APPLE LOSSLESS vs UNCOMPRESSED

[The_Lhc]

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?

 

[idc]

al7478:

idc

Thats me! I am also I.D.C and the_lhc and I like to dress up like the Moderator when no one is looking.

al7478:

Speaking of which: your wasting your time playing your files straight from a pc? Is that not going just a tad far? Sound ok to me. I accept maybe it could sound better, but to say i am wasting my time really is being silly. No. stop giggling. You know it is.

I am sure that is the case if it is PC to amp with a minjack to phono cable. Your (and my) setups go to a DAC with a digital signal, which bypasses the sound card and noise problems within the PC.

 

[manicm]

the_lhc:

'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?'

You're coming back to the 'bit-perfect rip' argument again - this is not the issue as I see it.

The Linn DS may be not be doing a perfect job with lossless files, but then neither is your Sonos it seems - in the same Linn thread there's a Sonos owner who's also finding differences.

As in physical CD playback, similarly in 'soft' digital playback the transport seems to be an equally important component in the playback machinery.

And finally, you're completely didn't get my point about CD players - if a Cyrus or NAD CDP's error-correction was so bad they would simply sound bad - which is patently not the case with these players - as I was saying about overstating the role of error-correction in CDPs.

If a component - be it CDP or streamer or PC or whatever - if it sounds really good to me the thing could be doing a million correction a second but I wouldn't care a toss - who cares?? It's about whether one enjoys the music or not.

And if one lossless (including uncompressed) digital format sounds better than another - as preposterous as this sounds - who cares? I don't need any technical explanation.

Which is why I say Apple Lossless sucks and AIFF rules on my iPod

 

[Alec]

Andrew Everard:

al7478:adn use good kit turned up loud in deicated rooms

Not the case, I'm afraid - sometimes when listening in our main hi-fi room, I swear I can hear my watch ticking...

Well thats not very rock n roll now is it? Thought you'd at least experiment with the volume a bit. Or does your watch need seeing to? Oh I'm a card, me!

Concerns me a bit too tho. I think often things do sound different at volume.

 

[Alec]

the _lhc, i sincerely apologise for calling you idc. I mean. Awful chap.

Phew, im glad we agree. Nearly. The quieter noises you refer to dont bother me as they are few and far between for me to. I have also considered a separate unit and will continue to do so. But A) im not good with such things and B) theres always a lot to weigh up and im no good at decisions and my head hurts so i just havent found my thing yet. Anything that involves going wireless would bother me unless the connection was pretty much flawless; id rather put up with the odd virus alarm or email alert.

 

[Alec]

idc:al7478:

idc

Thats me! I am also I.D.C and the_lhc and I like to dress up like the Moderator when no one is looking.

al7478:

Speaking of which: your wasting your time playing your files straight from a pc? Is that not going just a tad far? Sound ok to me. I accept maybe it could sound better, but to say i am wasting my time really is being silly. No. stop giggling. You know it is.

I am sure that is the case if it is PC to amp with a minjack to phono cable. Your (and my) setups go to a DAC with a digital signal, which bypasses the sound card and noise problems within the PC.

Oh, idc. Hi. Didnt see you there. Wow. This is awkward

 

[The_Lhc]

manicm:the_lhc: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?

You're coming back to the 'bit-perfect rip' argument again - this is not the issue as I see it.

The Linn DS may be not be doing a perfect job with lossless files, but then neither is your Sonos it seems - in the same Linn thread there's a Sonos owner who's also finding differences.

Until I try it for myself, I can't comment on that, if that's the case however then it's still not a problem with the files, it's a problem with the hardware, so until the implementation is improved it's wrong to blame the file for any differences.

As in physical CD playback, similarly in 'soft' digital playback the transport seems to be an equally important component in the playback machinery.

And finally, you're completely didn't get my point about CD players - if a Cyrus or NAD CDP's error-correction was so bad they would simply sound bad - which is patently not the case with these players - as I was saying about overstating the role of error-correction in CDPs.

I'm not arguing with any of that, I'm simply saying it has no bearing on the issue of differences between WAV and FLAC files! I don't know why you keep bringing it up, it's not relevant to subject matter at hand! I wasn't missing your point, I was politely trying to hint that what CDPs do is not bringing anything to a discussion about lossless and uncompressed files.

And if one lossless (including uncompressed) digital format sounds better than another - as preposterous as this sounds - who cares? I don't need any technical explanation.

then what are you doing in this conversation? We're trying to determine why two logically identical files should sound different, if you don't care, don't get involved.

 

[The_Lhc]

idc:al7478:

idc

Thats me! I am also I.D.C and the_lhc and I like to dress up like the Moderator when no one is looking.

I'm always looking...

 

[The_Lhc]

al7478:the _lhc, i sincerely apologise for calling you idc. I mean. Awful chap.

That's a little harsh, he's not that bad!

Phew, im glad we agree. Nearly. The quieter noises you refer to dont bother me as they are few and far between for me to. I have also considered a separate unit and will continue to do so. But A) im not good with such things and B) theres always a lot to weigh up and im no good at decisions and my head hurts so i just havent found my thing yet. Anything that involves going wireless would bother me unless the connection was pretty much flawless; id rather put up with the odd virus alarm or email alert.

I'm not using wireless with my main Sonos zone (it's the first in the chain, so it can't be wireless), it and my NAS are wired to the same switch, which is wired to the router, the second zone is wireless but that's the Sonos's own network, independant of the PC and router. I could wire that one as well if I wanted but so far it hasn't been necessary.

 

[idc]

al7478:

the _lhc, i sincerely apologise for calling you idc. I mean. Awful chap.

I agree with me I mean the_lhc

al7478:

Phew, im glad we agree. Nearly. The quieter noises you refer to dont bother me as they are few and far between for me to. I have also considered a separate unit and will continue to do so. But A) im not good with such things and B) theres always a lot to weigh up and im no good at decisions and my head hurts so i just havent found my thing yet. Anything that involves going wireless would bother me unless the connection was pretty much flawless; id rather put up with the odd virus alarm or email alert.

You can turn off background beeps and stuff. Go to control panel - Sounds and audio devices - Sounds tab - Sound scheme box and select No sounds and then apply.

 

[Alec]

Phew. I'm glad you've seen and obviously "got" the joke!

Thanks for the tip. I'm actually pretty attached to my windows sounds tho. In fact, id still need to hear stuff on websites too. Anyway, dont let me derail yet another thread with that one.

 

[Anonymous]

This Ketan guy should be fired immediately for spreading unfounded rumours.. There are certainly things a pc can do to the data stream, and it is quite feasible that in a comparison the settings were not exactly the same. Setting up a computer system It is a tricky topic, especially if several sources are using the sound system and mixing occurs. Settings of a sound card could show some automatic behaviour that is not so easily found. But one should realize that the receiving DAC is totally unaware of what is sending the data. It only sees incoming samples, do eg 2 x 4.1k 16 bit samples per sec, With bitperfect output (which is possible for both wave and compressed files) the only aspect left this is then the timing of the datastream, as the samples send are all identical. In theory there could be differences in jitter, especially with digital output (USB has sometimes other issues, but uses an entirely different way to clock the data). If so that has nore to do with the hardware used than with the file format in which the data was stored.

 

[Alec]

Pete10:

This Ketan guy should be fired immediately for spreading unfounded rumours.

I might aswell quote it as its gonna get noticed sooner or later. But...Wow...Rather you than me fella.

 

[matengawhat]

so are we saying lossless is exactly that - nothing missing but compressed and as good as any other bit perfect ripped cd or does compression take away from what we have like cds when they chop out the highest and lowest frequencies?

so if you were to take the computer out of the loop again so say convert to apple lossless, stick on an ipod and send to a digital ipod dock (onkyo/wadia) to dac could be a less complicated and more accurate way to transfer music?

or what about directly to a squeezebox for example has anyone compared directly usb output, wireless to squeezebox and ipod to digital doc to dac - i honestly haven't and what differences should we expect - can have a play this weekend or is it a case that the information is identical regardless of transport and if everything else is the same dac amp speakers

 

[Anonymous]

matengawhat:
so are we saying lossless is exactly that - nothing missing but compressed and as good as any other bit perfect ripped cd or does compression take away from what we have like cds when they chop out the highest and lowest frequencies?

so if you were to take the computer out of the loop again so say convert to apple lossless, stick on an ipod and send to a digital ipod dock (onkyo/wadia) to dac could be a less complicated and more accurate way to transfer music?

or what about directly to a squeezebox for example has anyone compared directly usb output, wireless to squeezebox and ipod to digital doc to dac - i honestly haven't and what differences should we expect - can have a play this weekend or is it a case that the information is identical regardless of transport and if everything else is the same dac amp speakers
youll find that streaming over wifi or ethernet is the best transport as the protocols have no influence over the audio since they see it only as data

 

[professorhat]

All of this is very similar to the "different digital cables can't make a difference" argument. And similar to the "how can an uncompressed PCM soundtrack sound better than a Dolby TrueHD soundtrack when TrueHD is lossless" question. And "how can it sound better if a home cinema amp decodes a soundtrack compared to a player when it's the same signal" scenario.

But, to present a theory, maybe an uncompressed WAV sounds better because no processing is required by the computer (or whatever) to decode it to a WAV format and that processing changes the sound somehow. How? Not a clue. Does it? Who knows.

Does it matter? Not really

 

[professorhat]

matengawhat:so are we saying lossless is exactly that - nothing missing but compressed and as good as any other bit perfect ripped cd or does compression take away from what we have like cds when they chop out the highest and lowest frequencies?

Lossless compression does not chop out any data, just uses an algorithm to allow the data to be stored in less space. So the highest and lowest frequencies are still present when using a lossless compression format.

I did an example of how lossless compression works in simplified terms, I'll see if I can find it. *EDIT - here it is

 

[matengawhat]

i'm just asking cause i'm pretty keen to rip all my cds - ideally remove the computer also - i liked the arcam music server foe example but not big enough hard disc so something similar would be great but then i like the album artwork/look of ipod interface ect so looking for perfect solution just not sure it exists yet

 

[Anonymous]

professorhat:
All of this is very similar to the "different digital cables can't make a difference" argument. And similar to the "how can an uncompressed PCM soundtrack sound better than a Dolby TrueHD soundtrack when TrueHD is lossless" question. And "how can it sound better if a home cinema amp decodes a soundtrack compared to a player when it's the same signal" scenario.

But, to present a theory, maybe an uncompressed WAV sounds better because no processing is required by the computer (or whatever) to decode it to a WAV format and that processing changes the sound somehow. How? Not a clue. Does it? Who knows.

Does it matter? Not really

Please make a distinction between unpacking and processing. All I am saying is that IF there is a difference (big IF) it is not due to the file format.

 

[davydmx]

Hey there,

just to add my 2 cents, i have noted a difference between Apple Lossless and AIFF-but weirdly, only on some stuff. The AIFF version of some albums sound smoother/easier going. I've now started creating AIFF versions of fave albums, for playback via Foobar.

People have stated, on other forums, about your computer/media software needing to 'unpack' Apple Lossless/FLAC files, before playing them, and that that could be detrimental.

??!

 

[Anonymous]

With dbpoweramp music converter one can use the 'Test' output option to retrieve the data from any file (so the data extracted will be 44.1kHz/16 bits stereo again for cd rips - normally this output would then be send to the sound system), All using my old laptop (>5 yrs, XP) gives the following result for a 24Mb Flac/62Mb Wav/almost 6 minutes of Berlioz' Symphony Fantastique. Doing this from a wav file is almost instantaneous (>x400), from a flac the speed is 150x, i,e, 2-3 seconds (including reading the data from disk). So in realtime playing, of the 6 min's playtime my computer has to work for 2-3 seconds total to unpack the data. Seems to me that it is unlikely that this can not be handled without any 'detrimental' effects. I do not have the apple en/decoder but it seems unlikely that this will be very different.

Oh yeah, and guess what - the wav extracted from the flac is exactly the same as the original!

 

[The_Lhc]

davydmx:People have stated, on other forums, about your computer/media software needing to 'unpack' Apple Lossless/FLAC files, before playing them, and that that could be detrimental.

Well this is my point, it COULD be detrimental, but it certainly shouldn't be, anymore than unpacking jpgs or word docs or any file from a zip file and displaying them should be detrimental. If lossless compression didn't work reliably, we'd all still be stuck at 9600baud dial-up!

 

[PJPro]

idc:
You can turn off background beeps and stuff. Go to control panel - Sounds and audio devices - Sounds tab - Sound scheme box and select No sounds and then apply.

If you can use WASAPI with exclusive lock e.g. with foobar2000 and a compatible sound card, it handles this for you. No other sound can interrupt your tunes when they are playing.

 

[The_Lhc]

PJPro:idc:You can turn off background beeps and stuff. Go to control panel - Sounds and audio devices - Sounds tab - Sound scheme box and select No sounds and then apply.
If you can use WASAPI with exclusive lock e.g. with foobar2000 and a compatible sound card, it handles this for you. No other sound can interrupt your tunes when they are playing.

I just press "play" on the Sonos controller.

 

[manicm]

the_lhc:

If you read my posts carefully I did not dispute the integrity of say a FLAC lossless rip. My point was and is that a 'bit-perfect' rip is only one link in the chain and the transport might be responsible for perceived differences in the sound between equivalent audio file formats.

And you're right - perhaps the Linn DSs and Sonos's of this world are not perfect if owners ears are hearing differences.

So some of us, not because we dispute the 'bit-perfect' rip, might stick with uncompressed formats for our ears. No big deal, it's like preferring one speaker over another - who cares?

Like the marvellous old Pioneer slogan said: 'Everything You Hear Is True'.