simply trying to recover the data as best possible and on subsequent playback your DAC is then trying to compensate for the bad/missing data. There are some programs that do mass statistical comparison matching online to a database of same rips, a big pot hopefully, and will try to put your ripped CD puzzle back together Humpty-Dumpty style. I don't use it so can't vouch, but it is logical: http://www.accuraterip.com/
CD's are far, far,,, far from perfect as many think they are.
A simple proof, would be simply to buy a known good FLAC of your IIDivo, and play that: http://store.acousticsounds.com/a/29122/Il_Divo , this is a win-win as you end up with a 24 bit file. Please no MP3 / 320 stuff... the nemesis of music...
scottoo
27
Mar 17, 2018
ridhuankimI don't see anything wrong with your experiment, and I have had a similar experience with Apple Lossless vs AIFF or WAV files on my mac using Decibel as a player using a high quality playback. I trust your ears. I don't know the exact reason, but it could be some jitter introduced in the unpacking of the "lossless" files. I would imagine that even the cd might have sounded a little different depending on your player as well. iTunes isn't the best player, I use Amarra, and have used Decibel - both sound pretty pure to me. I have a cd player that still mostly out does my rather more expensive dac computer rig for cd playback. I shopped around a while to find it. I have noticed a difference in quality between even playing the cd back on the computer vs the files from iTunes. I tend to rip to AIFF when playing digital files back. And people will conceptually swear up and down that it can't be different :) There may be some very good FLAC playback systems. I don't have specific experience with that, just something similar. I still buy some cd's once in a while. I picked up an eBay Oppo 105 last summer to play sacd and for better movie playback, blu ray music etc. I do enjoy 96/24 downloads from HD Tracks. I try and refrain from buying lower res stuff on iTunes unless it's a voice performance. If you find a good cd player, something really musical, it's great!
ridhuankim
669
Mar 17, 2018
scottooThanks for your feedback. What a relief :)
REVMAD
107
Mar 26, 2018
eliraYes and Audio through pc get complicated because of various manufacturers and motherboard types that said most mid range motherboard and gaming boards have measures to limited noise introduced into audio, gigabyte, msi and Asus use separate circuit to help protect audio from electrical noise.
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