is lossless a lie?

[Shinnosuki]

Just recently I noticed the flac files that I play on my laptop via MF V-DAC is not giving me the full sound as playing from the original CD. The most noticeable difference is the soundstage is wider on CD, and the highs are clearer. CD playback is also using MF V-DAC through a PS3. Is anyone else having doubts about loseless??

edit: also forgot to mention the separation is noticeably better on CD.

[Hdale85]

Could be linked to a number of issues. What's the connection between each? How are you ripping your files for FLAC? I've never noticed anything like this, if anything I've found FLAC to be a bit better simply because there are less errors and often less jitter.

[audioqueso]

Though you are using the V-DAC with the laptop and the PS3, you are not using the same source devices. I would try playing the CD via the laptop with the V-DAC and then compare it to the flac files from the laptop.
Can the PS3 play lossless audio files? If so, I would try importing those lossless files on the PS3, play it on the PS3, and then compare the CD on the PS3.

[Chris D]

Hmmm... Queso, I do know that the PS3 has AAC decoding.

In general, sorry, but I'm getting BETTER performance as expected from lossless audio, particularly more detail and a fuller sound. I can even tell this on my favorite video disc, which is U2's "Rattle and Hum". On the DVD, it has regular DTS. When it was ported to BD, it was NOT given lossless audio, and still only given regular DTS. ***HOWEVER***, way back when, DTS (or maybe it was DVD manufacturers, I don't know) decided that they were going to throttle down the DTS bitrates that they put onto DVD's. So when this video was put onto BD, it was produced with the same regular DTS audio, but at the full non-lossless DTS bitrate. I can hear a fuller sound, and even more detail, just from the higher bitrate, even though it's not lossless!

[gerardhn]

Hi,

as discussed elsewhere on the forum (classe) digital playback is not as straightforward as suggested.
It depends on OS.
I dont dont Mac but on windows 7 platform there are enormous differences for different software.
So look first at that! WAV and FLAC are less different (identical) compared to platform/software.

[JeremyG]

A friend and I got into this argument deep a few years ago. We've A/B'd CD and ALAC playback as close to blind as possible. We've also looked at the .wav and .m4a files with Audacity and LEQ and saw no differences. When playing HDCD ALAC files through an AppleTV, the HDCD light turns on my processor, just like a CD through my Sony blu-ray player. So, I figure they're close enough!!!

Definitely make sure your paths and setup are identical to really get a true test. Not every transport plays the same unfortunately.

Jeremy

[Shinnosuki]

Wow..i'm actually pretty surprised no one has experience what i went through..but thats all with good reason. I guess with one of the tracks on my CD that I listen to, I never noticed all the little details on it. This morning I A/B'd the CD and Flac on my computer, and yes quite unnoticeable..but only time will tell as we keep discovering more in this particular area. Happy ripping!

[aarsoe]

I think the first question you need to ask is if the source was actually high res to begin with. Converting something to 24/96 or 24/192 does not make it high res if the original was 16/44.
Have had a lot of high res files that did not sound that great to me. In almost every case the source turned out to be the issue..

[audioqueso]

I A/B'd the CD and Flac on my computer, and yes quite unnoticeable..

So both CD and FLAC file from the pc sounded almost the same. Are you able to play lossless on your PS3 and compare the two on that device?

[philloamps]

A couple months ago I needed to make a wave file from a 40 year old reel of tape. The tape is two track stereo with source material from vinyl recorded on professional equipment back then. I connected the last remaining reel to reel machine at work to my office computer and stereo system. I was happy to find the tape still sounded pristine. After making the wave file copy I did a quick check to make sure the file was OK and I immediately notice a loss in the transfer. Doing an A/B between the reel and wave file, the wave file sounded flat compared to the tape. I really don't think there is such a thing as a lossless digital file, there is all sorts of digital manipulating going on to get the file size down, there is bound to be something lost.

[stuofsci02]

A couple months ago I needed to make a wave file from a 40 year old reel of tape. The tape is two track stereo with source material from vinyl recorded on professional equipment back then. I connected the last remaining reel to reel machine at work to my office computer and stereo system. I was happy to find the tape still sounded pristine. After making the wave file copy I did a quick check to make sure the file was OK and I immediately notice a loss in the transfer. Doing an A/B between the reel and wave file, the wave file sounded flat compared to the tape. I really don't think there is such a thing as a lossless digital file, there is all sorts of digital manipulating going on to get the file size down, there is bound to be something lost.

What happened for you I think is you ran an analog signal into your computer and used the computers poor Analog to Digital converter. As such the file will not sound as good.

I think this thread is about the difference between a digital file that is on CD vs. the lossless version stored in FLAC or other lossless codec. In this case, both should be identical bit perfect.

Cheers

[philloamps]

I think this thread is about the difference between a digital file that is on CD vs. the lossless version stored in FLAC or other lossless codec. In this case, both should be identical bit perfect.

Cheers

Good point, original is digital so there should be no loss. OK, I'll go back to listening to my vinyl now

[Shinnosuki]

PS3 doesnt play flac, so I can't test it much. And upon my search i've been looking at what flac exactly is and been reading it at http://flac.sourceforge.net/features.html

So if read on, flac is still a compressed format thus needs to be decompressed. During that phase it checks CRC and MD5 codes to make sure it replicates the original. Now thats where it gets interesting, the 'error resistance' it mentions when it checks CRC and MD5 can be dumped when it detects error, therefore losing data, although its a fraction of a second, some people still cannot live with that xD

So this leads me to think of something else. If anyone has ever encoded a flac file, you can choose what level of compression you want. So I guessing the more compression, the more likely you will run into these 'errors', and vice versa.

[stuofsci02]

PS3 doesnt play flac, so I can't test it much. And upon my search i've been looking at what flac exactly is and been reading it at http://flac.sourceforge.net/features.html

So if read on, flac is still a compressed format thus needs to be decompressed. During that phase it checks CRC and MD5 codes to make sure it replicates the original. Now thats where it gets interesting, the 'error resistance' it mentions when it checks CRC and MD5 can be dumped when it detects error, therefore losing data, although its a fraction of a second, some people still cannot live with that xD

So this leads me to think of something else. If anyone has ever encoded a flac file, you can choose what level of compression you want. So I guessing the more compression, the more likely you will run into these 'errors', and vice versa.

I don't think this is a major concern.. You are prone to more errors and jitter from CD..

[NonSense]

I had a similar experience a few years back when building a custom Audio server. I was getting very poor performance when using the server as the source to the DAC when compared to a CD transport. I could not believe how poor it sounded coming from the PC's SPDIF connector. (My wife even mentioned that it sounded terrible.) I played around with disbling the players equalizer with only minimal results. What seemed to be the issue was the windows audio drivers. It seems that it may have been resampling the 44Khz Wav files to either 48 or 96 Khz which is better suited for AC97 type codecs which are abundant in PC's. What I did to resolve the issue was to purchase a sound card which supported the ASIO (bit perfect) driver format from the media player. The difference was stunning. This card also had the capability of using the reference clock from the DAC which synchronized the clocks on the dac to the sound card. The digital playback is now equal in my opinion.

[PewterTA]

WKHanna and I are working on this problem/issue as I write this.

We have found out that there are MANY variables to all of this. One is the Analog to digital part, another is the Transport part, and lastly is the Digital to Analog part.

These are the main parts and we have gotten into the finer detail level of power cables and analog and digital cables and the such, but I don't think we need to get into that yet, unless people want to go there.

But each one plays a part into what is reproduced.

From our looking, the Transport and DAC has far more to do with how things sound than the Analog to Digital conversion. For us we are using an older Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 24/96k sound card for both input and output (spdif) to a, soon to be acquired, Schiit BiFrost DAC. From the tests we've done with recording and me outputing ASIO -> Musical Fidelity V-Link -> Cambridge Audio 840c everything in the orginal recording is there. There are a few minor differences, but we can tell that's do to how it's being transported and the DACs within the 840c.

If you can find a really good Transport and DAC, whatever you record will have everything in there if recorded at a higher resolution 24/96Khz or above.

Now along with that Bruce above is right, you need to make sure that the output is bit-perfect and not effected by the internal workings of the OS and ASIO is a definite key to all that. Make sure to get ASIO and it will make many good Transport and DAC help to shine!

Basically think of the music you are recording as Gasoline and the ADC and DAC and all other equipment as every different type of car out there to buy. They all do the same thing...get you from point A to B, but each one adds it's own differences to the experience.

[madmac]

The answer to "is Lossless a lie" is yes......it is a lie!. The moment music goes into a microphone, it becomes what was once[U] the real thing. Whether it's on vinyl or digital, it is a representation of what once was real.

The question is how good can we get it to sound to our ears like what once was 'real'.........

Nothing can compare but we can get pretty close sometimes!!