manicm:the_lhc:manicm:To the_lhc and other sceptics here - yes we all agree 'lossless is lossless' and that there are 'bit-perfect' rips, however the transport is also more important than anyone thinks.
If you go over to the Linn DS forums there is a current thread of WAV vs Lossless (or FLAC specifically in this case) and quite a few people are hearing differences between the two - and a few with really high-end non-Linn equipment - I would hesitate to call these people fools. Also remember that if you followed the Linn DS forums like I have for over a year your Linn DS owners were 'bit perfect' zealots - 'lossless and uncompressed will sound the same no matter what' was their mantra - and in this specific thread no Linn engineer, who respond frequently on the forums, has disputed that maybe they do sound different.
Sorry, can you say that again, the last sentence is not clear? Is that no Linn engineer has taken part in the discussion, or that they have and haven't disputed there's a difference or that they've disputed there's any difference?
If you follow any thread on the Linn forums Linn DS engineers promptly reply when giving or correcting information - and so far not one has responded on this thread - if they felt so strongly they would have responded - on older topics they, perhaps correctly, were adamant about 'bit perfect' rips.
Right, so Linn engineers do not respond to people who say that WAV and FLAC sound different, so we're inferring that Linn engineers don't believe this to be true? That's fine.
Put another way - some think that on the PC some media players sound better than others - so the perfect rip is only one link in the chain, which brings me to another point:
Well, hang on, you just said these are people using high-end Linn and non-Linn equipment, now you're saying they're playing from the PC. I've said it before and I'll say it again now, anyone who uses a PC to play music directly into an amp is wasting their time, you cannot guarantee that the OS won't interfere with the sound, I've heard this myself, the same files on my PC sound different played back by dbPowerAmp and Media Monkey, that's why I took the PC out of the equation and got Sonos, that does the playing, the PC then has no influence on the sound (beyond the initial rip).
No, you got my point wrong here - the OP of the thread is Linn DS owner NOT using a PC but a NAS and thought WAV sounded better than FLAC on his DS.
My point was that the DS plays the role of 'transport' as well - and in the PC the media player (WMA, iTunes etc) is the transport - and this could possibly influence the sound, just as a pure transport for CDs could. So we agree here somewhat.
Ok, so if the OP is correct then that would imply there's an issue with the way the DS deals with FLAC files or that there's a difference, bit-wise, between FLAC and WAV and yet if you convert a FLAC file back to a WAV file it'll be the same as the WAV file, so it must be the DS's handling of FLAC that's at fault.
The importance of error-correction in good CD players is overstated within the context of the argument that because 'more error correction' occurs by default CD playback will be inferior, well ultimately that may be, but that hasn't prevented excellent players from appearing - take your NAD 565BEE lovers on the forums here.
I'm not really sure what your argument is here, it has no bearing on whether uncompressed and lossless files sound the same or not.
My point here is that as an integrated player the 565's combination of transport and DAC is obviously good, and that if error correction was such an issue in CD players then it would simply sound mediocre or worse
Not if the error-correction was any good. The point is that no CD player can do the sort of error-correction a PC can do, the CDP simply doesn't have the time that a PC does. It still doesn't have any bearing on the argument to hand, error-correction is not responsible for any putative differences between WAV and FLAC files, especially not if you rip from the CD to WAV and then convert the WAV to a FLAC file, the error correction was done when the CD was read, there's no further correction done during the conversion to FLAC. Also a media player is not doing any error-correction when it plays a WAV file or FLAC file, the error correction was done at the time of the rip.
It seems purely digital playback has its own issues as well.
Yes it does, like anything, and I'm still waiting for a decent technical explanation as to why lossless would sound different to uncompressed files.
My whole point is that 'lossless' or 'bit perfect' may be a moot point because obviously the transport is a factor too, which may bring up sonic differences, perceived or otherwise, between lossless and uncompressed formats, or formats in general.
In which case the transport is doing a bad job with the lossless file. I'll use an analogy I've used before. Take a word document and zip it up. Now email me the zip file and email me the original word document. I'll unzip the zip file and compare the two files, would you expect to see any difference between the two?
If you go over to the Linn DS forums there is a current thread of WAV vs Lossless (or FLAC specifically in this case) and quite a few people are hearing differences between the two - and a few with really high-end non-Linn equipment - I would hesitate to call these people fools. Also remember that if you followed the Linn DS forums like I have for over a year your Linn DS owners were 'bit perfect' zealots - 'lossless and uncompressed will sound the same no matter what' was their mantra - and in this specific thread no Linn engineer, who respond frequently on the forums, has disputed that maybe they do sound different.
Sorry, can you say that again, the last sentence is not clear? Is that no Linn engineer has taken part in the discussion, or that they have and haven't disputed there's a difference or that they've disputed there's any difference?
If you follow any thread on the Linn forums Linn DS engineers promptly reply when giving or correcting information - and so far not one has responded on this thread - if they felt so strongly they would have responded - on older topics they, perhaps correctly, were adamant about 'bit perfect' rips.
Right, so Linn engineers do not respond to people who say that WAV and FLAC sound different, so we're inferring that Linn engineers don't believe this to be true? That's fine.
Put another way - some think that on the PC some media players sound better than others - so the perfect rip is only one link in the chain, which brings me to another point:
Well, hang on, you just said these are people using high-end Linn and non-Linn equipment, now you're saying they're playing from the PC. I've said it before and I'll say it again now, anyone who uses a PC to play music directly into an amp is wasting their time, you cannot guarantee that the OS won't interfere with the sound, I've heard this myself, the same files on my PC sound different played back by dbPowerAmp and Media Monkey, that's why I took the PC out of the equation and got Sonos, that does the playing, the PC then has no influence on the sound (beyond the initial rip).
No, you got my point wrong here - the OP of the thread is Linn DS owner NOT using a PC but a NAS and thought WAV sounded better than FLAC on his DS.
My point was that the DS plays the role of 'transport' as well - and in the PC the media player (WMA, iTunes etc) is the transport - and this could possibly influence the sound, just as a pure transport for CDs could. So we agree here somewhat.
Ok, so if the OP is correct then that would imply there's an issue with the way the DS deals with FLAC files or that there's a difference, bit-wise, between FLAC and WAV and yet if you convert a FLAC file back to a WAV file it'll be the same as the WAV file, so it must be the DS's handling of FLAC that's at fault.
The importance of error-correction in good CD players is overstated within the context of the argument that because 'more error correction' occurs by default CD playback will be inferior, well ultimately that may be, but that hasn't prevented excellent players from appearing - take your NAD 565BEE lovers on the forums here.
I'm not really sure what your argument is here, it has no bearing on whether uncompressed and lossless files sound the same or not.
My point here is that as an integrated player the 565's combination of transport and DAC is obviously good, and that if error correction was such an issue in CD players then it would simply sound mediocre or worse
Not if the error-correction was any good. The point is that no CD player can do the sort of error-correction a PC can do, the CDP simply doesn't have the time that a PC does. It still doesn't have any bearing on the argument to hand, error-correction is not responsible for any putative differences between WAV and FLAC files, especially not if you rip from the CD to WAV and then convert the WAV to a FLAC file, the error correction was done when the CD was read, there's no further correction done during the conversion to FLAC. Also a media player is not doing any error-correction when it plays a WAV file or FLAC file, the error correction was done at the time of the rip.
It seems purely digital playback has its own issues as well.
Yes it does, like anything, and I'm still waiting for a decent technical explanation as to why lossless would sound different to uncompressed files.
My whole point is that 'lossless' or 'bit perfect' may be a moot point because obviously the transport is a factor too, which may bring up sonic differences, perceived or otherwise, between lossless and uncompressed formats, or formats in general.
In which case the transport is doing a bad job with the lossless file. I'll use an analogy I've used before. Take a word document and zip it up. Now email me the zip file and email me the original word document. I'll unzip the zip file and compare the two files, would you expect to see any difference between the two?
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram