CDs versus Flac...

[Krist]

I've got all my music stored on a server in my basement. It's all FLAC, ripped our bought (or borrowed ;-). I'm now looking around for a good DAC and Amplifier (or a DAC amplifier combo). in that context I ended up talking to the owner of a local HiFi store who made some quite remarkable claims I find hard to believe.

The first claim was that playing back a FLAC could never sound as good as directly playing the CD is was ripped from, no matter how good your hardware. I found that claim hard to believe. Electronics is deterministic. If you play a bitstream to a DAC the result will depend on the quality of the bit stream and the dac, but should not depend on what is producing the bit stream. A CD transport feeding a DAC should yield the same sound quality as a network transport feeding the same bitstream to a DAC.
The owner then said that the source of the bit stream mattered, and he went on to claim he could hear differences between CDs pressed in the US versus those pressed in Europe. (and ofcourse the Europeans sounded better....)
Is that possible? Is it really that two CDs, which both contain the exact same sequence of bits, can sound different because they were produced at different plants? I find that a rather far fetched claim.

 

[3db]

I've got all my music stored on a server in my basement. It's all FLAC, ripped our bought (or borrowed ;-). I'm now looking around for a good DAC and Amplifier (or a DAC amplifier combo). in that context I ended up talking to the owner of a local HiFi store who made some quite remarkable claims I find hard to believe.

The first claim was that playing back a FLAC could never sound as good as directly playing the CD is was ripped from, no matter how good your hardware. I found that claim hard to believe. Electronics is deterministic. If you play a bitstream to a DAC the result will depend on the quality of the bit stream and the dac, but should not depend on what is producing the bit stream. A CD transport feeding a DAC should yield the same sound quality as a network transport feeding the same bitstream to a DAC.
The owner then said that the source of the bit stream mattered, and he went on to claim he could hear differences between CDs pressed in the US versus those pressed in Europe. (and ofcourse the Europeans sounded better....)
Is that possible? Is it really that two CDs, which both contain the exact same sequence of bits, can sound different because they were produced at different plants? I find that a rather far fetched claim.

I'm sure he heard the difference in his mind but I'm guessing dollars to donuts if he did this in a controlled test environment that Mr Golden Ears would fail miserably.

I do have to say this about the Brits and producing music....they do make it an art form verses a product. I recently picked up a 4 CD set of Lonnie Anderson's work (a famous blues player that even Robert Johnson borrowed from") and I have to say that the production is stellar given that the source recordings were of such poor quality.

 

[Nestor]

I've got all my music stored on a server in my basement. It's all FLAC, ripped our bought (or borrowed ;-). I'm now looking around for a good DAC and Amplifier (or a DAC amplifier combo). in that context I ended up talking to the owner of a local HiFi store who made some quite remarkable claims I find hard to believe.

The first claim was that playing back a FLAC could never sound as good as directly playing the CD is was ripped from, no matter how good your hardware. I found that claim hard to believe. Electronics is deterministic. If you play a bitstream to a DAC the result will depend on the quality of the bit stream and the dac, but should not depend on what is producing the bit stream. A CD transport feeding a DAC should yield the same sound quality as a network transport feeding the same bitstream to a DAC.
The owner then said that the source of the bit stream mattered, and he went on to claim he could hear differences between CDs pressed in the US versus those pressed in Europe. (and ofcourse the Europeans sounded better....)
Is that possible? Is it really that two CDs, which both contain the exact same sequence of bits, can sound different because they were produced at different plants? I find that a rather far fetched claim.

It is far fetched.

 

[cpp]

Interesting article

MP3 vs AAC vs FLAC vs CD | Stereophile.com

 

[Krist]

Interesting article

MP3 vs AAC vs FLAC vs CD | Stereophile.com

Interesting indeed.

So basically as long as my transport is bit transparent, and the DAC of good quality I should get music as good is directly from the CD. But that I already suspected.

 

[jinjuku]

I hope people would realize that a CD is a round platter with information stored on it digitally. I also hope people would realize that a hard drive is a round platter with information stored on it digitally.

It's doesn't matter what glass your Pepsi comes in. It's still Pepsi. That is assuming a full rip ( not lossy or lossless compression ).

That hi fi shop owner is very ignorant in this regard.

 

[jinjuku]

Interesting article

MP3 vs AAC vs FLAC vs CD | Stereophile.com

Typical Stereophile showing how out of touch they really are: 2008 and they are talking about a player with 4GB of storage. There were plenty of 8/16/32gb players out there

Even with that tidbit aside. As a writer they didn't identify their target market when commencing that article. Their target market isn't the person with portable player and cheap earbuds. It's the guy at home with thousands of dollars in a 2.0 playback system with a few TB's of storage and 1200 CD's.

 

[jcl]

I remember EAC being the method of choice for ripping cds among concert tapers and traders several (maybe many) years ago. I don't pretend to remember the details, but basically ripping a cd using most other software didn't give you a bit for bit copy of the cd. However, I don't believe there was much, if any, audible difference. I think it also had to do with the track marking, cues and gaps, although I may be confusing that with burning DAO.

Exact Audio Copy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[davidtwotrees]

Krist. Welcome. This site is very objective. It is a breath of fresh air in a hobby that is just chock full of BS. I lost a good acquaintance when became so upset when I laughed at his brother and him paying $900 for a one meter pair of interconnects and then telling me that the difference in the interconnects was night and day. He said they had superior hearing to mine...............
That was when I became an objectivist. As to your cd playing shop owner, you should go back and ask him to "play" some interconnects for you. I've got $20 that says he could hear differences in interconnects and speaker wire. Welcome and stay objective!

 

[cpp]

I thought some would like the Stereophile article, sells hype. And as one poster noted,

It's doesn't matter what glass your Pepsi comes in. It's still Pepsi.

 

[baniels]

I've heard arguments for the opposite. In short, there is always a degree of error correction going on when a cd is played on the fly. With EAC your drive can re-read over and over to eliminate or severely reduce the number of errors in the final FLAC or WAV or whatever your lossless flavor. The resulting FLAC is played identically every time, whereas the error correction in a CD will vary from one play to the next.

Not that the error correction is audible, but your hi-fi proprietor is probably not concerned with that.

 

[sholling]

I've got all my music stored on a server in my basement. It's all FLAC, ripped our bought (or borrowed ;-). I'm now looking around for a good DAC and Amplifier (or a DAC amplifier combo). in that context I ended up talking to the owner of a local HiFi store who made some quite remarkable claims I find hard to believe.

You can also use a receiver, the DACs is most modern receivers are just fine.

The first claim was that playing back a FLAC could never sound as good as directly playing the CD is was ripped from, no matter how good your hardware.

Bits are bits and it doesn't matter how they are stored. What good ripping software (EAC and dbPowerAmp) brings to the party is error correction including CRC checks but that really only comes into play to make sure that the rip is perfect.

The owner then said that the source of the bit stream mattered, and he went on to claim he could hear differences between CDs pressed in the US versus those pressed in Europe. (and ofcourse the Europeans sounded better....)
Is that possible? Is it really that two CDs, which both contain the exact same sequence of bits, can sound different because they were produced at different plants? I find that a rather far fetched claim.

The music itself may have been mastered differently but the location of the pressing makes no difference.

 

[lsiberian]

I doubt he could tell the difference between a high bitrate mp3 and a CD much less a FLAC.

 

[sholling]

I doubt he could tell the difference between a high bitrate mp3 and a CD much less a FLAC.

Ouch!

 

[timoteo]

I like Coca-Cola....& from the bottle!!!!

 

[Krist]

That was when I became an objectivist. As to your cd playing shop owner, you should go back and ask him to "play" some interconnects for you. I've got $20 that says he could hear differences in interconnects and speaker wire. Welcome and stay objective!

Well, that's the thing. It's not that kind of store. They sell NAD and PSB and Dali, and other good quality stuff, but no fancy overprices interconnects or speaker wire. So the remark about audible differences between Flac and CDs came rather unexpected.

 

[avnetguy]

Well, that's the thing. It's not that kind of store. They sell NAD and PSB and Dali, and other good quality stuff, but no fancy overprices interconnects or speaker wire. So the remark about audible differences between Flac and CDs came rather unexpected.

Go do some auditioning at that store and bring a USB stick with CD rips and the same rips converted to flac, see if he (or you) can tell the difference.

Steve

P.S. Encode one song in 320 MP3 instead of flac ... just for fun.